Climbing The Tooth (First Alpine Climb)

Sunday 10/1/2023

The Tooth, South Face (5.4 Trad)

~2.5 mile, 2500 ft approach (one way)

First things first– it's fall. So Greg, Paul, Liz and I spent Saturday morning apple picking at Skipley Farm. This place is a great hidden gem. The farm was eccentric and fun, especially Reggie the pig– who will gladly take any leftover apples off your hands. Skipley Farm is dog friendly (after 3PM on weekends).

Nice find, Paul!

In the evening, we dropped Max off at Downtown Dog Lounge and drove up to Snoqualamie Pass.

There was one other party camping in the lot, but they were climbing a different route on The Tooth (Tooth Fairy, 5.9). Just like our Baker climb, I woke up right after dreaming of our successful climb. Time to do it "again"!

We set the alarm for 4AM to be on trail around 5.

The route first follows Snow Lake Trail, which is lovely and moderately graded. A bit after a mile and a half (and about ~700ft of elevation gain), there's a turn off for Snow Lake. Continue straight towards Source Lake. This trail is brushier, but still fairly well maintained until you reach the boulder fields beneath Chair Peak.

The boot path is cruiser (definitely the easiest way) but navigation is easy without it (just head up, towards The Tooth– which you can see most of the way!). If you lose the path, it makes way more sense to just continue up towards Great Scott Bowl than to waste an hour trying to find "the right path", which some people online report doing. You'll rejoin the main boot path at some point.

Come prepared with route beta, but I honestly found the approach beautiful and much easier than reported online.

Once you've ascended up the talus of Great Scott Bowl, you'll come to two gullies close together on your right. Pass the first gully (closest to The Tooth); this gully has looser rock and serves as the optional final rappel route. Ascend the second, more stable gully to the left of the pointy rock fin.

The gully is an easy scramble up (even for someone afraid of unroped heights like me). Take a second to look back at the views from the top!

Scramble down steep trees/dirt/occasional rocks from the top of the gully. Again, not that bad.

Eventually you'll come to a sloping cliff edge. My heart dropped, as my eyes frantically searched the terrain for an easy way down. None.

I was terrified that we'd done all this work to get here just for me to wimp out and make us go home. I had no idea how I was going to get down this cliff.

Greg joined me, and we realized that we're actually supposed to keep right and turn a corner around a rock wall, and begin climbing back up some third class to the base of The Tooth's South Face route. Relieved, I made the step over, bearhugging the rock above the steep drop easily. This part might make you sweat if you're afraid of heights (I read in trip reports that some parties put a handline in here), but I was just so glad we got to go this "easier" way! We were going to climb this mountain after all!

We reached the base of the climb around 9:20AM at a leisurely pace. We were still first on the route! We planned an early start on a shoulder-season Sunday for a reason.

The third class scramble to the base of the route was easy, blocky climbing. I was pleased with my own growth as a climber, my bravery, and most of all– to be done with the scrambling for the day! I knew the approach, rather than the technical climbing, would be the crux of the day for me.

My brain hates unroped exposure. I know that in certain situations, a rope may not actually help much. But when I'm tied into a figure-8 knot, my anxieties melt away.

It's something I'm working on. And apparently my working-on-it is working! I never froze up, and I never even doubted myself.

It felt great to push past my self-imposed boundaries. When searching for alpine climbs, I seek approaches and routes that limit scrambling. I'm often more nervous about the approach and descent than the actual technical climbing cruxes. Cruising the third class approach, making it to the base of the climb and knowing we'd even get to climb at all - I felt the doors of so many routes and opportunities I had closed begin to open back up to me.

We didn't rope up for the scramble but some teams/climbing clubs utilize quick belay techniques for the scrambling terrain.

We set aside our hiking poles and approach shoes, taking care to ensure they would be out of the way of others who come up after us. Greg used two poles but I only brought one. Since its easy to stow gear at the base, next time I'd probably bring two myself for added stability on the talus fields.

