We had been eyeing up the Coquihalla summit area for some time and noticed it would be heavily raining this weekend which got us stoked. The night before Quintin drew up a quick route that crossed from zoa over to zopkios and the deadly trio of yak,nak, thar. For the most part this route has no trail and is a complete bushbash. The rain made any agressive slopes become a slip-and-slide extravaganza and it was impossible to stay dry while cruising through dense tree branches. Would not recommend doing this cirque under the conditions we did it.

We started around 9am at Falls Lake trailhead parking and returned around 6pm totalling 9hours car to car.

It was foggy but we had our hopes up that this fog would lift giving us some nice views along the way. Rain started pouring down halfway up Zoa, we continued undetterred. We cruised up to Zoa peak in record time, my heart was pounding (possibly due to chugging a white monster and munching on caffeine gum).

There was no view to be seen, although the fog did lift slightly for a brief moment. We were rewarded, however, with tasty and abundant huckleberries. There appeared to be neverending quantities of these berries which were perfectly ripe and very distracting.

Crossing over from Zoa to Zopkios the trail continued on for a bit then abruptly stopped. It became a hellish sloped bushwack, grass became so slippery as to become a surprise hazard.

After what felt like ages we finally broke out of the grass and forest onto some nice dirt and rock overlooking our next peak: Zopkios.

We refueled quickly and put on extra layers. The rain was unrellenting and was starting to discourage us slightly. From this vantage point we could see Falls Lake and briefly considered turning back. But we didn't.

There was only one problem, a black bear was happilly munching on some huckleberries directly in our travel path and circumnavigating it would take extra time and would be more risky. So we decided to give it fair warning by yelling and waving our hands. This plump bear paid us little mind but decided to head off into the forest for some peace and quiet. We followed along the bear-path. The beta provided by the afformention ursine was excellent and we crossed over into a nasty scree/landslide area.

It seemed like the only feasible way to go up so we committed knowing that this area was a bit of a loose rock chute. As we neared the top our worst fears came true, some loose rocks fell off the mountainside directly above us, split and started tumbling down to us. Luckily none of us were in the direct path but it was truly a frightening experience. Helmets are important.

After reaching the top of this couloir we did some minor scrambling up to the top of Zopkios. The views in this area were pretty amazing despite the heavy fog's best efforts.

Yak peak was appearing meanacingly between breaks in the fog bank. From this viewpoint it looked so steep as to be unsurmountable. Spoiler alert: it was surmountable.

The most difficult scramble was ahead of us and we could barely make out the line we wanted to take. We just had to go for it and turn back if things got too real. One really devastating part of the neverending rain was that it had transformed the rocks into slippery death slides. There was simply no way to scramble on them safely so we stuck to the bushes because of the reduced exposure and ability to use trunks and branches as handholds.

There was a point where we had to decide to either scramble up a rockface for about 4 meters or take a spicy, but shrubby traverse over to the right. After attempting to get onto the rock and noticing how impossible it felt to get good footing we decided on the traverse. A few spicy class 4 moves and we were back into some manageable class 3 slopey shrub scrambling. It was intense for all of us but it felt mostly safe, if it was dry this would be no problem.

Ascending Yak peak felt truly amazing and well-earned. We ate some candies and it started snowing, this day turned out much colder and rainer than we anticipated.

AllTrails mentioned there is a trail from Yak over to Nak and Thar and then back down the mountainside. This "Trail" is more of an occassional deer path that kind of weaves in and out of existance from time to time. We lost this "Trail" several times and had to do some nasty bush bashing to get back towards our goal of Nak.

I don't remember much but we cruised over swiftly to Nak and then Thar, enjoying huckleberries where we could and trying to maintain footing.

From Thar we were certain that there would be a reasonable trail down as it was marked on AllTrails. There is no trail! Only the loosest of guides with 1 piece of flagging tape. This part of the journey was truly soul-crushing as we descended for what felt like forever on slippery grassy slopes, falling occassionally and bruising our already sore buttocks. Knees were also tender, the cold somehow made them feel less limber than usual.

After some gnarly wipeouts, me almost sliding off a small cliff, Finn sliding down a slope and under a fallen log, we finally spotted pipeline road, our ticket out of this rainy hellhole. Spirits lifted we simply bashed through some dense undergrowth and onto a splendid ancient vehicle path.

We celebrated then swiftly got into our respective vehicles to warm up. All in all a truly epic adventure turned up to 11 due to the conditions. I'm glad we did this one, I don't think any of us will be forgetting this journey anytime soon.