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Trip: North Side of Yak Peak - Humbled Beginnings Trip Date: 02/14/2024 Trip Report: “Humbled Beginnings” The North East Gulley of Yak Peak We had gone up to the back side of Yak Peak the Friday before, camped and did 2 pitches of ice the Saturday before. Upon doing so we noticed a line that goes for about 1000 feet on the north east side of yak peak. We had left Everett around 1130 pm Tuesday February 13th in Logan's 4runner after he got off work. Two minutes after getting on the road I realized I had forgotten my hardshell pants in my truck. We turned around grabbed them and officially started the drive. The plan was for me to drive up to the Falls Lake trail head while Logan slept in the back. I had managed 2 hours of sleep in the parking lot after work waiting for Logan. Thankfully had only worked 11-330 Tuesday because I had done a 19 hour shift that on Monday-tuesday morning 7am-2am. So I got to work a short day Tuesday but Logan got to do his long day the night before our climb. Clocking in 17 1/2 hours on Tuesday. Life in the emergency repairs world is like that. Most days are just 8's but if you have big plans count on a long work day right before hand because that's just how it goes haha. Anyways our first crux was an hour and a half into the drive at the border crossing. The Canadians made us park the car and come inside to tell them about our plan and then quizzed us on our insurance and whether or not it would cover an accident in Canada on a high risk activity. After some talking and telling them I had a Garmin high risk plan and showing them what that plan covered (a plan I do not actualIy have just happened to know about lol) they let us continue after a 15 minute delay. I drove for another hour and a half before I was almost falling asleep at the wheel and Logan finished out the last 30 minutes. We got to the trailhead at about 320 and both of us crashed in the back for an hour. We got up around 4 15 and double checked everything and got ready. Starting out an hour later than we had initially planned at 5 we started towards the north side of Yak Peak. We made good time and we were there in a hour. We stepped out of our skis and into crampons racked up and started out. Now something to keep in mind is we are NEWBS! We both started ice climbing last year which was a day at Bryant's buttress on top rope, and then a few days in ouray on top rope as well. I had done my first lead on Jan 14 this year. Logan had yet to lead. I started up the first pitch in much more brittle conditions than the weekend before. After the first pitch Logan did his first ice lead and took us up the second pitch. He kicked ass! After the second pitch we unroped and crossed the snowfield to the bottom of the gulley. At the base of our route we solo'd 50 meters of 60-70 degree snice before setting up a belay with a medium angle and a .75 cam behind a rock that protected the belayer (Logan) from spin drift and ice fall. I started up the first pitch with an m4-5 step protected by a #1 cam then traversed 15 feet up and left, placing a knife blade on the way to a 6 foot vertical rock with some ice bulges on the edge where I was able to get good sticks and pull up and over. Then 60 degree snice lead us towards the mouth of our gulley and just before our gulley I was able to get a #2 cam and then started up our gulley. The gulley began with a combo of 75 degree ice and since leading into WI3 ice just thick enough in most places to get a few 13s in. After placing a few ice screws I was about out of rope and made 2 19cm v threads one vertical and one horizontal backed up by a 13 cm screw. While building the belay a helicopter flew through the basin below us and must have seen us and circled around and came and looked at us for a few minutes. If anyone can get us info on how to get ahold of the helicopter that would be awesome because they have to have super cool pictures. After equalizing the v threads I brought Logan up. We were making terrible time and the first pitch of the gully took us almost 2 hours. The next pitch was the best of the route. 70 degree ice into some beautiful WI3. That went quick and I brought Logan up on a solid v thread and 22cm screw while getting heavily blasted by spindrift. Then Logan led a pitch of 75 degree snice then my lead up 65 degree snice then Logan finished out of the gully on 65 degree snice. With extreme winds blowing spindrift up into our faces. "Holy shit dude we did it. We finished it. We did the route." This was monumental for us. Logan and I have shot high and failed, a lot. This was our first full year of climbing. We had failed on Chair Peak last March after a fall and chest deep wallowing. We had both taken bad falls in the summer on rock. I fractured my L2 and L3. Logan fell 2 weeks later and had hurt a nerve in his back and cracked a helmet. We had attempted Early Winter Spires both of the last two weekends before the gate closed and bailed due to snow wallowing and running out of time, we had turned around two