sunrise at Snoqualmie Pass
Short version: the weather was excellent; we made it to the top
Long version:
After last week's attempt on the Tooth was rained out, Elain was anxious to try the Tooth again before winter arrives. I was very skeptical that the weather would cooperate this late in October. Elain showed me a trip report from Loren Campbell's web site describing a successful ascent in December, which put an end to my hand-wringing about the weather. Surprisingly, the forecast was for "partly cloudy" weather on Saturday, with no precipitation. So Elain and I set out early for Snoqualmie Pass on Saturday 10/26. We donned our headlamps and hit the trail at 6:20 AM. We made quick time up to the Source Lake basin, and enjoyed a spectacular sunrise.
The climber's path up to the Tooth passed under a cliff band that was dripping with water and starting to ice over the trail. While I was babbling excitedly about how cool it was that the waterfall was already frozen, Elain slipped and fell, badly bruising her arm. She was not amused. We continued making our way up the trail, until coming into the large talus field that leads up to Pineapple Pass. At that point, we started to notice large swaths of the talus field were glazed over with a very thin layer of ice. Our progress became very slow through the frozen sections of the talus field, because the rocks were so slippery. We talked about whether it made sense to continue, and both of us felt that it was likely the South Face would be dry, despite the frosting that the talus field had received.
After a long time spent picking our way through the partially frozen talus field, we finally made it up to Pineapple Pass, and shortly thereafter, to the Notch below the South Face. We were happy to find that the South Face was dry. After a bit of fiddling with ropes and the rack, we were on our way at about 9:30 AM. So far, we had not seen any other climbers. The first two pitches went fairly quickly. At the second belay ledge, we were passed by a father/daughter climbing pair who were moving very quickly (relative to our speed).
The third pitch was mostly a scramble through easy terrain, and we soon found ourselves at the belay ledge beneath the final 50' wall guarding the summit. At this point, I was really hoping that the father/daughter pair would be on that pitch, so we could watch to see their choice of route, but no luck. They were already on the summit by then. So I scanned the wall and tried to remember the diagram from Smoot's book. There was indeed a small "catwalk" like set of footholds traversing to the left, but I vaguely remembered that the catwalk route was not the easiest route to the summit. Traversing off to the right didn't seem to offer much appealing climbing from my vantage point, but I couldn't see around the buttress on the far right, where the terrain might have been easier. I assumed that beyond the buttress was the East Face. Directly above me was a large slab shaped like the right-hand-edge of a diamond. The slab traversed up and to the right, and then dog-legged back to the left. Not seeing anything more appealing, I decided to try the slab. The start was awkward and about 20' up the wall, I couldn't find any place to put in some protection. At this point Elain, who had a front-row seat to my misery, called out something helpful like "Maybe you should have traversed a lot more to the right, instead of climbing the slab." I don't remember exactly what I said in reply, but it was very curt. Finally the gap between the slab and the face narrowed to the point that it would take my #3.5 cam, which was a relief. From there, I made my way up to a point just below the top of the wall. There was a very large overhanging rock on the left, and a smaller rock on the right, and a small gap in between. So I put in my #4 cam, crossed my fingers, and wriggled ungracefully through the gap. I was on the summit shortly thereafter. Elain made short work of the final pitch, except the final gap which was hard for her to squeeze through with the pack.
As we had been preparing all summer for this climb of the Tooth, we were very ecstatic to finally be on the summit. The time was about 12:30 PM. The weather was perfect-- the sun was warming the south face nicely, and there was no wind. I pulled out a bottle of sunblock from the pack, and Elain and I laughed about the improbability of needing sunblock in late October. Oddly, the father/daughter pair were nowhere to be found; we assumed they descended the northwest ridge, since we didn't see them rappel down the South Face. Since no one else was up there, we set up the camera to do an automatic photo and posed in front of it, grinning ear-to-ear.
The descent was straightforward enough. There were three climbing parties behind us, and we had to spend some time waiting for them. But the weather was so nice that we didn't mind waiting at all. After the second rappel, our rope knot got hung up on a ledge. Fortunately this was the easy scrambling pitch. As I was preparing to climb up to free the knot, a pair of climbers passed by on their way up, and freed it for us. Two more rappels put us back at the Notch. From there, we were down to the talus in one 50-meter rappel, with a bit of down-climbing at the bottom of the gully. The talus field had mostly melted out, so we made better time on the descent.
At one point, Elain and I were split up, on opposite sides of a 100' long snow patch. I was picking my way down the talus when I heard a shout. I looked up and was horrified to see Elain sliding down the snow, out of control. I saw her trekking poles skitter away from her, as she was sliding and trying to stop herself from hitting the rocks. I couldn't see the spot where she hit the rocks, and was in a panic for a moment. Shortly thereafter, Elain called out that she was unhurt. I climbed down to her and we debriefed what had happened, while the adrenalin subsided. Apparently she had thought it might be faster to do a sitting glissade down the snow. She sat down on it, not realizing until too late that the snow was actually hard-packed ice. As soon as she sat down on the snow, she started sliding and couldn't stop herself. Fortunately, all she ended up with was a sore behind and torn pants.
We resolved to carefully descend the rest of the way to the trailhead. Elain was sore from her fall, but we made steady progress. We arrived at the trailhead just as the last of the twilight was fading, at about 6:45 PM.
Gear we used:
9mm x 50m double-ropes WC friend #3.5 and #4 assorted BD stoppers from #1 through #13 small tri-cam various small hexes
sunrise at Snoqualmie Pass
Elain on the summit
Steve, with the Tooth in the background