Trip Report
Basic Rock Climb - The Tooth/South Face
Successful Tooth climb for basic students despite some tricky traverses over rapidly melting snow bridges
Isley Gao
- Tue, Jun 10, 2025
- 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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NW Forest Pass or Recreation Pass/America the Beautiful pass required at trailhead. Bathrooms were open, clean, and well stocked with toilet paper.
No snow until the first big creek crossing over the boulder field. Firm but bootable in the morning with snow bridges holding steady. Had to kick steps on shaded snow slopes where it was firmer.
The forecast as Snoqualmie Pass had a high of 72F and low of 50F. Summit of the Tooth forecast below. This is following a heat wave and very warm week in Seattle and all mountainous regions in Washington.
We nearly followed the planned itinerary to a tee:
| 5:45 AM | Arrive at Snow Lake Trailhead - NW Forest Pass or Recreation Pass required |
| 6:00 AM | Depart TH, start the approach |
| 9:00 AM | Arrive at base of climb, start climbing |
| 12:00 PM | All parties make it to the summit, start rappelling |
| 2:00 PM | Back to base of climb, start hiking out |
| 5:00 PM | Back to cars at TH |
Participants: 2 rope leads, 3 basic students
Everyone was ready to go at the trailhead on time. Since temps never got below freezing, we decided to leave crampons in cars, but still wore boots and took our ice axes, which we used.
There is no snow until the boulder field with the creek crossing, and then snow is consistent except for where the trail cuts through the trees and where it descends down to cross the runoff creek that drains into source lake.
Consistent snow goes all the way to the notch where you cross over toward the south face of the Tooth. The snow finger still exists and is sturdy enough to stand on, but it is shrinking rapidly. It was not an issue for us to make the step from the snow finger to dirt.
The climbing went quickly for our group of 5 (1 leader + 2 followers, 1 leader + 1 follower), and so did the raps. We had a near miss where a rock dislodged from the last pitch and tumbled down toward pineapple basin. Fortunately no one was below us.
After 4 raps, we down scrambled and hiked back toward the notch, and slowly descended the snow finger and slope back toward where the snow leveled out and headed the way we came. On the way back we got a bit lost as the steps we took in the morning had melted some so we couldn't just follow an obvious boot pack back, but we found the trail eventually.
A few people punched through in some spots, but no one was hurt. The afternoon snow was much softer than in the morning, so descending was slow going as we cautiously traveled over the snow fields back toward the boulder field and source lake trail. The creeks were also running faster, but in general not enough to impact being able to cross them while keeping feet dry.
Everybody was back by cars by 5:30pm where we debriefed, then grabbed some brews at Dru Brew, and later went our separate ways back home.