Trip Report
Basic Rock Climb - The Tooth/South Face
Our party of 6 hiked up via upper Source Lake and followed the traditional route to Pineapple Pass. We skirted a potentially dangerous undercut snow remnant above the lake. There was a little moderate snow in Great Scott Basin. Ours was the first party on the route, surprisingly little traffic up there that day.
Hadi Al-Saadoon
- Tue, Jul 27, 2021
- Basic Rock Climb - The Tooth/South Face
- The Tooth/South Face
- Climbing
- Successful
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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See above. Avoid crossing existing snow above Source Lake, as it is undercut by a stream. The surface is extremely thin at that point and punching through will result in a 15’ fall onto talus.
We were a party of six on a pretty warm day. I (Hadi Al-Saadoon) took over the leader’s role from Mark Scheffer, who had suffered a hamstring injury earlier in the week. The approach followed the Snow Lake trail, diverging to above Source Lake where one drops south on talus to cross above the lake. The usual climbers path beyond was easy to follow up to Great Scott Basin and beyond until the final slopes to the notch at the Pineapple. There were many small streams flowing along the approach, so obtaining water was not a problem. We were the first party on the route, joined at the summit by a father/son team who participated in our rappelling to the base of the climb, one double and two single rappels. Another party of two were at the base of the route who began climbing after we’d pulled the last rappel rope. There was a lot of flowering heather along the approach.
My Apple Watch exercise app recorded a round trip of 8 miles, which is highly doubtful. Total elevation gain was around 2600’.
