Wahatis Peak

August 29, 2026

821m

Vantage, WA

Wahatis Peak is the highest in the Saddle Mountains east of Vantage in central Washington and boasts over 500 m prominence. Originally I knew nothing about it and in fact, I was not planning to make any “ascent” on this particular day. However, as I drove through Vantage I started to see some hills and naturally I went to the Peakbagger app to see if there’s anything taggable given the time constraints. The plan was to simply drive from home to the trail-head for She/He Devil and that would take a good 9 hours even without counting the stops for gas and food. I also couldn’t leave home until mid-morning as I booked a rental car in Bellingham. This was the beginning of a 2-week road trip to Colorado and I didn’t want to put 6000+ km into my own vehicle. The rental car was reserved to be picked up at 10:30 am and my parents dropped me off at the airport about an hour earlier than that.

I pulled over at a particularly touristy spot next to Columbia River and took some pictures. It was however, extremely windy so I didn’t linger very long. A few minutes later I came to the conclusion that the only drive-up was actually the highest peak in the vicinity so that’s perfect. The only downside was the required detouring to the south side of Saddle Mountains. This peak could and had been driven up from the north but not in a Nissan Rouge AWD. With this vehicle I would have to follow the standard route and even so I wasn’t 100% sure if it’d be feasible.

I estimated that grabbing this peak would add at least 2 hours into the itinerary so I would be looking at a late arrival at the car-camp, but that’s fine. The 500 m prominence status was more than enough of a motivating factor. I correctly located the turn-off from SR 24 and the first half of the drive onto the ridge was actually not too bad (part of it was actually paved). The 10-ish kilometer along the ridge was “doable” but the undercarriage was constantly stripped by the grass. The final kilometer was also quite rough and required some skills to drive an AWD SUV to the very top. I knew right away that this vehicle lacked the power compared to the Subaru that I have and also doesn’t equipped with the “X Mode” equivalent. I still drove it to the very summit but it was starting to push the limit of it. The last 10 meters would have to be gained on foot no matter what.

After taking a few pictures for proof I leisurely walked back to the vehicle. I slightly injured myself by stepping on some cactus as I didn’t think the “grass” could be that stiff and pokey. I then carefully drove the rental car down to the highway and resumed the long ass drive into Idaho.