On October 10 local Anchorage climber John Kelley and I walked to the north face of Mt. Yukla, via Icicle Creek, for some early season alpine climbing. We climbed a previously tried line that shared its start with two of John’s established routes, before cutting left up an obvious ramp. We soloed sticky crux alpine ice at the beginning of the route to the divergence from the other two lines, where we roped up for steep, poorly protected snow climbing. The remainder of the route consisted of moderate mixed climbing, to M4, following the ramp system to the top of the ca 6,000' sub peak of Yukla. It was a 14-hour roundtrip from the boulder bivouac, with a descent via the Icicle Glacier. We called the route Most People are DJs (2,000', IV AI4 M4), after the song by Hold Steady.

Aaron Thrasher