There is still a significant amount of snow on the Naches Peak Loop trail.  The trail from the road up around the west sided of Naches Peak is 90% snow covered and the trail is difficult to follow.  The south facing section of the trail is about 20% snow covered.  The east and north facing sides are 90% snow covered with 1-3 feet of snow and some larger drifts.

The plan was to backpack and overnight at Dewey Lake or Sheep Lake. We got a late start and when we got up to Lake Tipsoo we were surprised by the amount of snow. About 2 feet of snow on the Naches Loop Trail. We found a campground for the night and in the morning headed back up to hike to Sheep Lake. We hiked in about one and a quarter miles when we ran into snow in the trees. We forgot to pack batteries for the GPS so we decided to call it quits instead of risking getting lost. Back at the car we ran into a couple of guys who were also looking to backpack and were surprised at the amount of snow. They decided to look for another place to hike. It looks like it will be a couple of weeks before the snow is melted out around Lake Tipsoo.

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.

I was going to hike around Tipsoo Lake, but it was entirely covered in snow. The lake was barely visible due to the snow covering it and it was impossible to find the trail.

The trail and surrounding slopes are still covered in several feet of snow. I attempted to snowshoe the clockwise route around the Peak from chinook pass but found the steep slopes on the North side of the peak to be very slushy and unstable; especially as the day wore on.  Not wanting to make the hazardous traverse, I decided to play it safe and turned back.  I'll try the Southern (counter-clockwise) approach from Tipsoo lake later in the week.