Did this climb with Candice and Jake. Poor Jake hasn't been able to join me on any 14ers this year so he was starting to get flabby. Not really... I was eager to find the correct route up and down this mountain, because the last time I climbed Yale there was some snow on the trail and I took strange routes up and down the mountain.

We started off from the trailhead at 07:10 under clear skies and no wind. About a mile down the trail we crossed Denny Creek and continued up the trail roughly northeast, and came across a signed junction shortly thereafter. We took the right fork (marked "Yale") and soon started climbing in earnest. The trail switchbacked up a steep slope, then dropped down and across a creek then continued up through the woods. This was the point I took the wrong trail two years ago; back then I followed some tracks directly up the slope and missed the trail.

We crossed the creek, pausing for Jake to get a good drink of water. The trail continued up through the woods, then broke above treeline. From here the trail more or less went straight up the hill, with few switchbacks. It was steep but the view got better and better and we just tried to move slowly to keep from getting too tired. At around 13,900' we reached Yale's northwest ridge, separated from the summit by a short ridge walk over some rugged rock. A couple trails can be found on either side of the ridge, but I tried to follow the ridge line as far as I could. Jake went with me but reached a spot that he didn't want to pass, so I backtracked with Jake and followed a trail toward the summit. At 10:40 we reached the summit; this was Candice's 10th 14er, all done this year.

The clouds were developing rather quickly and I thought it best to take a quick break and start down before a storm developed. We made good time on the way back down, and it never did rain on us though the clouds looked bad to our north. We passed a group of about 10 backpackers and Jake didn't give them any trouble - I was so proud. We reached treeline and Jake got his fill of water, then we continued our fast pace down the trail to the parking lot. Our time down was about 2 hours.