Sharkstooth
Early June, Ben and I climbed the Sharkstooth in RMNP. The day was going to be three man team, with us bivying at the start. However due to complications, it turned into Ben and I doing a solid one day push starting at 1 AM in Boulder.
We got to the trailhead and were hiking by 3AM, up past Alberta falls. The moon was only crescent, but it still lit up the entire valley with deep moonlight. After 3-4 hrs of hiking in, we made it to the start of the basin. The temperature was cool and the snowpack was solid, so we progressed steadily toward the upper basin.
Rounding the final corner, I had my first glimpse at the sharks tooth. This was an intimidating view. With Alpine-glow setting the granite spire on fire, I couldn’t believe this is what we were attempting to climb today. From the distance, the spire looked unclimbable, but as we pushed closer more detail came into view.
Rock hopping and scurrying, we made it to the base and quickly racked up. The day was extremely windy so we ended up wearing a good bit of clothing. Ben took the first pitch up a dirty dihedral, while I protected our packs from a viscous marmot. I then followed suit and climbed up to Ben with the mule pack for the day. We switched leads; I pulled this hand jam roof and made it to the black ledge. The ledge was huge and I sat relaxing, while belaying Ben up.
Switching again, Ben got to climb the long 5.7 pitch. He was pretty much able to stretch out the entire 60m. I lumbered up to him again, and he picked a nice and exposed slightly hanging belay. We switched again and did a short pitch to the large ledge. Here, I climbed again – up a off width crack working in and out of the face. There was little bit of moderate run out before I could belay.
Now the ridge has narrowed significantly, and Ben pushed to the top. Here we could see that much of the top seemed very detached, and it was thousand feet to the gully below. From the top of the sharkstooth, we could see the very beginnings of the High Park Fire, which would roll across north Colorado.
3 x 60m raps and we were down to the south col. Here, we slid down to the start of the climb to prepare for the hike out. My feet were aching from being in climbing shoes all day and starving for food. We slid down further into the gulley and drank our fill from the freshest mountain glacier stream one could ever imagine.
