Yesterday Conrad and I attempted a snowshoe approach for climbing the Tooth. We were initially going to meet at the trailhead for a 9am start. This was the first snow shoe trip in several seasons for me, and Conrad’s first snowshoeing, so we ended up deciding to meet at REI at 9 instead so we could each pick up a few things.
Unfortunately, on Sunday REI does not open until 10 so we lost an hour. Then we got stuck in a crazy traffic snarl getting to the pass. So we did not hit the trail-head for our start until 2. Yeah, it was a super late start. We had no idea what the hike in times would be – so we decided to bring full climbing packs anyway in case we got lucky. If we didn’t then worst case we know our travel time with packs for when we come back.
I think we both had a fun day. I know Conrad got a lot of laughter in when I tried out a new down hill “glide step” technique. Which started out awesome for the first 3 steps – then it turned into me tumbling ass over teakettle down hill.
I think we both were having fun.
We hiked in to Source Lake, then turned south east to switch back up to the Great Scott Basin. In this picture its that V where the two dotted paths split just below the tooth. Not the chimney, the one on the snow field.
We were loosing the light – so we turned around just under the 3 hour mark. We were making good time down the mountain so we took a break for a celebratory beer and some food before motoring on out. Thats going to become a tradition – because that beer was perfect.
It started snowing fairly heavily on the way out – which I found hilarious – since Konrad was at times like an abominable snowman in font of me. I found the half inch of snow hanging on the tip of his ice axe especially funny for some reason.
We ended up hiking out the last hour and a half with headlamps. No one was anywhere around – so the world seemed to be ours. Here is what it looked like. We only had to back track once – and that was my fault.
All in all al lovely day. With an 8am start next time we should have no problem summiting and hiking out before we loose the light. Cant wait.