Steve in front of the Northeast Face of the Tooth
It had been almost a month since our last visit to check on the northeast slab of the Tooth. The forecast showed low/moderate avalanche hazard, but unfortunately a high freezing level and warm temperatures. Had it been cold enough, we wondered? We decided to go up there and check it out. At 3:00 AM, we awoke and packed the jeep. The drive to the trailhead was uneventful. The parking lot was quiet and desolate. Temperatures were noticably warmer than our previous trip in November. With dwindling hopes, we shouldered our packs and started walking at 4:45 AM. At the end of the cat track, we made a stupid mistake and started walking along the river. This eventually leads into a steep, narrow canyon. After some backtracking, we eventually got back on the "winter trail" which ascends westward along the south side of the valley, several hundred feet above the river. We made reasonable time up to the Source Lake basin. There, we did not spy any tracks leading up to the Tooth, so we started laboriously breaking trail ourselves. It took about an hour to reach the upper slopes of the Great Scott Bowl, just below the Tooth. Both of us were hot from the exertion and the mild temperatures. As we were walking up towards the base of the route, a couple of small spontaneous snow slides came down. In addition, the route still looked to be pretty thin. We decided to wait for another day.
We plunge-stepped rapidly back down to the Source Lake basin, and made good time back down the trail. When we passed below the well-known ice smear ("Kiddie Cliff") above the winter trail, we decided to climb up there and have a look. It looked thin from the trail, but we were itching to climb something so we went up there anyways. After some wallowing in deep snow, we reached the ice smear. It was even thinner than it looked from the trail. While I set up a belay, several small spindrift slides came down an adjacent gully. About 20m above me, I could see a yellow runner I had left on a previous climb of this smear, two years earlier. It brought back memories of my first lead ice climb. I optimistically set up a belay using a #1 tri-cam and a #2 friend on an adjacent rock flake, and racked some pro. I climbed up the first few moves, and tried to put in a screw. It kept hitting hollow pockets between the ice and the rock. Finally, I just made an I-thread on a dubious-looking detached curtain and kept moving. A little further up, my picks started to shear through the rotten ice. I tried to put in a #1 angle in a small crack, but the crack just widened after a few blows of the hammer. I pulled out the piton and decided I had had enough. I downclimbed back to Elain, who was by now somewhat tired of all the ice I was kicking down.
Steve in front of the Northeast Face of the Tooth
Steve descending back to the Source Lake Basin