Pitch 1– 5.3, 100 feet

The crux (for me) was a large, tricky boulder wedged on a ramp near the start. It seemed like other parties might pass in the gap underneath it, but Greg went over and made it look easy. The move was a bit awkward for me, but I eventually got it.

The pitch follows easy ramps that trend left, then right until a vertical crack. End the pitch at a large, slung block.

Another party of three, one of only two other groups we would see climbing the route all day, arrived soon after I reached the anchor.

Trad/crack climbing is such a different style from the face/sport climbing I've been focused on since 2019! This was only my second time following trad since pre-COVID (when I used to do it way more).

Pitch 2 – 5.4, 100 feet

This pitch was fun! It heads straight up the face, following a series of blocks and cracks that take you from ledge to ledge. The pitch ends at another large ledge, with a tree anchor.

We missed the standard anchor, but simply used another suitable tree. The typical tree anchor is just to the right of the route, with a large dirt ledge.

The leader of the other team (which was a party of three), joined me at this station while I belayed Greg. He told me about how he'd climbed The Tooth over 100 times and asked me about my belay device, to which I told him I use a Wild Country Revo. "Ah," he said, "as you can see, I'm old school."

"Oh," I said, "a Munter Hitch. Nice."

Pitch 3 – 4th class, 70 feet

Scramble up into some small trees and across several ledges, with a few steps thrown in. In my dream the night before, I led this pitch. In reality, Greg led all the pitches (due to the fact that I've not yet led a trad pitch, ever).

The pitch ends with another tree anchor on a large ledge before the steep face of the final pitch.

The other team's leader decided to scramble this pitch, but that he would short-rope one of his followers. Thus, he began climbing about 15ft away shortly after I started up... but took a meandering route that led back to where I was – resulting in us both ending up on one section of the climb together. I went ahead so their team didn't get tangled with our rope, careful to not disrupt his stance since their team was tied together but not tethered into the wall.

Pitch 4 – 5.4, 50 feet. The money pitch!

Slightly to the right, there is a juggy right-facing flake (5.4) which leads to the first rappel station and a scramble finish. To the left is a steep crack (5.8) with good gear and more rock to the summit. The classic finish leads left on balancey moves (5.4, exposed) to the Catwalk ledge, from which the summit is scrambled. A 5.6 variation ascends the last steep wall directly to the summit. We took this 5.6 path!

We reached the summit around 11:30am, two hours after we started.

The views are beautiful up there! We spent about an hour enjoying the scenery, and lunch.

The group of three behind us joined us on the summit after rappelling back down to climb another 4th pitch variation. The leader came over while I was going to the bathroom on the other side of the peak and proceeded to try to have a conversation with me, making eye contact, though Greg and I both told him I was peeing. And then told me he had seen his wife naked before anyway so no big deal. Kinda funny, kinda odd/awkward. Oh well! We still had a lot of rappelling to do.

Back on the main summit, the other team told us we could use their rope to rappel, since they had left it rigged at the station and were going to take a "nice, long, leisurely lunch".

The first rappel anchor is a tree in a notch where the easiest route variation ends. The step to get down to this tree, which is perched near the edge of the cliff, is a bit spooky but full of good holds.

Their team's leisurely lunch was actually just a cheese stick each, not even their actual sandwiches, and then they all came over to watch me rappel.

I rappelled down to a ledge where the other team's rope piled up. I assume this is just how far down they rappelled in order to climb the alternate route variation. There was still another ~10-20 feet drop to go until the actual end of the pitch/where the next rappel anchor was located. I was a bit confused, and called back up to Greg who confirmed I should continue rappelling until the next rap anchor.

Looking back down at the ledge, I saw a loose, knot-less end of the rope staring back up at me. Of course. I tied a knot in both ends, moved back to step off the ledge and continue my rappel, and then realized– whoa, that knot I just tied is actually really close to my belay device.

