Climb, ski the La Sal Mountains (Mount Tukuhnikivatz)
A panorama view looking west and north from the summit of 12,482-foot Mount Tukuhnikivatz in the La Sal Mountains near Moab.
Climb Mount Tukuhnikivatz in the La Sal Mountains of Utah via Tuk Cirque
Start: Geyser Pass Winter Recreation Area, 9,600 feet
Destination: Mount Tukuhnikivatz summit, 12,482
Vertical rise: 3,700 feet (give or take)
Round trip: 10 miles
Time: 5-8 hours
Mount Tukuhnikivatz is a picturesque 12,482-foot peak in the La Sal Mountains of Utah, and it’s listed as one of the fifty classic ski descents of North America. While it’s a formidable mountain that deserves respect, Tukuhnikivatz is not a complicated ski mountaineering puzzle.
Climbing Mount Tukuhnikivatz from the north involves a straightforward 2- to 3-mile approach, a relatively protected climb to about 11,000 feet, and a final 1,500 feet of climbing through mixed avalanche terrain. Ski crampons, boot crampons and an ice axe aren’t mandatory, but there’s at least one steep section where you’ll probably be glad to have them.
There are a variety of ski lines on Mount Tukuhnikivatz, but skiing the same route described here for the climb is most straightforward and brings the same hazards into play in reverse.
The climb and ski combined cover about 10 miles and 3,700 feet of elevation gain. I’m in average to above average physical condition (far from a hard-core endurance athlete), and the outing took me six hours total, and about four hours of actual moving time.
The lure of the La Sal Mountains
The La Sal Mountains are a postcard of the American West. Viewed from the red-rock desert around Moab, they’re the essence of what people imagine when they think about the land Wallace Stegner coined the “native home of hope.”
With perfect conical shapes, timbered slopes and treeless crowns often coated with snow, the La Sal Mountains stand in stark contrast to the red-rock desert that envelopes Moab, Utah.
For about 10 years my wife and I have been going to Moab to ride bikes and experience warm weather during spring and fall. As a backdrop for our desert adventures, I’ve always looked at the La Sals as if they were a world away. I knew there was a hut system up there and dreamed about climbing one of the high peaks, but I never took my own goal seriously—until I did.
With our pickup full of camping and mountain biking gear, we were almost ready to leave Idaho. It was a planning afterthought, but it was spring and I knew the snowpack might be stable. I threw my backcountry skis and some winter gear into the truck, not sure if I’d use it or not. If conditions were right and the opportunity arose, at least I had my gear.
Checking avalanche and weather conditions
As for any backcountry ski adventure, it’s imperative to get a sense for the snowpack and weather before even suiting up. The Utah Avalanche Center offers excellent snowpack summaries and avalanche forecasts, and I generally go to the National Weather Service for weather forecasts because you can select different elevations for more focused temperature, wind and cloud forecasts.
In between sessions riding bikes on Moab’s unique desert slickrock I monitored the avalanche report and weather and scoured the internet for information about a variety of winter mountaineering routes. I wasn’t committed to Tukuhnikivatz at first, and read about routes on Mount Waas, Mont Mellanthin, Mount Peale, and Haystack Mountain, but the more I read the more it seemed like Tuk was one of the most accessible big missions.
I found a relatively easy-looking route that climbed and descended a north-facing slope, the aspect avalanche forecasters predicted to be most stable. The weather was predicted to be calm.
It wasn’t the safest thing to do by myself, but conditions were near-perfect. I reasoned that even if I just skied to the mountain’s base, I could still turn around and enjoy a day among pine trees, snow and chirping birds.
I set an alarm for 5 a.m. and went to bed early, declining to drink another beer with my friends.
Climbing Mount Tukuhnikivatz
Driving to the trailhead at dawn. Tuk is the prominent, pointy mountain at the center of this frame.
Faint sun rose over the LaSal Mountains as I drove from Moab in Spanish Valley and turned left onto La Sal Loop Road toward Geyser Pass Road and Geyser Pass. The sun eventually came out and created an orange glow behind cobbled clouds and a sliver of moon.
Mount Tukuhnikivatz was silhouetted on the horizon. From Moab, it’s the most obvious high peak on the right side of the range, with a dramatic, angled slope that drops thousands of feet from a conical summit to the south. That’s one of the skiable lines, but my line would be on the more reliably cold north face.
Geyser Pass Snow Park
The Geyser Pass Snow Park is a large parking lot at 9,600 feet and provides access to groomed Nordic ski trails, abundant backcountry ski terrain, snowmobile terrain, and at least a couple of bookable huts. It’s the farthest the plows clear Geyeser Pass Road in the winter.
Geyser Pass Snow Park sees a lot of diverse use ranging from dog walkers to serious backcountry skiers. On my outing on April 4, 2021, Easter Sunday, the lot was a big patch of red-brown dirt covered in ice in the morning and mud in the afternoon.
The Mount Tukuhnikivatz approach
Getting a good look at Mount Tukuhnikivatz from the north during the approach.
From the parking lot you can follow the groomed Geyser Pass Road about a mile to Gold Basin Road, which is also groomed. It’s also possible to save mileage by turning right into the woods about a half-mile out of the parking lot to cut the big switchback formed by the two roads.
