Yak and Nak Peak

My first ever blog post - I am excited! I hope to chronicle my journey as I attempt to conquer new peaks, try out some good hikes, and improve my abilities at more technical bits. I am also going to attempt to be thorough and do a somewhat in depth walk through of the actual hike and any difficult parts.

I only meant to do Yak but I ended up doing Nak just because it was so easy to get to (but I don't know how much additional elevation gain and distance it was). Definitely much less challenging than I thought it would be. I wouldn't really call it a hard hike, but you can expect to sweat for sure. I didn't encounter anything new or anything out of my comfort zone. The views at the top were pretty good, and I do like the fact that there weren't any long flat portions - those tend to really bore me when I'm hiking.

Date: Jul 25, 2020

Park: Coquihalla Summit Recreational Area

Name of Hike: Yak and Nak Peak

Mountain Range: North Cascades

Elevation: 2039m (Yak), 2009m (Nak)

Distance: 6km to Yak, maybe 6.5-7km total since I went to Nak too?

Elevation Gain: ~800m for Yak, maybe ~900m total since I went to Nak too?

Total time (including breaks): 5hrs

Pictured below is Yak Peak from Nak (with many tents) as well as Needle and Flatiron Peaks viewed from Yak.

One of my goals for the summer is to complete more difficult and more technical hikes and to improve my scrambling ability. Yak Peak caught my eye a while back on AllTrails, but I also saw a post on some forum where someone asked for hike recommendations to get better at scrambles/technical portions and Yak Peak was one of the ones mentioned.

I started from the parking lot around 1:30PM, and started walking down along the highway. The first and last kilometer of the hike is simply walking along a busy highway - the actual distance travelled up and down the mountain is only about 4km!

The first one or two hundred metres is muddy and overgrown, but fortunately this part is not even five minutes, and the trail soon opens up.

The steady climb begins pretty much right away. The uphill was fairly steep and definitely had me gassed quick. The hot summer sun didn't help much either. Here are some more pictures along the trail:

The next bit was the small boulder field. Nothing out of the ordinary, and didn't take too long to get through.

Eventually, the trail begins curling right around the mountain. Here are a few pictures from that part of the trail. Once again, nothing out of the ordinary, just left foot right foot stuff.

Sort of the later on in the curl-y part of the trail, I saw a rope section! I love getting rope involved (that's what she said), even if it was a really easy "pull yourself up a slight incline" section. 

Pretty soon, you leave the treeline and enter a nice grassy section. The view looking back is really quite nice as you can see in the second picture. 

There is a really short (5 minute) snowy section at the end (which is quite slippery due to the slushy snow). However, it is a really easy walk in the snow to the actual rocky bit of the mountain, and it is super easy for the last rocky bit. There were lots of tents up here - something I didn't quite expect!

Got to the top by about 3:35pm (2 hours from my start time). There was a guy slack-lining - quite cool to watch, and I would definitely like to try something along those lines one day, although I would definitely start at a slightly lower elevation 😆.

Quite a nice panorama and view from the top. Peep my new and first ever pair of proper hiking boots!

I had a nice lunch and chatted with a couple, who recommended that I check out Nak peak as well, which was the adjacent peak and about 20 min away according to them. Here is Nak Peak viewed from Yak:

It took me maybe 15 minutes to get to the top of Nak. Definitely worth it, as Nak blocks quite a few mountains in the panoramic view from Yak. Got to Nak Peak at around 4:15pm.

The route down was really not too bad at all. Got back to the trailhead by the highway at 6:20pm, and back at my car by about 6:30pm. I would say that the 5 hour trip was well spent.

This is my first hike with proper hiking shoes (instead of runners) and I can't believe how nice it is to have non-annihilated ankles. This is also my first hike in Canada where I've worn my small 40L backpacking backpack. The 40L is definitely not fully utilized but the back and shoulder support is so much better than my usual school backpack! I will definitely be using both in the future.