The forecast looked quite discouraging for the weekend, but hoping for the famed "Coquihalla high pressure vortex", Evgeny did a Wanderung callout. Seriously, we had amazing weather 3 years ago on Needle peak when all other areas around us were engulfed by rain. Joined by one other brave soul, off we went into the never ending drizzle.

Getting above the trees, we were greeted by falling snow. Better than rain, but my 1st pair of gloves was already soaking wet from touching foliage and rocks and now freezing. Note to self: time to start carrying ski gloves... Sigh. Good-bye summer.

With visibility on the poorer side, we poked around looking for ways on or around the snow fields, eventually reaching the summit. No surprise that we no longer felt inclined to continue along the ridge to Nak, let along Thar. For one, we couldn't see either; for the other, the perspective of a wet snowy bushwhack down did not appeal. In fact, a unanimous decision was to postpone lunch until back in the warmth of the vehicle. So we hurried down to below the snow line, but not before adding more layers and making a few summit pictures!

Driving through Chilliwack around 2:15, we encountered bright sunny skies, much to our chagrin. The vortex has relocated! Wrong time, wrong place for a hiking choice this weekend :(. Yak is a very pleasant short scramble though :).