Yellow Aster Butte - August 5 2024

Border Ranges, Whatcom County, Washington
1902m

This trip report picks up from that of Tomyhoi Peak, which I'd ascended earlier in the day, and was on the way back from when I arrived at the fork for the Tomyhoi and YAB trails at around 5:12pm.

At this point in the day (a bit over 6 hours and around 1600m elevation gain in), I was pretty tired, so I took my time slogging up to the false summit, even with my backpack stashed at the fork below. I took a lethargic 13 minutes to get up what I now realise was about 150m of elevation. Actually, considering those numbers, I guess I just felt lethargic, because that's actually a very reasonable pace 😄

From there, I had to descend another ~50m or so to the bottom of the col, which after all the undulations of the Tomyhoi Peak Trail was really starting to get old 🙃 Nevertheless, I started hiking my way back up, waiting for the scrambling that earned this peak a spot in the Goldman Scrambles list to materialise.

Sadly, despite the trail ending at the rocky section above, there was never any actual scrambling. The slabs seen in front were low-angle enough to just be walked on, and past that, you could just stay on the dirt near the trees and walk all the way to the top. Oh well, at this point I was getting fairly tired, and was happy to just have this extra bump checked off.

I only spent enough time on the summit to take pictures, as I didn't have my bag with me to take a water break, and I had a long way until I was back in Squamish still. Getting down from the summit was simple enough, though I wasn't looking forward to the 50+m of regain back to the false summit, as I was nearing 1800m gain on a day when I was expecting somewhere closer to 1500 😅 (it turns out AllTrails has a low elevation marked for both Tomyhoi and Yellow Aster Butte, and I just guesstimated the gain based on the listed gain for the Tomyhoi trail plus the summit elevation it listed for Yellow Aster Butte. Oops).

Thankfully, despite my tired feelings, I was still moving decently, and 6 minutes later, I was back on the false summit. I didn't linger, though, and a few minutes later I was reunited with my bag, where I had a drink before starting the descent for real this time.

I got moving down at around 6:10pm, and was very happy to be done with the major elevation gain stretches of the day. I enjoyed that feeling for about 20 minutes, until I was reminded of the last somewhat-meaningful undulation in the trail, the spot where it crosses the drainage coming down from Yellow Aster Butte 😅

There was only about 20m to gain in this spot, and I knew after that it was all downhill or flat, at least within a tolerance of a couple metres, so I was pretty stoked. From that small creek crossing, I cranked out the last 4km (and 500m of elevation loss) in about an hour, bringing the total trip time to a touch under 8.5 hours. Not too shabby for 1800 gain and 2 peaks, I'd say. Especially on the 0-calorie diet I was still subjecting myself to.

After getting down, I quickly geared down, got some cheap American gas, and made the drive home, and for the first time in a few weeks, it was actually still the same day when I got home! That made getting up for work a bit less painful than my last few weekends 😄

Overall, I'd 10/10 recommend coming out to this area. Yellow Aster Butte itself is good for novice/less fit hikers, and if you're a more ambitious scrambler/peakbagger, it's a great addition to Tomyhoi if you're looking to pad those stats a bit 🤣

GPX Track + Map