Basic Rock Climb - The Tooth/South Face

The toilets are open.  BYOTP. (Bring your own toilet paper!) The westbound onramp at the Alpental/Exit 52 is closed, so on the return to Seattle, you will need to drive east and get back on I-90 at Exit 53.

The last easily accessible (not needing to make the transition to rock from snow) running water  is above Source Lake. We filtered water at the end of the Source Lake Trail on the way out and the way back. 

The first boulder field above Source Lake is snow free. 

The second boulder field had easy-to-cross snow. 

When making the transition back into the treeline, crossing the final boulder/snow field, we stayed low to avoid crossing thin snowbridges. 

Shortly after starting the ascent into Great Scott Basin, we were able to stay on snow most of the way.  

Participants took turns kicking steps along the way.

Once we reached Pineapple Pass, we had to cross a rock moat carefully before making it onto the final snow finger.  One could avoid this by staying in the center of Great Scott Basin and traversing above the uncovered rock.  

We did not have much trouble with punching through snow, on either way.  One the return trip, we made sure to retrace our steps, both with visual cues and occasionally referring to the GPX track we kept on the way out. 

The snow finger is in good shape, and it ends in a 3-foot drop off to the rock.  Some were tall enough to sit on the edge and slide down onto their feet; others employed a semi-au cheval move to get off.

There is a little bit of snow on the scramble around, but it is easy to cross or to avoid.

The anchor at the top of Pitch 1 is new and fancy--made out of cordalette with the back side wrapped in webbing.  There is a similar anchor for rappelling at the mid-mountain rappel station.  We built our own anchor at the top of Pitch 2.  There is an existing anchor at the top of Pitch 3 with two strands of cordalette and one strand of webbing.  The tails of the fisherman knots on the cordalettes are not in good shape, but the webbing strand was.  Rappel station at the top of the mountain is in good shape.