Trip Report
The Tooth — Sunday, Sep. 28, 2014
I've seen The Tooth described as "everyone's local climbing prostitute" - the mountain where most climbers in Washington either get their first real climbing experience outside of the gym or have their first trip leading a rope. Not counting the Kautz trip on Mount Rainier earlier this year this was my first non-guided multi-pitch climb and my first rappel; my buddy Felix was leading. Lots of adrenaline rushing today, and a very successful trip overall.
Felix and I left Seattle around 8AM, started hiking the Snow Lake trail from Alpental before 9AM and got to the col at the base of the climbing section before 11, but there was a large party from the Kitsap Mountaineers, four leader-student teams, so we had to wait almost an hour after them. One of the students, a middle-aged guy, freaked out as his instructor started climbing and he had to belay: he was hyperventilating sitting down at the belay station, paralyzed by the thought of his own upcoming turn to take to the rock face upwards. He dropped his hands in defeat and managed to say "I don't think I can do this". His climbing day was over before it started; his instructor took another student and one of the other instructors stayed behind with him.
Once we were on our way things went relatively quick and after three pitches roughly equal in length - the last being a bit shorter - we found ourselves on the wide summit which we shared with a few other teams. On the way back the Mounties shared rappel ropes with everyone else and things went smooth. Once down at the col Felix and I rappelled once more to the talus, but for some reason the Mounties and the other parties were very slow - we were way out down at the end of the huge boulder field and back on the trail when we saw the first of them coming down. Maybe they opened the beers - all except one of them had a summit to celebrate.
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