Elevation Gain: 3,055m
Distance: 41.69km
Total Time: 2 days
Date: September 27th, 2025
(Stats include the The Deacon, Orthodox and our traverse)
Just a kilometer and a half from the summit of The Deacon stood Orthodox Mountain. It was too close not to pay a visit and Alex and I had enough daylight to make it happen. Orthodox itself is not a spectacular summit by any stretch, but it had some interesting looking views to the West.
With that we set off from The Deacon and contoured along the ridge avoiding any elevation loss where possible. From the col, we scrambled a foreshortened ways up the east ridge until we reached the pleasant open summit ridge. A small cairn and a survey marker marked the top.
To the west and south stood the broad expanse of the Pasayten Wilderness. The forests looked sickly or burned and this did not strike me as pleasant terrain to ramble through. A ways to the west I could see Sheep Mountain, an area I’d been to some 3 years prior. Further south some interesting looking summits in the states caught our eye too. We’d later find out that one peak in particular: Cathedral Peak boasts an all time class 5.9 route. Something to see in the future!
As the sun indicated it’s pending departure, we finally hopped down from the summit and spotted an alternative route back to camp. A long running gully that would see us skipping some unduly elevation gain towards The Deacon. This gully deposited us just West of camp and we boulder hopped and traversed back to our meadow. We reached camp just as the light faded to dark. A quick dinner was assembled and then lights out to get ready for our traverse the next morning.
