Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

February 11, 2024

983m

Yakima, WA

Baldy is one of the officially-named summits on Umtanum Ridge that straddles across Yakima River canyon north of the city of Yakima. Contrary to most peaks in North America that at least have a “Mount”, “Mountain”, “Peak” or “Point” in the names this one does not. The official name is Baldy and that’s it, despite what’s shown on the Gaia map. Kate and I decided to drive a long ways south-east to escape the dreary weather near the coast, and the Yakima Canyon area seemed to be the driest. This was the second objective that we did in the day. We ascended Selah Butte first in order to save the taller neighbour for later in the day, when the weather was supposed to be better. We again, made Google to direct us to the trail-head and this one actually has a large rest area next to it. Still, I opted to park on the side of the road to save us from walking extra distances.

The weather was not as great as I was hoping for as most of the ascent was done in a light drizzle. However, there was a clearing trend behind the system to the north, and I was hoping that band of blue sky could move south. Indeed, we were treated with views and some sunshine as we were approaching the summit. This hike was considerably longer than Selah Butte but has a trail all the way to the top. The lower half has two options and we took the direct but steeper way. Again, we encountered one other party with a dog and despite barking, this dog was kept on leash the entire time. By this point we had gained over 1100 m elevation over the two hikes and I was very tired. I was overall still recovering from the exhausting 15.5-hour climb on Pyroclastic Peak a mere two days ago.

Not to my surprise Kate started to trail run but this time I told her to slow down and soak in the views. The weather was only getting better and we had missed out the views on the way up. It made no sense to rush. We did only have one head-lamp but it’s not like we couldn’t get back to the vehicle before dark anyway. Indeed, even with taking another 200 photos on the descent we were able to finish the round trip in just over 2 hours. I then made Kate to drive north to Ellensburg while there’s still daylight so I could take a short nap on the passenger seat. I then took over the drive up and over Snoqualmie Pass in some terrible weather and treacherous conditions. Once the rain tapered off north of Everett I made Kate to drive again as I was getting really exhausted. We eventually got back home at 8 pm and I still needed to spend at least another night in Kate’s home as I was still not allowed to access my own apartment.