Moose's Tooth

One of the most iconic formations in North America, the Moose’s Tooth* tops out at 10,335 feet just east of the entrance to Alaska’s Ruth Gorge.

- James Lucas

 The native Athabascan people, in their language, named the formation the Moose’s Tooth for its nearly mile-long, low-angle, east-to-west summit ridge resembling that part of a moose’s anatomy.

In 1964, the German mountaineers Walter Welsch, Klaus Bierl, Arnold Hasenkopf, and Alfons Reichegger completed the first ascent of the Moose’s Tooth via the West Ridge, summiting to views of the Ruth Gorge, Denali, Hunter, Huntington, and the surrounding Tooth Formations. In 1979, Steve Roper and Allen Steck cemented the West Ridge as a classic in Fifty Classic Climbs of North America.