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5,604 feet
South Face Grade II; 5.6***

    Gear Used:
  • 60 meter half rope
  • gear to 2 inches
  • slings
August 14 2007

The Approach

This is the 3rd time that I have climbed the tooth and there is plenty of information about it on the internet so I am not going to leave you with to much detail. The only thing that was a bit different about this climb is it was on my 31st birthday! It was great to be climbing on my birthday although I do wish I was climbing something more interesting.

Dylan and I arrived in the Alpental parking lot at about 10:30. The lot was loaded with news trucks and search and rescue crew so we immediately became a bit worried. When we pulled up they handed us a flyer so we could see what the missing looked like. We packed up and tried not to think about it.

The hike up to Source Lake always go's pretty quick and easy. We were taking our time in conversation and enjoying the surroundings. After about 20 minutes of hiking we ran into a group of search and rescue guys and they all had big smiles on there faces. Good news, the missing hiker was found safe after 3 days of being lost in the mountains. For the rest of the hike to the tooth our conversation was muffled by the sound of a helicopter making multiple trips back and forth over to snow lake.

The Tooth
Dylan entering the never ending boulder and scree field.

It took us about 2 in a half hours to get to the base of the South Ridge. The boulder field can be time consuming (and annoying).

The Climb

The Tooth can be easily climbed in 4 pitches, even with a 30 meter rope. We doubled up our 8.5 and it worked great.

Pitch 1

The climbing starts up a fun little corner system. The climbing is easy enough that I tend to run it out a bit. After about 15 meters there is a belay but I continued climbing to the next set of slings. With the 30 meter rope I was about 5 feet short so we simul-climbed a bit until I could belay Dylan up.

The Tooth
Dylan climbing the 1st pitch.

Pitch 2

On previous trip up the tooth I have always taken the most interesting route to the top. On this trip I tried to follow the book a bit better. It's defiantly not as fun this way. I followed an easy ledge system passing an old dead tree to the next slung slings. The climbing was to easy and not very interesting.

Pitch 3

I have always hated this pitch as it is basically just following easy, sandy ledges. We simul-climbed this all the way up the cat walk and I set up a belay at the end of the traverse right below the awesome crack that climbs to the summit.

Pitch 4

The summit crack is great! It is really easy but the exposure makes it pretty exciting! Great jams with ledges for your feet right to the summit. To bad it is so short.

The Tooth
Reaching the summit.

The Tooth
The crooked helmet summit shot!

I think it took about 5 rapells to get back to the backpacks. Can't really remember.