pitches up Triple Couloirs because we ran out of time, and those are just a few stories but we have been going for it repeatedly and just kept failing and we did it. We finished a route and the crazy and stupid thing is it wasn't even a known route. Now we did the 15 minute hike to the summit of yak peak hugged, screamed, high fived, and maybe shed a tear. It was 530 pm at this point. Then we started descending. Now if we were to do this again I'd climb with skis on my back and ski out down to the highway it would be an easy ski fast and relatively safe. This was Logan's first idea and I had shot it down because I was nervous about going into unknown terrain with skis on my back because I wanted to move unencumbered. We should have done it Logan's way. But we left our skis at the base so that was out. We talked about heading towards Nak Peak and descending the ridge that came off the sub peak between Yak and Nak, that may have been a better choice but we would be descending an unknown route in what was very soon to be darkness. So we ultimately decided to rap our route because it may suck but at least we know the evil. The first rap was on a single nut and 35 meters. The second rap was another nut and another 35 meters. Third rap was a knife blade and another 35 meters. At the bottom of the third rappel somehow my headlamp came off my helmet and went tumbling down the mountain, thankfully I had a backup in my pack. For the fourth rap it was another nut and the wind wasn't as bad now that we were deeper into the gully so we decided to start doing double rope rappels at this point. Typing this is fast but doing it took forever. We were battling winds on all the 35 meter rappels really bad. We rapped and set up a v thread. Pull rope. Rope stuck. Now here is more newb stuff. We had ran the rope through the wire of the nut. It was a big nut with a big wire that didn't seem to be a threat to cutting the rope, why not save cordage. Well while trying to pull the rope and realizing it was stuck I realized that that loop on the wire isn't rigid and when we're trying to pull it it's making the wire clamp the rope. So we decided that I would rope solo the pitch again so we cloved the rope to the anchor and put a micro Trax on then pulled out the second micro Trax to back it up, and I fumbled the second micro Trax, gone. Down the mountain she goes. Okay well I guess the first one will have to do. I climb the 75 degree snice, anchor myself untie the rope, put cordage and rap ring in, retie rope, reblock rope, rappel again and back at the anchor. Logan was just kinda on standby waiting for me to fix the rope so he ended up falling asleep sitting in his harness. Things are getting pretty real. It's about 9: 30 pm and we still have four more raps and a skin out. I guess that four raps seems like nothing now but things just took forever in that environment. Anyways Logan is in tough shape, so at this point it was just a juggle keep moving but make sure Logan keeps it together too. For the fifth rap I pulled the rope, ran it through the v thread to set up for another double length rappel, and then blocked it and rappel. set up another v thread for the anchor and after Logan came down we ran the rope through the v thread pulled the rope to set the 6th rap, another double rope rappel. This got us down to the fixed piton from the first belay and got Logan down. Logan is borderline hypothermic at this point I'm in the headspace of I have to keep us moving. That's my responsibility now is get us out and to our skis once we're on skis it's easy. Logan will get warm, we'll be moving, everything will be okay once we get to our skis. So Logan gets to the piton and goes "dude I left your tools up there." He says while shivering, scared,and in borderline tears. That sucked. I got those from the Wrights they were Pritis tools that she had pictured in Classic Cascade Climbs on Triple Couloirs. The Wrights are my heros they're cooler than Colin Haley or Honnold in my book so those tools had more than monetary value. But my friend is in bad shape and we need to keep going and leading that pitch took forever and it's almost 11 so I accepted the reality that they're just objects and we kept going. If anyone finds them I would love to have them back. They're probably in the snowfield below buried in powder. They're orange Cassin kinda old-school style tools with green cordage tied to the bottom. From the first belay station we did our seventh rap off the fixed piton which took us down the section we first solo'd and then walked across the snowfield down to the first two pitches of ice. Here we did our eighth rap which again was a double rope rap, off a tree. At the bottom of that rap we were back in good ice. I had forgotten to grab the 22 from Logan after the v thread above the fixed piton and so I put a couple 13s in and equalized them and then brought Logan down. Once Logan got to me I got the 22 and made a v thread which set us for our ninth and final rappel, again double rope,to our skis. Pulled my inreach out, texted my