Trip: Guye Peak - South Gully Trip Date: 01/22/2026 Trip Report:
My friend Vraj and I climbed the South Gully of Guye Peak during the strong inversion layer on 1/22/26. This was both of our first times up to the peak and we were rewarded with some great views above the low hanging clouds.
We left Seattle later than intended due to the usually busy traffic on a Thursday and ended up parking at Summit West Lot W3 right around 0900. We asked one of the Summit employees about the parking and were pleasantly surprised when we learned you do not need a pass to park there on a weekday (non holiday). We then worked our way to the base of the South Gully moving pretty slowly and finally roped up around 11 AM. The conditions at this point were ~32F and cloudy as we were very much still in the inversion.
Mixed climbing between loose Class 4 and snow for about 7-8 total pitches. The going was slow as it was both our first time in this type of terrain and found the protection to be limited. We were pleasantly surprised with how much snow remained in the gully due to our own pessimism on the south facing route. We were also looking forward to our friends who had told us to go find snow somewhere else!
Some fun climbing through the chock stones (which were completely bare) led us up and out of the gully turning left prior to the end. Vraj took the lead on the last pitch before we decided to unrope and scramble the rest of the way to the south summit. This was ~1630 and the light was starting to fade. We wanted to make it up to the north summit before dark so we had to hustle.
After reaching the south summit we traversed to the middle summit easily on a snow band. We were looking around for about five minutes before spotting the correct rappel station off a tree below the summit. We made it to the final ramp up to the north summit which contained the best snow of the trip. Topped out on the north summit at 1750 to a fantastic view of the backlit cascades.
Downed some much needed calories we made our way back to the parking lot off the north side and through the Commonwealth getting back around 2000.
Gear Notes: 60m rope
1x 0.5 - 3, nuts
2x pickets (did not even think of using)
2x ice screws (why) Approach Notes: Standard South Gully approach (MTN Project)
