Basic Rock Climb - The Tooth/South Face

We left the Snow Lake trailhead at exactly 5:45am as planned, Team Clockwork! 

After leaving the trail, we ascended to Great Scott Basin mostly on snow, we never needed crampons but with cooler temperatures it was firm enough that we definitely wanted our ice axes in hand. 

The snow finger leading up to Pineapple pass, location of a minor accident on a Mountaineers trip just a few days prior, was in good shape. On the way up, we all stayed on the finger. I noted that moat on climber's right looked just fine, so on the way down a few of us elected to descend in the moat instead of the finger. 

The climb was great. One of our new rope leaders did some extensive testing of "what happens if I really shove this gear into this crack", and gained valuable experience in gear extraction while on rappel. We were happy not to add to the cornucopia of stuck gear that is on the route!

We did a double rope rappel from the top, and then two single rope rappels. No issues with ropes getting stuck. With a team of 6, we started climbing at 9am, were all on the summit at noon, finished the rappels at 2:30pm, back at the cars at 5:15pm, so an 11 1/2h round trip. We were the first people to the summit, and the first climbers behind us started descending just after us so no traffic jams at all, which cannot be said for I-90.