Over the course of two weeklong trips, one in September 2015 and one in August-September 2016, Trey Warren, Tyler Barker, and I established Infinite Jest on the Wisdom Tooth, a prominent formation on the east face of Dog Tooth Peak, a few miles east of the Cirque of the Towers. We completed two separate and distinct starts that meet at approximately 350’, and the route shares perhaps five or six pitches of what remains of the formation’s first route, climbed by Ken Nichols and Al Rubin (AAJ 1981). According to Joe Kelsey, the bottom 250’ of the original climb exfoliated sometime between 1983 and 1992, and the “tantalizing crack” described by Nichols is now a striking dihedral capped by a large roof.

In September 2015, Trey Warren and I completed the first ascent of the route, via the left start, using aid and free climbing (5.10+ A2). Our initial plan was to begin our route from the gully to the left of the main face and traverse into the obvious crack system above the large rock scar. This start begins in the second obvious finger crack up the gully. A difficult but short crux (5.10) is followed by easier climbing around some loose blocks on ledges to a belay at the base of an obvious clean crack. Pitch two follows the 5.10 crack (fingers to fists) and belays on a ledge with a bolted anchor. Pitch three (5.10+ A0), which is mostly bolted and required an extreme amount of work to hand-drill, continues up the wide crack until you are level with a bolt on the right-hand face. A couple of A0 moves lead to good holds and then a long, wandering face. A short fourth pitch regains the main crack system on the wall.

Pitches five and six have very good climbing in solid cracks that we unfortunately did not have time to clean properly. Pitch seven involves tricky aid climbing on small nuts through an overhanging dihedral, and then free climbing to the base of pitch eight—a vertical chimney of stacked blocks that you can see through to the light of day. Although the climbing is moderate and fun for the second, it will likely have the leader’s full attention. From a belay on a large, sloping ledge, the next pitch climbs a short overhanging wall on the right side of the ledge to gain a poorly protected traverse into a large chimney.

From the top of pitch nine, we believe the original Wisdom Tooth route exited to the right, which Nichols reported as “a series of ledges, ramps, and low-angle cracks which trended up and around the spire to the right.” As far as we can tell, we followed unclimbed terrain from the chimney to the top of the wall.

Infinite Jest escapes the chimney to the left (the belay may need to be moved up the chimney) and follows two pitches of discontinuous cracks and face climbing (5.9) to the base of some stepped roofs. Pitch 13 follows the line of least resistance through the roof, a wide crack on the right side with good stemming (5.10). One or two more pitches should find you at the top of the main wall, or at least finished with the fifth-class terrain. Third-class scrambling will lead west along a ridge to the grassy slope on the north side of Dog Tooth Peak.

Descend downslope until you reach the North Fork Trail in Lizard Head Meadows, or descend to the north until you reach treeline, and then traverse around ramps to the right (east) and follow grassy ramps to the base of the A-Frame Buttress. (Editor’s note: This is the third pinnacle to the right of Dogtooth.)

In August 2016, Trey was busy with work, so I returned with Tyler Barker with hopes of freeing the striking dihedral at the bottom, as well as the upper aid section. After a couple of days of work aiding and cleaning some scary flakes, Tyler and I were able to free all but the roof pitch on the direct start to this climb, along with the upper aid pitch. The spectacular dihedral is accessed by climbing a flake up and left (5.8) to a good belay stance in the dihedral. Two excellent free pitches (which we pinkpointed at 5.11 after aiding and cleaning) get you to a semi-hanging belay about 15 feet below the roof. As we were not able to free the roof, we used aid to get to a belay on the face (A2). One more long, challenging pitch (5.10+/11-) gets you to a good belay at a large flake, which is also the top of pitch four of the left variation.

After two dedicated trips, Infinite Jest goes at IV 5.11 A2 (dihedral start) or IV 5.10+ A2 (left start), and we feel we’ve only opened the door to this climb’s potential. The A0 moves on the third pitch of the left variation will be easily free climbed by someone stronger than us, as will both of the overhanging aid pitches. Future parties looking for a challenge will have a splendid climb to themselves, just two miles away from the crowds in the Cirque of the Towers.

– Mark Daverin