Hasn't voted | Some friends and I climbed Tepee four days ago from the west via the Silver Creek drainage. Our route put us on the very easy south ridge of Tepee, which REALLY is Class 2, unlike what Roach says about the north ridge! Taking the line of least resistance up the south ridge leads you very close to the western summit, so we scrambled up there first. As I'd been told by a friend who'd been up there years before, the eastern summit definitely looks higher from the western one. We dropped off the west summit and scrambled down to the saddle (that has the interesting "yellow tower" in its center) between the two summits. As we passed the tower and approached the wall of the east summit, we headed slightly left to the base of an obvious gully that angles up this wall to the right (south). The hardest moves are at the very beginning, and then it gets a little easier, but overall I thought it was still tough 4th class. At the top of the gully, you take a left and climb much easier-angled (but still loose--welcome to the Never Summers!) stuff on up to the summit. Unlike the western summit, there's a large cairn up there, and I've heard there USED to be a register there as well, though we couldn't find one four days ago. As we looked back to the west summit from the east, it sure looked lower. Thus, we're all pretty convinced that Roach is incorrect when he says that the western summit of Tepee is higher. Obviously, the safe thing to do is climb both! |