As soon as you pull into Raspberry Creek carpark you can't help but gaze up at the mighty Sharks Tooth - Its sheer glimmering summit draws the eye, it looks daunting yet somewhat inviting and with a name like that its surly a worthy catch!
As with many other less ventured hikes in the area, the route begins with steep hands on tussocks slopes mixed with misleading sheep trails, prickly Scottish thistles and the odd dead carcass but things do surprisingly improve and for the majority of the route there is a well trodden track along the rib which leads alongside Raspberry Creek.
Higher into the climb the rib leads to an obvious large bluff, the path begins to disappear and from here the quickest and safest option is to siddle right, beneath the bluff, heading towards the creek and following the valley upto the headwalls (the topo map below shows this route). We on the other hand continued to follow the ridge and opted to venture up the large bluff and explore the narrow ridge thereafter. The ridge turns into a knife edge, with some lose shitty rock in places. It is passable but ceraintly not worth the risk and I don't recommend this route, especially with a breeze! We ultimately retraced our steps and headed back to the lower valley approach .
The jittery excursion along the knife edge ridge all became abit too much for young Jack so along with his blistering ankle socks he decide to call it a day whilst I pushed on.
The walk up the rest of valley was quick and I soon reached the headwall, passing onto the south face is relatively easy. The main ridge leading to the summit peak is very chossy, its possible to move quickly in parts but care must be taken. As I approached the summit I was expecting a clear route up to present itself, this wasn't so much the case!
The climb to the summit shouldn't be taken lightly and I would only recommend it to experienced hikers who are familiar with moving across lose, sketchy rock. It took me a good 30mins to find the way up, initially I went up the obvious gully to where I found myself chimneying past a large precariously perched boulder! I then down climbed onto the West Face which is a mixture of scree and solid rock, I explored around here until realising the best way forward is to scramble direct upto the rocky bluff at the head of the scree/rock slope on the West Face (My pictures will give a good indication which way to go). The summit, albeit small and fragile was wonderful and certainly rewarding. All in all a cracking route, which requires good confident footing, some lose climbing skills and caution!
Crew: Lee & Jack. 7-8hrs. 4th March 2017
