One of the more popular hikes on the weekend still lends itself to solitude during the week if you can manage to get a little time off from work. The greatest thing about it is the easy access from Seattle, less than an hours, which explains the hoards on the weekends.

With all the recent national news about a Solo climber sawing his arm off when he was trapped, one would think that going out alone into the wilderness would be farthest from my mind. I decided anyway to head out and do a little hiking by myself, maybe just to spite all the stories that I have been hearing from the past few weeks. I had been up to the Tooth several times before, even free-soloing it when I was a little more on top of my game. When I arrived at the Alpental parking lot there where only two other cars there, so I knew I would have the place pretty much to myself. After reading a forum post from the Memorial Day weekend I was not as hopeful while heading up there. From the sound of the post there were 60-70 people that had hiked up to where I was headed the day before.

After tying up my bootlaces and extending my trekking poles, I walked over to the trail head and started the day. The trail has already started to melt out most of its winter covering and the snow now present more of an annoyance that an obstacle. Once you reach the end of the maintained foot path near Source Lake, the snow gets a little deeper and having the trekking poles definitely helped out. As I traversed left above the lake, across several old avalanche paths, and into the first couloir, I looked back at the views into Upper Alpental Valley. It was an excellent day to be out in the backwoods with literally no one around for miles. Near the exit at the top of the gully a few tricky stream crossings were made much easier due to the lingering snow pack, but these snow bridges didn’t look like they would last too much longer.

After reaching the col that leads into the basin below the Tooth the views into the valley below were awesome. The only clouds in the sky were high cirrus clouds that seemed to be flying by at an extremely fast rate relative to the ground. It only took another 30 minutes to reach Pineapple Pass where the start of the South Face route begins. Near the top of the pass the snow slope Angle increases and then ends with a four foot snow ledge above a very treacherous moat. As I attempted to kick steps into the front of the ledge and step up with my trekking poles, my foothold broke loose and I had a bit of a rush before catching myself on a lower foot Hold. A fall here would definitely ruin ones day.

I decided to stop here and turn around after eating a small lunch and tooling around to the base of the South Face. On the west side of Pineapple Pass, the snow becomes very treacherous as the only path is very close to a deep moat. I decided to go ahead and head back to the car since it was getting a little late in the day, so I turned around and started down. The glissade path from the pass is well used and a fun quick way of getting back down to the basin. After a quick fifteen minute flail down the basin, and a quick “Howdy” to another going up, I reached a second nice glissade path that Lead down the chute to the left of where I came up. I started the first slide and quickly realized that it was not a good idea, as I neared a rock moat above the stream that lines the chute. At the last second I saw what was about to happen and popped to my feet and jumped about fifteen feet down over the moat, nearly missing the other side and a certain leg-breaker. From this point on I decided that a standing glissade would be a little safer and I continued my descent back to the cars.

One of the nicest things about climbing around the Seattle area is the close proximity of the mountains and the short approaches that normally accompany the climbs. After a day of only seeing one other person it feels real good to be in the wilderness. I’m sure though that the nice weekend we had prior to my Hike had made the many foot paths that zigzagged the basin below the Tooth I had crossed. It was nice to spend a day all alone.