Basic Alpine Climb - The Tooth/South Face

We got an early, 5:30 AM start to beat the weather.  The Snow Lake TH still had snow, so we took the winter route, staying as far left as possible, traversing steep terrain above tree wells and kicking sometimes shallow steps while ascending the straight up-slope sections.  We used axes and wore crampons to save energy on the slippery packed wet snow.  There were a couple of spots to step across the moat at Pineapple Pass and carefully contoured around to the base of The Tooth.  We were first on the rock, ahead of a WAC group and rapped back down just before the wind and rain started.  We then double rope rapped down the exit gully which was about 2/3 melted out, onto the soft, wet snow for easy plunge stepping.  The stump, rock and stream melt outs are getting thin and we punched through several times.  Back to the car at  4:30 PM at the lower lot, which was the only one open.