Yaki Ridge AKA Reserection Day

This is a great adventure route with several different variations and a cool summit on a un-named Butte half way through. This was quite a spiritual experience scrambling my way up this bitchen ridge line on Easter Sunday. Trying to keep it as moderate as possible, at the same time not to difficult or easy. Since a lot of the pitches along the way had much prouder variations in the mid 5.10 range, I was not feeling to throw down on the harder variations due to the fact I had no rope!!!

P-1, Start a number of different variations straight up off of Oooooh Aaaah point lookout. 150-200' pitch will get you to some trees and fixed jack hammer bits for belay. P-2, Scramble across a couple hundred feet of 2nd class shooting for the obvious Yaki Butte above. P-3, Climb cool varied crack to broken chossy 10 foot chimney. Better yet 50 feet right of this is a Splitter 5.8, large right facing corner. 100' P-4, Couple hundred yards of 2nd class will get you to the improbable looking choss stacked Butte. Which ever variation you choose to get up this. It is actually not as Chossy as one might think and offers some stellar variations to the top of this Grand Canyon Summit. P-5, Climb the Butte any means necessary from 4th class in difficulty on its east side, or radical overhanging splitter hand crack on its north prow. and lots of levels in between. I chose a cool 5.7 broken face 100, left of the south prow.120' P-6, Scramble back down the south ridge of butte shooting for Yaki point. Staying more to climbers left switch backing down some airy catwalk ledges and a little 5.5 down climbing.150' P-7, Follow perfect 3rd class catwalk to the best bit of the whole route, which is the left skyline of the South Kaibab Wall. 200' P-8, Several variations exist from this point on. From radical overhanging Off- widths to excellent varied crack and face systems. Trying to stay as true to the ridge as possible could be a little R rated. The variation I chose was about 100' climbers right and ascended a beautiful varied crack system for another 450-500', 3-4 more pitches at 5.7!! Last pitch was an excellent 5.3 R chimney, which brings you right to the Yaki Point look out.

The Yaki Ridge is the Inspiring swooping ridge line that runs off of Yaki Point, all the way down to Ooooh Aaaah Point. It is off the south Kaibab Trail and is the far left Skyline of the South Kaibab Wall.

Standard Traditional Rack. Some belays had descent trees to integrate into a belay.