The Dragon's Tooth

The Dragon's Tooth is a somewhat neglected moderate in the Canyon that is definitely worthy of more traffic than it sees. Although it doesn't quite compare in quality to Maiden Voyage, it seems about on par in difficulty. The highlights of the route are the short, but fun finger/hand crack on pitch one and the juggy climbing through flakes and cracks on pitch three. The beginning of pitch 3 is a little runout and airy off the belay.

P1. (5.8/5.9) Start by climbing left around a corner on lower angle terrain and into a short hand crack. Do not start in the grungy looking chimney or flaky, right-facing corner. Move up and left into a crack system that leads to a short OW crack. After the OW, traverse right and make some face moves to reach the thin crack on the slab with bushes in the base. Follow the fingers to flaring hand crack to a ledge and move left below a section of cracks and blocky terrain.

Breaking this pitch up into two helps with rope drag, otherwise it's a full 60 meters.

P2. (5.7) Climb a short pitch (80' or so) up the blocky stuff to a stance on the left side of the tower.

P3. (5.8/5.9) Start this pitch by climbing an airy move back onto the face of the tower. Follow a shallow peg groove up and right for about 20' (not the best gear). When you reach a stance, do not continue to the right - instead move left towards a section of steep flakes and cracks on the left side of the tower. Continue straight up until you reach a large, sloping ledge/slab. Stay on the left side of the slab and move up to one final steep move that will put you on the summit.

To descend, locate a rappel station on the back side of the summit block. Do a short rappel into the notch between buttress, then traverse a giant terrace system for about 150-200' to locate the final pitch of

The Casual Route

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Casually Off-Route

. This pitch ends at a large ledge system and from here, either hike the bushy exit gully to the rim or climb the direct pitches at junky 5.8ish.

Locate the first major buttress on skier's left when descending the SOB Gully. The Dragon's Tooth is the detached pillar directly before

The Casual Route

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Casually Off-Route

buttress.

Look for the thin crack in the middle of the slab when looking up at the route from the base. This crack is at the end of the first pitch. Scramble up to the ledge with a large juniper and rope up there.

Standard rack, plus one #4 - lots of runners.