Yakima Peak

Yakima Peak, Dewey Peak, Seymour Peak, Naches Peak — Aug 03, 2009 — S A Reno

Day hike

Features: Wildflowers blooming | Ripe berries

I slept overnight in the Westfalia just east of the MRNP gate so I could get an early start. "Slept"...

I slept overnight in the Westfalia just east of the MRNP gate so I could get an early start. "Slept" might be a bit of an overstatement, it was really kind of fading in and out sleep for about 5.5 hours. I awoke to a beautiful sunrise, got dressed and headed toward Yakima Peak. Leaving the trail right at the pass, I worked my way up a scramble route and was standing on the summit in about 50 minutes. The view of Rainier in the early morning light was great. I could see the rest of the day's objectives from the summit, so started after them after a short break.

I turned right back at the trail and followed it toward Tipsoo Lake and onward toward Dewey Lake. I left the trail at about 5500' and followed the ridge separating Dewey Lake from Dewey Creek south toward the basin between Dewey and Seymour Peaks. Once there, I climbed up toward the saddle between the two peaks and then headed for Dewey.

I wasn't sure I was going to make the peak having read several trip reports that mentioned wishing for ropes or making rappels off the summit. I traversed SE beneath the peak to the second gully and initially thought about turning around, but then saw the ramp leading east toward the ridge. The ramp had one narrow spot where I dropped my pack to get around. (My pack was a very small hydration pack with a pump, extra shirt and food.) Once past that point, the ramp lead easily to the ridge and a little more scrambling brought me to the summit. The register, the only of the day, showed not many people making the summit over the past year. As my pack was below, I tagged the summit and retreated for some food. I scoped out the route described by the Deweys (who placed the register) in a WTA trip report and described in Beckey and was glad I had found the ramp. It was a bit too exposed for my likes, especially being alone.

I headed off toward Seymour after lunch and quickly gained the minor summit. I dropped down to the basin from the saddle between Seymour and 6337. Pumping water from the small creek provided the mosquitoes and flies an opportunity to snack on me. Tired of that relationship, I moved on. I got back to the trail and followed it to the east of Naches Peak and then the ridge east and north toward the summit. The flowers through here were great and bugs few. I took a break with my body submerged in the flowers, my nose full of the summer scents and my eyes focused on the gently swaying trees against a blue backdrop. Heavenly!

Once at the summit block the final 20ish feet proved too much of a scramble. The ledge on the west side (which is clearly visible from the road) had one sketchy move, so I dropped down the east side, tried the NE ridge, dropped down more and traversed over to the standard route on the north ridge. It was too bad the ledge didn't go, as it would have saved a bit of time and effort. The small step in the ridge was much less sketchy than anticipated and I shortly had my fourth summit of the day and 8th in two days.

A quick descent took me back to the van, where I doused my head with water, changed my clothes, hopped in the van and headed home to lounge on the sofa and watch a movie.

Stats: Several miles; 4200 foot gain; 9 hours RT.

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Yakima Peak — Jul 24, 2009 — Tomas

Day hike

Features: Wildflowers blooming

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From Chinook Pass 2 peaks can be seen close to the right and left. Naches Peak has the famous...

From Chinook Pass 2 peaks can be seen close to the right and left. Naches Peak has the famous loop trail (combining PCT with Naches Trail) going around it. I had done that peak before and it entails a bit of scrambling and a tricky down climb near the summit. I had looked across to the other side of the pass and saw Yakima Peak but hadn't done it. Today was the day. It also entails some off trail but easier than Naches Peak. I tried to find a path going off to the west off the trail near the lower parking lot. The best I could find peetered out. Later on the way down I noted a fairly good path that comes out near the north end of the lower parking lot near some large rocks with metal tie downs on them. Take that path and it will lead you up to a saddle. Then bear left toward the peak and you may lose the trail off and on. Go around the peak to the right until you find an obvious chute leading up near the summit. One spot requires a short scramble, not difficult if you feel at all comfortable scrambling. Go through some small trees and viola, you're there! Had summit all to myself but noted a lot of cars below. Lots of nice flat rocks to have lunch on. Coming down can be tricky. I'd stick to just down hiking/scrambling the chute. Other ways might appear easier but are not.

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Naches Peak, PCT, Yakima Peak — Aug 23, 2008 — Austineats

Day hike

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To say that the PCT was followed on this hike is a bit of an overstatement. If you want to...

To say that the PCT was followed on this hike is a bit of an overstatement. If you want to hike Naches Peak go to Chinook Pass and follow the PCT south...for about 50 yards. A social trail veers off to the right and up the meadows. It meanders through trees, a few steep sections and across meadows. The trail splits many times. Just keep heading up instead of to the right. In the second meadow that I came to the trail peters out in the low area. I discovered on my descent that the actual trail goes up the right side of this meadow (quite steep) and then switchbacks up through the cliffs at the top. This isn't difficult, just damn near impossible to see from the trail at the bottom of the meadow. Regardless of how you get to the summit ridge it will be obvious once you are there. The ridge is narrow in spots with cliffs on both sides. It is a moderately exposed 3rd class scramble to the top. It is easiest to drop down on the left (north) side for the last 50'. I did this hike after having done the Naches Loop trail and on to Dewey Lakes. The trail and the wildflowers were stunning. Crowds of day hikers and loud, dog-off-leash people made Dewey Lakes less than desirable.

