Da Tooth Sept 22-23

I have wanted to do The Tooth and Ingalls Peak for quite some time. Talked to Cort about it and decided to invite Jon and Jessica as well as my main climbing partner Josh who was in dire need of getting some alpine. Friday afternoon Josh drove up from Bend, we loaded Corts rig and started the drive north. Jon and Jessica drove thier own rig and were going to meet us in the parking lot. After figuring out that the summer TH and the winter TH are in different parking lots the former being in the main lot for Alpintal camp was set just as the rain started falling. Guess we were going to get the 20% chance of rain. After getting lost Jon and Jessica finally showed up and set thier camp between showers. In bed by 1:30 am. It rained through out the night, great the rock will be wet oh well we can at least get to the base of the climb to check it out. Conditioning hike right? Got up late to let the rain stop we were hoping, left the parking lot at a reasonble 8 am. The hike in started nice, that trail was a wilderness highway. Made great time to the talus fields then things slowed down. The climb up to the base looks a lot shorter from the trail, what you don't see is a second talus field/bowl. It started to mist/rain halfway through the first talus field and at round the 5,500 ft level it was snowing. Things were not looking good. But we trudged on anyway. The scrambling on the back side of pineapple pass we very sketchy. Steep mud/rock. In dry conditons would be a non-story but wet it made for interesting footing. Falling was not an option. We wrapped around the gendarm to the base of the climb and things were wet. To top things off the sun was teasing us with sucker holes every now and again. Jessica (on her first alpine experience) was not ready to head up. Josh and I were ready to fire the thing off, Jon I thing was ready after he figured out that Josh and I did not care about the wet rock. Cort was being supportive of Jessica and was willing to go with her to let the "boys" climb. We set up the rap for the ladies, I talked to Josh after Cort was down and the decision was made to bail. Keep a positive experience for all was more important than bagging a easy climb. Needless to say I am looking for the next weather window to fire that bad boy off. Everybody had a good time. Sunday Cort, Josh and I headed to Bulo point for some alpine cragging in the dry. What a good time. It was good to see and climb with Josh, we have to get out more often!!