Traffic on the tooth. The first party rappels down as the second is climbing.
The Tooth. The mythical Tooth, cradle of northwest climbers since the Whittakers and before...
I have never got around to doing it, for a variety of reasons. Since I started doing actual rock climbs, other locations seemed more interesting -- more of an "expedition" than Snoqualmie pass -- and the legendary crowding issues. However, Alex and I wanted to go climb something, and not spend half the day in the car, and so we figured if we got an early start, we might be able to have some fun here.
I tried to get to the Tooth a couple of years ago, and we got to the scree basin below the Tooth before we gave up, the drizzle at the parking lot having turned into a wet snowstorm. At that point, I was completely unsure exactly where it was, and how close we'd been.
I was supposed to show up at Alex's house at 7:00, and actually got there closer to 7:30. We got to the Alpental parking lot and hit the trail a little before 9:00. There is supposed to be a shorter trail that goes up the left side of the valley through the ski area, but we took the Snow Lake trail instead. Improbably, this was Alex's first time on the Snow Lake trail, besides the time last winter when he'd walked up it a few years to ice-climb in the Practice Gully.
It's surprising, given how perenniallly popular this objective is, that there isn't a well-established trail up to the tooth basin from the end of the Source Lake Overlook trail. You can sort of follow a footpath through hillside, but it's sketchy enough that you find and lose it constantly. It's far less well established than, say, the trail that takes you to the summit of Roosevelt Peak, which probably gets about 1% of the ammount of traffic that this one does. Go figure.
We went up the left side of the pinnacle at Pineapple pass, and got the base of the south face around 10:20 or so. There were already two parties on there; one party was a couple pitches up, and the other was just starting. The leader offered to let us go first, since he was slow, but I figured it'd be a good twenty minutes before we got our rope out, shoes on, and all the rest, so it would be kind of rude to make them wait all that time. I did appreciate the gesture, though.
The Tooths seems rather underrated as an objective. There are literally dozens of easy (low-fifth-class) routes and variations up the south and west faces, so if you got up there and were behind a slow party or three, you could easily take a variation and go on up at your own speed, unless you're a beginner or otherwise feel compelled to stay on the "route." It was certainly not as jammed up as the W. Ridge of Ingalls felt, with about the same number of people.
The main south face route itself is pretty easy. There are a few moves that require a bit of paying attention (at least for me), but the face is broken up into short sections separated by nice broad benches with stunted trees growing around up there. There were several (at least three) little cams stuck in the rock around the face. I tried for a couple of minutes to free the first one I found, but eventually gave up. I don't particularly need a micro-cam, anyhow.
Because it's such a heavily used route, a lot of the features are worn rather smooth, like a crag. It was interesting to see how, as soon as you got off the trade route, how much more secure the handholds felt.
So it took us a couple of hours to get to the summit, partly because of waiting for the folks ahead of us. They were doing half-pitches, and climbing in boots, both of which kind of slowed things down. Of course, if I were climbing in boots, I'd have been a lot slower too.
In any case, it was really my first alpine lead, aside from the clumsy effort last fall on Ingalls peak, where I was completely inadequietely shod, and did really poorly. It seems to be that the Tooth would be a fun full-day outing, to do laps up there, taking different variations, an easy low-class-5 craig. Or, if you wanted some more challenging routes, pick and choose a gully up the east face, which is about vertical but has plenty of holds. In fact, someone could probably publish a book of routes on the Tooth from 4.easy to 5.10 or so, and get people off the south face.
There were about ten people up there, all told, not bad for a sunny weekend day at this notoriously crowded spot. The two who were up first, and who actually descended while we were climbing, the couple just ahead of us, and two parties of two who came up after us (one of them were two shirtless guys who sprinted up the face, simulclimbing most of the way, I was told, and hung out for a few minutes at the summit before rappelling down.
Alex rapelling down the gully from the base of the climb. I guess some people climb this, but it's sloppier, dirtier, and probably more difficult, than the actual face.
Equipment notes: I hate my sling! I don't know how you make them work right, without the heavy stuff dangling down between your legs. There were two or three times when a dangling cam from my sling caught on a bit of rock. From here on out, I'll think through the gear I need, put it onto my harness loops, and forego the sling.