Basic Rock Climb - The Tooth/South Face

Trip Report

Gear: Small rack of 0.3-3, ice axes, helmets, crampons, 3 60m ropes.
Time: 14 hours C2C (4 hours to the base, 3 hours to the top, 4 hours down, 3 hours to the car).
Team: 2 rock leads, 1 intermediate student, 3 basic students

We lucked out with a gorgeous sunny day to attempt the Tooth. It was a first alpine climb for the 4 of us and everyone brought a great attitude to make this climb a success. We started at 6am and finished around 8:40pm

Snow Lake summer trail is mostly melted out, with small snow patches, up until the turnoff to the Source lake. Then, the fun begins! Once you cross the trail fork, there's immediately a cover of spring snow with rapidly melting out creek crossings. There are three sketchy bridges that were stable for us but will likely melt out in the next few weeks.

Source lake basin is still mostly covered with snow but patches of boulder fields are starting to melt out.

After traversing the boulder field to the bottom of the first big climb towards the Pineapple Pass, the snow is more consistent and well packed. We brought crampons but even in the early morning the snow was firm but bootable.

The main gully that has the infamously sketchy crossing has a stable snow bridge that's starting to melt out along the edges and starting to get small moats.

By 9am the snow was so soft we were sinking to our shins and had to break the rest of the trail up to the Pineapple Pass. We didn't bring snowshoes but with how heavy and packed the snow was the snowshoes would likely be a hindrance. There's no moat at the Pineapple Pass but the pass is guarded by a steep bank of snow that can be nerve-racking if you're not used to steep snow.

Not only that, but the wrap around to the base of the South Route has a lot of steep snow with moats starting to open up. We set up a handline to get over some of the sketchier parts and that ate up quite a bit of time. In the end we ended up rappelling the dirty gully from the base of the South route instead of figuring out the scramble back.

The route was snow-free and we ran into Ian Nicholson and Tino Villanueva who passed us and gave a lot of encouragement to the students! Definitely a highlight on such a beautiful day.

All rappel anchors looked in great shape, and someone has set up a super solid rappel anchor at the bottom of the 3rd pitch. Top of the 3rd pitch had the sketchiest anchor so if you’re doing single rappels, it may need some love.

For newer trad leaders like me, the second pitch is the least protectable and most exposed (if you don't take the catwalk at pitch 4, which is also exposed). I brought a black Totem that I used, and there are a few rusty old pitons that I probably wouldn't trust with my life but slung anyway for mental pro. Otherwise the biggest crux is the route-finding and I was very lucky to have 2 leaders who knew where to go.

As mentioned, we rappelled down the dirty north east gully  with 2 60m ropes and downclimbed the steep snow.

All in all a wonderful day! Thank you to everyone who shared the experience and good luck to the next climbers!

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