Whether you take Gold Basin Road from its intersection with Geyser Pass Road or gain it after cutting the switchback, take Gold Basin Road until it ends. Note that after the initial climb, it descends past Gold Basin Yurt on the right and bottoms out along Brumley Creek. At the road’s end, you’ll be looking up at Tuk North and a massive avalanche path, and you’ll just barely be able to see Mount Tukuhnikivatz behind and to the left. After leaving the road, find the creek (a tributary of Brumley Creek) and follow it upstream toward Tuk’s lower slopes.
Tukuhnikivatz north ridge
The first line you’ll pass that makes sense to climb is Tuk’s north ridge. It follows the obvious spine with pretty big cliffs and exposure to the northwest. Based on my online research, this is the line I thought I was going to climb, but when I got to the base, it was easily clear that as a solo climber I should climb via the much safer and less exposed Mount Tuk Cirque.
Climbing Mount Tuk Cirque
Even if you start climbing the north ridge, you can skin east (left) to gain Tuk Cirque, or you can follow the creek until you arrive at the cirque’s bottom.
Mount Tuk Cirque is a wide-open bowl bordered by high cliffs on the lower flank of Mount Peale on the left and Tuk’s north ridge on the right. It’s easy to follow gentle terrain while giving the steep slopes above a wide berth.
Climbing Mount Tuk Cirque up to about 11,000 feet isn’t complicated, but that’s about the elevation where things get a bit spicier.
Tuk final approach
Looking up the east summit ridge from the saddle is deceiving. It’s about another 500 vertical feet of climbing from here.
Above about 11,000 feet, there are two distinct sections to navigate. The first involves the uppermost sections of Mount Tuk Cirque, which gets ever-steeper until you arrive at the high ridge between Tuk and Mount Peale. Depending on the time of year, you’ll also probably encounter, however, a formidable wind slab near the ridgeline.
I skinned most of the way up, but I did not have ski crampons, boot crampons or an ice axe, and I wish I’d had all three. Somewhere around 11,600 feet, I realized the terrain was too steep to continue with skis and skins alone. But I’d already gone too far to make an easy transition. So I spent some time carving out a platform where I could put the skis on my back and start booting the rest of the way to the ridge.
The hike to the ridge went smoothly, but when I arrived at a wind slab near the ridge I was nervous for multiple reasons. For one, the slab wasn’t sure to hold, and I was alone. Second, without crampons, it was possible I’d slip and fall on the smooth surface, and, again, I was alone.
Mount Tuk summit ridge
When I arrived at the ridge, I felt like I’d finished the hardest part of the climb. And I probably had. However, from the saddle to Tuk’s summit involves 500 feet of climbing up relatively exposed slopes that face south and east and are almost as steep as the upper cirque.
Because of the different aspect, an entirely different avalanche evaluation is necessary. On my climb (and ski) the upper cirque was cold powder and wind slab, while the summit ridge was punchy slush that made for a steep slog to the summit.
Mount Tukuhnikivatz ski
From the summit of Mount Tukuhnikivatz looking east down the ridge climbed toward Mount Peale and the Colorado-Utah border.
There are ski lines on nearly every aspect of Mount Tukuhnikivatz’s picturesque, conical contours. The lines on the south drop more than 3,000 feet to La Sal Pass Road while the climbing line described above—the line I skied—drops about 2,000 feet down the east ridge into Tuk Cirque and Gold Basin.
My weather was fairly warm (or I started a little late, or went too slow), and I skied very mixed conditions. The snow off the top, an east/southeast exposure, was soft—probably too soft. I learned after returning home that day there’d been a warm-snow avalanche in the vicinity. My descent from the ridge went well, although it wasn’t fun trying to link turns in slushy boot-top muck.
Dropping into the cirque by scooting across the wind slab was the most nerve-wracking move I made all day—probably scarier than skiing the upper mountain’s slush because of the exposure below. The slab stayed put, though, and once I arrived in the soft snow below I was comfortable, and the skiing was very good the rest of the way to the valley floor.
‘not long, suffering or terrifying’
Professional skier and ski mountaineer Cody Townsend did a well-publicized climb and descent of Mount Tukuhnikivatz a few years ago. The video features Navajo perspectives about land and conservation, as well as the unique scenery inherent to climbing in the alpine with the red-rock desert below.
But Townsend—who’s spent the last few ski mountaineering seasons pursing many of the most challenging lines in North America—also talks about the day’s relative ease.
It’s “great to have a line that’s not either long, suffering or terrifying,” Townsend said.
If you’re planning a trip on Tukuhnikivatz, keep in mind that Townsend is extremely thorough with his preparations and has accumulated a lifetime of experience in the mountains. Things can and do go wrong in the La Sal mountains, and people should be prepared for inclement weather, medical emergencies, gear malfunctions and more.
Mount Tukuhnikivatz is an achievable ski mountaineering objective for a lot of people, but what’s tough for one person is a walk in the park for another. As achievable as it is, Mount Tukuhnikivatz is still a 10-mile, 3,700-foot climb through mixed avalanche terrain, and people need to give themselves honest assessments about how tough that will actually be for them.