Trip Report
The Tooth/The Tooth Fairy
Despite the nice weather and good snow, there were surprisingly few people in the pass and, our group of four were the only ones with plans to climb. Half our party made it up to the summit as we ran out of time to get out.
Zachary Elkins
- Sat, Mar 28, 2026
- The Tooth/The Tooth Fairy
- Successful
-
- Road suitable for all vehicles
-
Snow was great for skiing, but hard to make a solid skin track in, and icy near the top.
The rock was dry and snow free up until the 5th pitch, where ice melt made the hardest moves soaking wet.
Skinning in (7:45am)
The source lake trail was solid at the start, but became a bumpy bootpack for long stretches. Turning in to Pineapple Pass the snow was great, to the point where we considered just doing laps to take advantage of it instead of continuing on to The Tooth. With soft snow came tough skinning. We were blowing steps out of the track left and right as the soft snow fell out from under us. As we approached the notch there were steep patches of ice that were difficult to traverse without ski crampons, so we boot packed up the rest of the way (with a stop at the base of the South-West face to take a look at that route).
Getting to the first pitch (11:30am)
From the notch we dropped our ski and avvy gear to lighten our packs and started back down the other side towards the north face of The Tooth. We had to side climb with ice axes, kicking steps across an icy face to for most of the way. Despite bringing crampons, we ditched them with our skis not thinking we'd need them for the rest of the approach. They really would've come in handy here. We setup on some rocks and had lunch as we laid out our boots and socks to dry and donned our climbing gear.
Tooth Fairy (12:45am)
Despite The Tooth looking like it had a nice layer of snow on if from the south side, the north side was mostly snow free from the sunlight it had been getting for the few days since the last snowfall. The first pitch was straightforward, and the second was a long cruiser section, but beware of a few big blocks that are pretty tempting holds but just loose enough to feel like a bad choice. We linked together the third and fourth pitches, by the last few bolts the rope drag was pretty strong, despite extending some alpine draws to try and combat too much zig-zagging.
The start of the fifth pitch was fine, but when the first member of our group got to the crux they yelled down that it was completely wet. He ended up taking the initiative to do a sketchy traverse around to the left of the route to go up and over the wet section, and continue climbing from a bolt above the 5th pitch anchors. During this process he got the rope caught in an area he couldn't down climb to. We sent up the other leader from the second rope to free it and he continued climbing up to the summit. Despite planning on linking pitches 5 and 6, this is where we probably should've reassessed, setup at the 5th station and made a plan. Communication was near impossible over the wind that had just started coming in, so we wasted a lot of time waiting around. I was the lucky one anchored in to the bolt just below the crux getting soaked from the water dripping off the rocks above me.
Due to us wasting a ton of time sorting this out, and lots of wind moving in, we ended up sending the follower of the first rope up (ascending the rope instead of climbing for the wet section), and gave him the end of the second rope to pass through the 5th anchors to lower me back down to the base of the 5th and rap off, as they setup a rappel above us. Luckily we were the only ones on the route so we could safely rap down the main route without getting in anyone's way.
Return to the Cars (6:00pm)
The walk back to the notch was much better after the sun had softened the snow. We were able to get out boot in more than just the edge, making it much easier. The one confident skier in our group transitioned straight from the notch and waited for us by Chair Peak while we down-climbed to a less steep and narrow section to put our skis on. After a short while the less confident skiers among us took off our skis again to walk down some steeper sections. It was not fun to post-hole through otherwise perfect skiing snow (The rest of us are are former snowboarders who would've loved to be able to ride this), but once the terrain mellowed out a bit the skin track back to the cars made quick work of the last mile.
Back to the car (8:30pm)
Despite the long and only half-successful day, we were all happy with the day as we packed out stuff in to the dark and empty parking lot.