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I hiked up Treasury and Treasure on the 23rd and thought I'd share this report to show people that these peaks aren't too hard to hike, and the 5th class can definitely be avoided. I left from the Paradise Basin on the Yule Pass trail at exactly 9:30am and made my way up the easy trail.
About 70 yards before the actual pass, I cut up off the trail and headed up the most Southern ridge of Treasury.
There was some loose rock, but also a lot of nice rock slabs that I hiked up which gave my ankles a break from sliding.
Unfortunately, the slabs ended and I continued up near the ridge on the loose rock, but it wasn't as bad as most Elk rock could be.
After grinding up the steeper Class 2 scree, I found myself on the summit ridge. The true summit was a few hundred yards away and was very easy to get up to.
There were some steep cliffs on the North side, but you would have to royally screw up to fall off of one for the summit ridge is pretty wide and not technical at all.
Once on top I had a pretty good vantage point of Treasure.
Now, I had heard bad stories of people trying to traverse over to unranked Point 13,407, and then descending to the saddle of 13,407 and Treasure. However, the descent is 5th class and very unnecessary unless you like that kind of thing.
Instead, I dropped off the peak going down the SW face where the old mine laid abandoned.
There are huge metal cables that run pretty much down this entire face, but they don't help with your descent because you can't pick them up due to their weight and how rusted out they are. Instead, I did some scree skiing. I made it a point to aim for a weakness in the cliff band that was under me by heading towards a grassy part, that I could easily come down a grassy gully into a basin that was below me.
The grassy gully is the only way to make it into the basin by avoiding the cliff bands that run along the East side of it, as well as avoiding the 5th class down climb from 13,407.
Now it was when I came out of this gully that I was faced with a few decisions to reach my main objective of gaining the ridge back by climbing up the basin's grassy headwall:
1- climb up the basin on the left side on the huge rock slabs
2- Aim for the grassy ramp (mid-right of pic) and hike up that way
3- Maintain my elevation by skirting under the Eastern cliffs along the scree field.
I chose option 2 and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be to make it over there for it only took about 15 minutes.
Once at the grassy ramp, the basin's headwall was in front of me and that would be my key to gain my elevation back as well as the ridge line to Treasure.
The basin was really cool looking back at it and it gave me some new perspectives I've never had before
It was back on the ridge line that I could see how bad the traverse between 13,407 and Treasure would be.
Happy that I had avoided that, I skirted along the North side of another unranked point
The final ridge up to Treasure is pretty wide and grassy so not hard at all to hike up and doesn't take too much time
I spent a few minutes up on the peak, but saw a storm a few miles off in the distance which hurried me off the top. I came down the exact way I came up, except when I was back in the basin I could either climb back up into the grassy gully which would put me closer to Yule Pass, or keep making my way down the basin towards Yule Creek.
I kept descending and I eventually stumbled upon a small trail which I followed left (East) to the top of Yule Pass.
The hike took me about 5 hours and 10 minutes and was about 9.5 miles, never exceeded class 2 either. I also got these cool pics using a timer and a tripod.
And here is a general route of the way I hiked it.
Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
Thanks for all of this detail. Treasury was a cake walk; but getting Treasure took some effort. That slope down Treasury is heinous! Super helpful to know that it goes--I can only imagine you doing it not knowing that. The grass ramp was surprisingly tame given how it looked from afar. At 5:10 you were cooking! I'm glad I didn't get lured into staying ridge proper--that descent off 13,407 looks sketchy!
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