Mount Yukla (7535')
by Willy Hersman, Scree 7/86

As one hikes up the Eagle River trail it would be difficult not to notice the great craggy walls and scree-filled gullies which make up the peak named Yukla (7535').  With all its decaying cliffs and numerous intertwinning gullies to nowhere, I've always thought of Yukla as kind of an ugly mountain.  But Todd Miner gave me a call one day to go climb the thing and along with Mike Miller how could I resist to step on the highest point above the valley?

We started late on June 9th and hiked to Twin Falls, about 8 miles from the visitor's center, making camp on a river bar.  Todd cooked a steak as we figured out a way to tackle the brush the next morning.  The brushy cliffs next to the falls turned out to be a fairly easy obstacle as we ripped our way through very early in the morning.

Up the hanging valley below the south face we went, bearing left over rather firm snow (in the morning anyway) to a small glacier with a few devious cracks.  Carefully passing these on the left we continued to a pass at 6250. Without missing a step in the upward pace we noted the Icicle Glacier below and traversed northwest to an obvious large snow gully.  This gully takes one nearly all the way except for the last 200 feet which can be easily kick-stepped on the NE ridge.

It's a twin summit and we waited for a hole in the clouds to determine which was higher (west summit).  Before noon we drank a summit beer and searched for the register.  Greg Higgins placed it there in 1980, but it appears to have disappeared.  As far as I can tell we were about the 7th or 8th ascent.  (F.A. 1966, A. Davidson, J. Bousman).

This is the "standard" route up Yukla, and involves an elevation gain of almost 7000' in a day, which took about 6 hours.

Probably the most daring attempt on Yukla was one done in the winter of 83-84 by two very capable locals, Charlie Sassara and Marty Schmidt.  They spent 5 days on the 3 1/2-mile long west ridge, starting at its beginning near the trail.  The climb, mostly on rock, included a bivy in a nasty storm.  And although they stopped just short of the summit, it seems unlikely that anyone will ever complete their route.