Zekes Peak has been on my radar for some time as it's one of the closest peaks to where I live. There's never been a lot of info on the peak, which has kept me away from it. Most ascents are done in the winter, which changes up the best route by quite a bit. It seems to me most ascents are in the winter simply due to the trailhead being open year round.
Photo of the Zekes Ridgeline (to the far right) from Startup Mountain in April. Zekes is the bump to the far right, Pinta is in the middle, and Nina is to the left.
For me, I had no interst in climbing this peak during the winter without skis (but hauling skis up to this thing would be dumb af). Still wanting to do it, I decided to go for it during the scramble season.
There was one trip report about the whole Zekes-Pinta-Nina Traverse outside of snow season from
Jaiden Atterbury. They didn't post a gpx track which was annoying, but there was some good info. The most interesting thing they did was end at the Wallace Falls TH instead of going back to the Lake Isabel TH. This seemed like a good idea, but I didn't plan on it out of convenience.
I made a quick rough route from the Lake to the three peaks on caltopo to calculate the vert. I figured it would take about 6-8 hours based on the numbers.
I got to the trailhead a bit before noon and immediately went the wrong way. I went back down the gravel road I falsy walked up and found the sneaky Lake Isabel Trail. Great start as always.
The Lake Isabel Trail started pretty poorly maintained, but it got better once it came out onto the high gravel road. It was pretty well marked but I couldn't stop going the wrong way. Despite that, it only took me about 1h 45m to the lake.
Lake Isabel with the Ragged Ridge highpoint in the background
I filled up on water to ensure I had enough to do all three peaks and come back down. This was a good call because there was no water on the peaks at all.
I followed the trail to the face of Zekes and started shwacking from there. At first it was absolutely horrific slide alder and the ground was all slushy. After getting back into decent forest, I hit a granite wall. To avoid it, I crossed a steep, barely flowing creek up and left of the wall. After that it was ridiculously steep forest for a while. Fortunetly, after about 3300', the forest flattened out a lot and became much easier.
After 3300' where the forest flattens. The black line I was roughly following was the track I made beforehand.
A section of the steep forest somewhere around 3700' probably
A random pink marker I found at about 4600' - the first sign of human life since I left the trail
I made it to the summit of Zekes in just under 3h 20m. Hence, it took less time to go from the lake to the summit than the TH to the lake. The summit had some surprisingly impressive views. Overall, it wasn't hard at all and there was no scrambling whatsoever.
The rockpile at the summit of Zekes
Looking over at Pinta and Nina from the summit of Zekes
Another angle of Zekes' summit
I ate some food at Zekes and then headed over to Pinta. It was a short, but annoying traverse. I had to backtrack often due to my routes cliffing out. This area was way more rocky than going up to Zekes. I enventually got to the base of Pinta and scrambled straight up to the summit. Was class 2/3 from what I remember.
Pinta from lower down on Zekes
The summit of Pinta
The view of the valley from Pinta - better than the view at Zekes
Traversing over to Nina was much easier, albiet with more vert.
The much less impressive view from Nina
It has the best view of
Stickney though
After the annoying traverse, I had decided to follow the NW Ridge down and exit at Wallace Falls TH. This proved to be the best choice and probably saved me half an hour.
The grade was super casual until about 4300' where the terrain steepened. Even after this, it was quite easy to make it to the old road at 3400'.
I saw a few of the pink markers on this route down
The forest was all burnt making it easy going to the old road
The old road was still graded pretty well. However, just below 3000' the road turned far right and did a large switchback according to the map. I debated just going down the ridge, but I stuck to the road. This was a mistake; the road is a lot worse through this section on top of it being way more distance. There's also a section where the road completely disappears.
The top of the old road grade
This big switchback was a massive mistake
The road turned into a very overgrown trail afer rounding the bend. I opted to turn off at about 1960' since I couldn't see how far the road switched back since the terrain grade below wasn't steep enough to see it on the slope shading. I connected to a trail shown on my map, but it was just more overgrown road. Even after I connected to the road marked on my map, it was still overgrown. However, right before I came to the Wallace River, the trail became real.
Soon after there was a sign marking the boundry for the Wallace Falls State Park with a bridge across the river right behind it.
The sign facing away from the direction I came from
I was not looking forward to crossing the river, so this was great
Did I break this rule?
The sign wasn't quite accurate as it took me only 45m at a casual pace to get to the parking lot. My final time was 6h 47m, which I thought was pretty good. This is faster than Jaiden's time of 8 hours, so I claim the FKT on this super popular traverse. I do wonder how many people have done the full 3-peak traverse; here is everyone I found who has completed the traverse:
1980-2020 — Guy who placed the pink flagging (might've been John Roper's party)
1994 — John Roper, Chris Weber, Bruce Gibbs, Kal Brauner, Amy Carlson, & Dave Housley | 9h 15m (
On a Personal Site)
1999 — Mike, Stefan, & Pilar | 10h 0m (
On WTA)
2024 — Jaiden Atterbury | 8h 0m (On Peakbagger)
2025 — Me | 6h 47m
A total of 11-12 people
Honorable mention to Brian Nelson (On Peakbagger) who did the Nina and Pinta traverse twice but never did Zekes (why?).
Overall, this traverse was more fun than I expected it to be; I'd recommended it to anyone living nearby looking for an afternoon peakbagging session. I'm sure it's cool in the winter too if you're into that (John Roper's party did it in the winter in only 9h 15m, so it can't be that bad).
Photo of the Upper Wallace Falls I took on the way down
