After first hiking/scrambling up Yakima Peak, my next goal was Naches Peak. I started at the pond on the south end of Chinook Pass under the peak. I hiked up the snow up the ridge to the right, heading up the south ridge of the peak. It led up to sort of a saddle, then from the saddle I found a path that I began to follow toward an open area but realized this path was not going up the ridge. Probably heading toward the Naches Loop Trail. So here I began to head up to the top of the ridge where I found more paths. Goat or human? Or both? Either way, it was working well. I was able to follow the paths up the ridge to the top of the ridge at the south false summit of the peak, marked by a large rock cairn. There were some nice flowers along the way.
I then followed the ridge to the base of the summit block. I headed around to the right toward the east face of the peak, as this south side looked pretty cliffy near the top. After traversing some loose scree slopes, I came to a nice looking place to scramble up on the east face. It was solid class 3 with lots of holds. I got toward the top of the reddish dusty rock and the rock became darker colored. Here it got a lot more vertical and there were some high very exposed narrow ledges to cross, and then some move requiring pushing my body up with my arms or really having to reach for some holds. While being on a face with a lot of exposure. This was solid class 4 stuff at a certain point.Only for people with lots of rock scrambling or climbing experience and confidence. Looking down is a bad idea. I kept telling myself to not look down, and of course I would look down and I knew there was no going back down this route. But it led right up to the top!
I saw a much easier and safer way down that went down the NE side of the summit. It led to a ramp that was easier to descend. I went down to a steep snowfield and went onto the snow and traversed the steep snow southward to get back to where I started off on the east face. An ice ax would've been nice on this steep snow, though the snow was just soft enough to make it easy enough to cross. I traversed some more loose scree slopes to get back to the bottom of by ascent route, then got back to the ridge back to the south summit and the trail down.
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