If I wasn't paying attention, I would have simply continued my standard rappel before free-falling as their rope shot through my belay device. There was another ledge 10-20ft below me, but that's far away enough for an unexpected fall in the backcountry to really, really hurt.

Realizing their rope wasn't going to reach, I called up that I was coming off rappel and would down-scramble to the next anchor.

For some reason, though their rope would have reached, they set up their rappel at the rope's quarter mark in lieu of the halfway mark. I had checked this marking at the anchor, but wrongfully assumed their rope's quarter marking was the halfway mark. They must have been planning to down-scramble from the ledge instead of simply rappelling the full distance – and they didn't bother to warn me.

Luckily, no one got hurt. But in the future, if I use another party's rope, I will confirm the plan for the rappel and the length of their rope. And I will ask or check for knotted ends myself. Honestly, this was probably my first "near-miss" climbing (a rappelling incident, no less)– if it wasn't for a mix of blind luck and my constant mind-the-end-of-the-rope anxiety, I could have had a bad day.

The other team downscrambled the next pitch and we didn't have to see them again since we set up a rappel.

Rappelling from the third to second pitch will leave you a bit short of the rappel tree on a 60m rope. I added a rappel, and Greg took down the anchor and downscrambled after me. Mind the ends of your rope while scrambling around branches and trees to get to the second pitch's rappel anchor– it's easy to get your rope tangled here (ask me how I know).

In the future, I'd just bring a 70m rope and leave the tag line at home. The 70m rope will still require you to unrope, but it'd get you to the dirt ledge.

More frequent, shorter rappels are easier to manage than longer raps due to the blocky terrain, trees, and route popularity.

Pulling the rappel of pitch two, we unfortunately got our rope stuck ~15ft above us on the blocky rock. Greg tied back in and quickly climbed up to get it, placing one piece of gear and removing it upon his downclimb. We were careful to not pull so hard to retrieve our rope on our following rappels and didn't have this issue again.

One more quick rappel and we were finally back at the base of the climb.

To complete the descent, downclimb the scramble and retrace your approach out or rappel the first optional gully from the base of the route. The gully takes two rappels on a 60m rappel, with bolted anchors. There are lots of reports online of rockfall in this gully, so move efficiently!

We utilized the two extra raps.

The Tooth Gear:
- Cams from 0.4-2
- Nuts
- Hexes
- Slings + double lengths
- Anchor cord
- Personal anchor systems
- Lockers
- Knife
- First aid kit
- Headlamps
- Food + water
- Belay jackets
- Gloves
- Climbing shoes
- Approach shoes
- Rope (60m will require some downscrambling, 70m will require you to unrope but get you to the dirt ledge)
- RAD Line (tag line to allow us to fully rappel). In the future, I'd just bring our 70m rope.
- Rocky Talkies
- InReach
- Car camping gear

The Tooth Beta Repository:

- Really helpful photo album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fritz_da_kat/sets/72157647744975389/with/15385340311/

- EXCELLENT beta/route description TR: https://rocknropenw.com/2015/05/22/the-tooth/

- MP page: https://www.mountainproject.com/route/106378880/south-face

- SP page: https://www.summitpost.org/the-tooth/150784

- Beta/route description: https://www.theoutbound.com/washington/rock-climbing/climb-the-south-face-of-the-tooth

- Map: https://www.gaiagps.com/map/?loc=15.4/-121.4567/47.4544&pubLink=qCTGuAzk3RSrmpG06XFMSWob&trackId=6df5a52e-26b2-4398-8277-1f4ba951c589&layer=GaiaTopoRasterFeet

- Windy weather (my favorite mountain weather service): https://www.windy.com/multimodel/47.446/-121.454?clouds,47.443,-121.454,15

The Tooth was a great day out– a perfect rite of passage for any Seattle aspiring alpine climber. I can't wait to get back out to this zone on skis this winter, and next summer season to check out some other routes!