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Trip Report    

Basic Alpine Climb - The Tooth/South Face

Nice hike in the snow and the rain, but no summit.

Ian Dickson Ian Dickson
May 20, 2018
  • Road suitable for all vehicles

  • We followed the winter route along source creek to source lake and up the vague boot path through the trees and into Great Scott Basin.  The route was in excellent shape, good snow for hiking, kicking steps and glissading.  

    However, the transition from snow to rock proved sketchy with steep snow and an undercut moat with a sketchy snow bridge.  I went up solo to check it out and we opted to go over the saddle to the East and then backtrack along the base of the crags to Pineapple Pass.  Way less stressful.

We knew from the parking lot that climb would probably not go because of the persistence of precipitation and rain.  The group had a fantastic attitude, however, and even with only a 10% estimated chance of success, we decided to go up and have a look at the route.  A great decision as we had what, to me, was a really nice walk in the snow, with no one else around.

We were able to take the winter route up and over the saddle to the east of Pineapple Pass, then drop down ~200` on the S. side and traverse along the base until we could make our way up to the start of the route.  We scrambled to the first belay, took a look at the route running with water and wisely bailed.   We rapped the sketchy wet gully back to the snow.

The snow was excellent for kicking steps and glissading and we had three nice foot and butt glissades on the day.  The most memorable being from the saddle down into Great Scott Basin.

We left the cars at about 530am and were back by 12pm.

Great group!    Thanks to everyone who participated.