parents, we were back at our skis and then started skiing out. It was 12: 50 at this point. Skiing out was hellacious. The first mile wasn't so bad but the second mile was horrible. All of a sudden my heels hurt super bad from blisters so I sat down to adjust my boots. Fell asleep. Logan wakes me up after a minute and I realize I fell asleep. We keep skinning, on the lake Logan pukes. At the end of the lake we stopped to drink some water, we both fell asleep laying in the snow still in our skis in the fetal position. I wake up and realize what happened and wake Logan up and I kept skinning, we never drank water. I crashed hard on skis right onto my back. A few minutes later I hear Logan saying "Alex!" I woke up. I had crashed and I guess that was a comfortable enough place to sleep. He had turned around after waiting a few minutes for me so I guess I was out for 5-10 minutes. We finally got to the car at 2: 30 am making car to car 21 1/2 hours. Logan was a savage and drove us all the way back down to Everett to go to work. We got there at 5: 45 Where Logan slept for an hour and went in. I slept until 9 and was late. I think leading all the scarier bits and then leading and setting all the rappels in that head space of I just have to perform completely drained everything I had. Our boss noticed how bad of shape we were in and let Logan go out to the car and sleep around 10 and let me do the same around 12. Was it stupid? Yes it was, we should have not gone on such little sleep. I know I've been too eager to learn how to ice climb and while I'm definitely learning this was probably too much for us. Was it worth it? I mean we lived and to the best of my knowledge did the First Ascent of a new route in a cool area in Canada so that's pretty cool and feels good but it could have waited and we should have. Am I stoked? Yes but also humbled and my respect for the Wrights, Beckey, Wayne Wallace, Jim Nelson and numerous other alpinists, soared to new levels. They did such incredible things with much less and I have a deepened respect for all of them. Gear notes: Ice screws, knife blade pitons, nuts, cams to .5-#3 (BD's and the one black Totem), some smaller cams would have been nice. Smallest we had was a black totem. We ran half ropes, one 60m one 70m both Edelrid 8.2 which we really like for alpine stuff. Logan is making his own TR as well -Alex Cunningham Gear Notes: Gear notes: Ice screws, knife blade pitons, nuts, cams to .5-#3 (BD's and the one black Totem), some smaller cams would have been nice. Smallest we had was a black totem. We ran half ropes, one 60m one 70m both Edelrid 8.2 which we really like for alpine stuff. Approach Notes: Park at the Falls Lake trailhead, skin up to the falls lake campsite and across the lake, down through the basin and to the backside of yak peak. When the trees get less dense your basically there. There's a few good campsites.

I'll keep the beta spray brief since there is sufficient info out there on both routes involved in this climb. On Sunday the 4th, Eli Spitulnik and I hiked then skied out to Colfax with an idea I had schemed up the week before. We planned to climb the first ~80meters of the Polish route (Link, Link), then traverse a snow band left to the pitch 4 chimney of Colin's route Kimchi Suicide Volcano which we would then take to the summit. The combo worked out better than we could have imagined, and we both think this is one of the most quality alpine mixed routes we've climbed in the cascades. The nature of this route allows it to go in normal conditions, where the Polish or KSV would not be in. We hope that it'll become a popular way to climb this face as it has much more actual climbing than the Cosley-Houston, for a slightly harder grade. Here's some pretty pictures. Blurry, but you get the gist Eli about to cross the bergschrund Following P1 Myself taking the spindrift straight to the face starting pitch 2 Eli traversing over to the KSV chimney. Entering the squeeze Eli carried the pack like a champ through the rime tunnel Wild rime daggers threatening to collapse on our heads while we tunneled Eli after exiting the tunnel into the sunlight Pleased to be on the summit and in the sun. Tagged the East summit on our descent Rack: 9-12 screws, single rack .2-2, nuts, selection of kb's and beaks (very helpful for anchors). If you don't like long sections of unprotected snow climbing, a picket or two may come in handy for the upper slopes. In less rimed up conditions more rock gear should be available. In our conditions cams from .4-1 would have been sufficient. You may be able to climb all the way up to the ledge traverse in one pitch with a 70M rope, otherwise we had a single 60.

Nice work Michael and Eli! Visionary to remove the need for the pesky Polish's dagger to be in. I'm giving you permission to upgrade it to WI4+++ but, this being Washington, no way can you call it WI5- 🙂 I fear for the aspiring moderate alpinists who attempt some of the WI4+/M5 routes put up in the last several years without knowing that WI4+/M5 is the new 5.9+/A2.