Gwaihir

This is the classic easy ridge climb of the Yukon. Reminiscent of Alpha East Ridge or DOA Buttress on Blackcomb Peak down south. The route is mostly 3rd/4th class scrambling with a few low 5th moves thrown in every once in awhile and one pitch of 5.7 climbing. The line does feel somewhat contrived as you're never more than 1-2 rappels away from scrambling in the gully (and even merges briefly toward the end) but it's still a fun adventure outing with amazing views. To do it in a reasonable amount of time you will either need to solo or simul large sections of the climb, pitching the entire thing out would be unnecessary and extremely slow. A lot of the rock is loose and blocky, you should be experienced in testing holds, routefinding, and using alpine protection such as slung blocks, threads, and terrain belays.

After the approach, you'll find yourself in a gully split by two rocky ridges and ending in a small cirque. Find your way to the ridge proper of the one on the left with the yellow bulge, closest to the very large gully coming down the south face. Once established on the ridge proper climb over bulges and knife edges past the cirque connecting the two lower ridge sections. Here you'll cross a short knife edge spot toward a steep-ish section, this is the crux pitch. There seem to be various options here with an exposed left facing corner to the left, juggy (but unprotectable) terrain in the middle, and loose blocky scrambing to the right. We took the corner to the left, which turned out to be a lot of fun and well protected. Pick your way through easy loose climbing to reach the start of the corner. From here, climb the short sequence using the crack, licheny slab holds, and the arete with good protection and rests the whole way. After you top out on the corner, climb around one more short step to find a perfect handcrack belay. 

Follow more of the same terrain until the ridge meets the gully. This is the final section of the ridge and you'll find generally easy scrambling until a pitch below the top. At this point, the ridge narrows and you will encounter some trickier and exposed moves before summitting with a good boulder belay. We chose to pitch this last section out as well. 

Descent: We contoured the backside of the peak toward Carcross before reaching a very obvious split in the ridgeline. Travelling south through the talus filled split, we found our way to a vegetated slope with the option of either a gully to the right or a spur to the left. We followed the spur as it looked like less bushwhacking. Eventually we reached a willow patch and from here bushwhacked our way back to the road. Most of the bushwhacking is relatively easy but long, tedious, and steep. 

Park at the small pullout passed the Choutla Lake sign located here: 60.209729410666014, -134.63846938187226. From the highway, begin buswhacking. Aiming for the obvious large gully. Make sure you don't cross this gully too late or you'll have to do some sketchy downclimbing on loose rock. Once on the right side of the gully, aim toward a rocky knoll before the main ridge. This knoll was probably the sketchiest part of the day with extremely loose scrambling. We contoured it's left side but it's possible that the right could be easier. Once on top of this knoll, you'll see a talus filled gully to the right formed between two rocky ridges. You're aiming for the ridge on the left with the light coloured granite bump, the one that is immediately beside the very large gully coming down the south face.

All trad, no fixed anchors. We brought a rack from 0.3 to 3 and a set of nuts, with a few extra finger sized pieces. I would probably bring a full double next time just to extend the simul blocks as long as possible. Bring many shoulder and double length slings for extensions and slinging/threading for pro. A long length of cord or webbing for the big boulders would be ideal as well.