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The Tooth (5604 ft) South Face July 20, 2004

My friend Greg, just back from an expedition to Denali, was interested in doing some rock climbing so I suggested the Tooth. I had climbed the Tooth three times before, so I felt that this would be a fun, easy climb. Little did I know that during a dry summer when the snow is all gone, the approach trail via the Alpental ski area becomes a wet, dense, jungle! My previous trips to this area were in winter or early spring so we were able to follow a well established cattrack-ski-boot track all the way into Source Lake. Today I hardly recognized the area! Fallen logs, dense slide alder, and steep muddy trails slowed our pace to a crawl. When the trail we were on continued to climb up instead of traversing north up the valley, we decided to cut our losses and return to the parking lot and approach via the longer, but well established Snow Lake trail.

Our pants and boots were covered in mud as we got back in the car to drive down to the lower Alpental parking lot. We looked like we had already done a climb! On the Snow Lake trail we met lots of folks out enjoying the mountains. Soon we could look across the valley to the jungle where we had been struggling only an hour earlier. We took the Source Lake overlook turn off and contoured around the Source Lake basin towards the Tooth. The trail ended in a talus field near the edge of some trees. We spent some time looking for a trail that we hoped would continue contouring, allowing us to not lose any elevation. But in the end, we again decided to cut our losses and make our way down the talus field and then up the other side to where we could see a trail higher up.

Our extened hike was livened by a spirited discussion on politics, business, and social issues. Once we crossed the lake basin we regained the trail which climbed up steeply into the upper basin where the Tooth loomed over us. I was amazed at how little snow there was. Instead of slogging directly up snow we had to hop from rock to rock and weave our way around huge boulders. We did find a trail on the eastern edge of the basin which helped. We hiked on 40 yards of snow before we scrambled up to Pineapple Pass. We heard voices of other climbers rappeling as we scrambled up the back side to the start of the route. When planning this trip I looked up on the Mountaineers climbing website and learned the they had a climb scheduled today also. So at the notch we visited with Art, Jim, and six others. Since I'm a also a Mountaineer member and had done this climb both as a basic student and as an intermediate student I knew the routine well. The basic students had the wide-eyed "I just cheated death" look about them, while the climb leader and intermediate rope leads were laughing, and telling stories of wild adventure of climbs past.

Greg and I put on our harnesses and flaked out our rope as the rest of the Mountaineers rappeled down. We decided to start up when we heard that the last two coming down were dealing with a stuck rope on one of the upper rappels. I started up thinking back to last winter when Michael, Theron and I made an attempt. I climbed up to the slung chockstone, anchored in and then called off belay. Greg climbed up quickly and soon appeared, smiling and commenting on what a beautiful area this was. The last two Mountaineers freed their rope and rappelled past us so now we had the route all to ourselves.

We climbed up the next two pitches, leisurely enjoying the splendid scenery. At the beginning of the fourth pitch I pointed out the variations that we could take to the summit. We decided on taking the "cat walk" since it is such a fun part of this climb. I tried to protect the traverse for Greg when he followed but there was still a bit of a runout leading to the "step-across". When I reached to top, I set up an anchor near the edge so I could watch Greg as he climbed the traverse. I snapped a picture of him, and he took a great picture that shows the ledge and the exposure quite well.

As he climbed up, Greg commented on what a great view this pitch offered. At the top we untied from the rope and scrambled up to the summit and took in the sights. I'm sure it wasn't as spectacular as the summit of Denali, but Greg and I were happy to be here none-the-less. After some food and some pictures we started the series of rappels down. Just as we were rappelling to the base, another party of three arrived.

To avoid having to scramble down the steep, loose gully from Pineapple Pass, we decided to rappel directly down from the start of the route. Two rappels later we were back in the basin. It was slow going making our way down the scree and boulder field, back to the Source Lake basin and then back up to the Snow Lake trail. But we both agreed that we were fortunate to have the opportunity and the ability to experience both the exhaustion and the euphoria.