To top the day off we ran up Yakima Peak. It is just a quick outing but with such beautiful positioning it was tough to not climb it. One may leave from either the Tipsoo Lake parking lot or the forest service lot on the other side of the pass. Doing ones best to stick with creek beds or game trails wind your way up towards the peak. When under the summit cliffs veer off left to the ridge line. A boot pack will become evident which traverses steep meadow and loss rock in spots. Once around the corner a notch in the ridge line will become obvious. Hike loose and steep scree to the very top threading your way through some krummholtz. At this point the way becomes obvious through more trees and along the rocks to the flat summit.

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Yakima Peak, Naches Peak — Nov 09, 2007 — Beave

Day hike

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After checking the local pass cameras I came to the conclusion that the only place it was nice was down...

After checking the local pass cameras I came to the conclusion that the only place it was nice was down by Mt Rainier. BTW, great link for those seeking a view of the Olympics, Mt Rainier or the North Cascades is this air quality web site:

http://www2.nature.nps.gov/air/webcams/

(Currently out of service, not sure why)

I had wanted to do Yakima and Naches during a Fall color time of season, but this seemed like the perfect fit of a trip since I had been on a 27 mile mountain bike ride the night before and wasn't feeling like waking up early or doing a bigger trip.

I opted for Yakima first, and parked just SW of Chinook Pass at about the 5200' level in a gravel turnout. From this spot, I could look upslope to a false summit and the ridge I needed to gain. Open travel through calf high shrubs and breaks in the trees brought me to the ridge just W of that false summit. I used a short and easy gully to access the N side of the ridge where I ran into hard snow, but easy enough to travel. Passed another false summit staying on or on the N side of the ridge before finishing with what could barely be called a scramble.

Only took 30 minutes to reach the top. Nice large, flat rocky summit with great views of the surrounding area. I allowed myself some serious lounge time and picked up some trash left by morons. Looking over to Naches, I saw a steep looking ridge and snow filled gully just before the summit. Seeing how hard the snow was on Yakima, I had some doubts about including Naches in the day. Found out I had some cell service on the peak and called Randy to get some beta on Naches. His response was iffy, and after a bit of yakking on Yakima, I resumed lounge position.

Thirty minutes after leaving, I was back at my rig and wanted to further investigate Naches. I drove up and over Chinook Pass and turned around, getting a better view of the peak on the way back. Although looking at the snowy N slope, it still looked alot better than it had from Yakima.

I decided to go for it and parked at the uppermost Tipsoo Lake Overlook, directly between the lake and the summit. From my parking area, I headed straight up a grassy/snowy belt and worked through a couple minor obstructions, eventually gaining the ridge at 6300'.

Stayed on top of the ridge for just a short time before dropping to it's S side on a climbers path that eventually led me back up to the ridge top when the S slope began to cliff out.

Weather was moving in and this ridge is pretty exposed so the strong wind trying to blow me off was of added enjoyment. To top things off, I knew the dreaded ""10' step down"" was coming up. I found it, and it did offer some pause, but also provided good footholds and I was just happy to see it was not ice or snow covered. I was able to climb down it facing away and had no troubles, although anyone not comfortable with exposure/heights and scrambling should probably not venture this way. I would rate it a stiff Class 3 as is, but if it were just 5' higher I might say Class 4.

Now the summit was clearly in sight and the only thing I wondered about (snow hardness/steepness) turned out to be a non-issue. The slope did have poor run out, but was not as steep as I had thought and the snow firmness was easily workable. Since this entire adventure had been started late, dusk was approaching so I didn't linger long. Back down the ridge and up the step I went.

Back to the car in no time once off the ridge, just in time for thick fog to engulf the pass area and make for an adventurous drive home.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/climbercraig66/sets/

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Seymour peak,Tahtlum Pk(pt 6567),Yakima peak — Jun 10, 2006 — b00

Day hike

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Seymour peak, Tahtlum Pk(pt 6567) and Yakima peak 6-10-06 This was a very fun scramble that gave one of my...

Seymour peak, Tahtlum Pk(pt 6567) and Yakima peak 6-10-06

This was a very fun scramble that gave one of my buddies three new peaks and allowed me to go up tahtlum pk, a mountain I have looked at and wanted to ascend for years.

We parked at the tipso lake trailhead and headed southeast on snow and then at about 5800' went east on the south side of naches pk (following approximately where the summer trail goes). Somewhere south of pt 6046 we looked for and found a way south, in between the cliffs, down towards dewey lakes. We then headed south along the ridge close to the county line and continued south to seymour peak's basin where we headed uphill to the saddle between seymour and dewey pk(6710). From the saddle we followed the ridge up with a fun section of class 2 rock scrambling and quickly reached seymour's summit. We headed back down the ridge, but instead of going back to the seymour/dewey saddle, went to the closest notch a few hundred feet east of the summit and descended a somewhat steep snow gully and went down a little northeast to rejoin our tracks around west of dewey lakes and then angled northeast up towards the 5700' saddle west of tahtlum and followed the ridge on snow, easy rock and dirt to tahtlum's summit. We then descended back to the saddle and continued west, on the ridgetop, on snow and easy rock/dirt to find our tracks on the south side of naches pk. Once back at tipso lake we proceeded counter-clockwise around yakima peak until we reached a snow ramp on it's northwest side (I ascended yakima pk years ago when there was no snow via this same route) and climbed this somewhat steep snow to it's summit. Please watch out for a snow bridge over a moat near the top starting to melt out. Although, I read in 75 scrambles of a route up a gully on it's east side I am unsure where this gully is. Can anyone tell me about this east gully route? We then descending this same route to tipso lake and were back to the car 8 hours after we began - happy, well exercised and content.

11 or 12 miles - 4700'gain

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