Guye Peak/West Face

I decided that this route has grit; it's not polished like the Tooth. A gnarly scree-field approach, sustained scrambling with attention-grabbing exposure, and a dirty wooded ramp call for "boot-mountaineering".

On the first pitch there is a piton in the upper middle of the corner. It is timely and useful. Each of the rope teams approached the second pitch differently. The first team tied kiwi coils and scrambled up through the notch and around the corner to the final pitch whereas the second team pitched out the same section up through the notch and then carried coils to the base of the last pitch.

The rock was dry throughout. As the West Face is in the shade, the temperature was exceptionally pleasant on such a hot day. We passed a few moments at the summit basking in the sun and pointing out future climbs surrounding our position.

Our time to summit was roughly 5.5 hours. Total trip time was 8 hours. I recommend parking in the Alpental lot and walking the 0.8 miles of road to the talus field. Save yourself the grief of figuring out if your car will be towed. Remember, this climb has grit and a little extra time hiking will do you good.