July 18: The Tooth

What a long, yet successful, day!

My friend Preston and I set out today with 2 goals in mind: 1.) to climb an easy peak at Snoqualmie Pass called The Tooth (4 pitches of easy rock) and 2.) to rent a U-haul and move all of my belongings out of a storage unit in Seattle down to Portland.  The day progressed as follows:

3:40 a.m.:  Alarm goes off.  I drag myself out of bed half hoping that it is raining so that I can have a reprieve and go back to sleep.

4:00 a.m.: Depart Portland with coffee cup in hand and drive north.

7:30 a.m.: Arrive Snoqualmie Pass

8:00 a.m.:  Start hiking the trail in to The Tooth
We started hiking in heavy fog, but since it had rained for 3 days straight, we were antsy to give it a try.  Within an hour, we encountered snow.  We were glad we had decided to bring boots, crampons and ice axes.  We agreed to hike up to Pineapple Pass and re-evaluate conditions from there.  We didn't think we'd be able to see or that the rock would be dry.  Nonetheless, we pushed on.  We were thankful for a somewhat melted out or washed out boot pack or we would have had difficulty picking out the correct coulior to ascend.  Luckily we ascended above the fog.

The Tooth peaking out of the morning fog

Preston on the approach: don't ask me why, but I can't figure out how to right this pic

Seeing no reason to turn back, we headed up to the right hand side of Pineapple Pass up a small finger of snow.  We crossed a sizeable moat and scrambled laterally and upward to the pass proper.  From here, it took some minor route finding across narrow snow bridges and up 4th class rock to get to the base of the route somewhere around 11:00 a.m.  We roped up.  We had agreed beforehand that we would take a skinny 70M rope, double it over, and simul climb with Preston in the lead.  I have not climbed much rock lately and it seemed that it would be a much faster proposition with Preston on the sharp end.

Preston took a more direct route than the normal 5.4 rock route.  It was just enough to keep our attention, but nothing scary.  He remarked that it is the first time on an alpine climb that he had run out of gear before running out of slings and had to stop and belay me.  

Summit self portrait

On the summit: thought I had corrected the helmet fit issue I had been having.

The view from the summit was spectacular.  Only surrounding peaks, Ranier, and Glacier peaks showed above the fog.  Being ever efficient, I rigged the rappels.  We rapped 4 times back to the notch and I noted a 1.5 hour round trip to the summit- not bad!.  We put our boots back on and did 2 more raps down the gully to the snow field below, one of which was somewhat technical owing to a moat that formed as the snow melted away from the mountain.  The snow had softened significantly since our hike up and we were able to ski on our heels and plunge step down.  We reached our cars at 2:30 p.m.  Not a record time, but then again, we weren't hurrying.

3:00 p.m. Drive to Seattle

4:00 p.m. rent a U-Hual.  This seemed challenging.  We were tired and the U-Hual people seemed, well, not-so-bright.  They didn't have the van I reserved, so they gave me a 10' truck for the same price.  We drove over to my storage unit without ever hitting I-5.  The advantage of having a truck is that everything fit without futzing.  With 2 dollies and my neatly packed 5x8' unit, we cleared and loaded everything within an hour.  The unit is located next to a Tully's coffee and below I-5 in the southern end of Seattle.  Since we did not observe any traffic, one ice coffee later we were on the road.

9:00 p.m.: Back in Portland
We reached Portland without incident and there was even parking in front of Preston's house- a rarity!  Even better, Melissa (Preston's fiance) had dinner ready when we walked in the door.  Like I said, a successful, yet long, day!