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bandycoot
May 9, 2003, 6:16 AM
Post #1 of 8
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Registered: Nov 25, 2002
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Be warned, this was about 4 pages in Microsoft Word. This trip was definitely interesting, but not an uber epic. Someone asked me to post this so I did. If you want any good beta on the route feel free to PM or e-mail me.
It all started with a suggestion from a partner, “Wanna climb Resolution Arete next weekend?” I hesitated. Even the name was intimidating! “What is it?” “The longest climb at Red Rocks.” I was sold.
I got home from our trip to J-Tree excited, but quickly became sobered by some of the trip reports that I found. Half of the people stayed the night, something I have yet to experience and hope to postpone, unless of course on a big wall. The route was reported as a “Grade V” by some, implying it should take 2 days to climb. Some trip reports talked of over 20 pitches! I was hesitant, but didn’t want my friend to know…
A little background about my hesitation is in order. I’ve done a few long routes. Another friend and I did Epinephrine, I’ve done Whodunnit in 3 hours leading every pitch with a slow follower, my first 5.9 lead was Fairview Dome Regular Route, but this route was a monster! It ascends from the desert floor up to (correct me if I’m wrong) the top of the tallest mountain in Red Rocks. The other routes were rated 5.9, this was 5.11+ (although I’ve heard crux holds blew off the off-fingers roof) or 5.10c A1 if the roof is aided. I knew nothing of this route beside written accounts, which made it sound hard! There were two 5.10 pitches, at least three 5.9-5.9+ PG pitches, and a lot of 60m pitches. We were in ignorance of whether or not those pitches were sustained, or a single move of difficulty, if the pro was bad at the crux or other places, and many other factors. Also, there are multiple accounts of people peeling off of a hard sustained traversing 5.9+ pitch. If people were peeling off the 5.9+, what did this mean about the harder parts? Not that I’m not up for a challenge of course, but the weekend preceding Resolution Arete was my first trip consistently leading 5.10s since a severe A2 pulley tear in my ring finger on my left hand and I was still feeling pain with rope handling and steep routes. Not only this, but there were other factors against us. I work a 9-5 job. This means we had to do the climb Saturday in case we didn’t make it in a day, and therefore leave on Friday. Leaving Friday meant arriving at night and not seeing the approach which from what I had read is absolutely key. This however is not true. I promptly put my intuitive skills to work and PM’d an RC.com resource “vegastradguy.” I asked him if he had any beta on the route or how to get to the base of the monster. He promptly replied with a perfect approach description. He was interested in the climb himself and had done the approach out of curiosity. I can honestly say we might not have even found the base of the climb if it hadn’t been for him, and I’m in his debt… Still, at this point all I had was a piece of paper in my hand that controlled my fate.
Well, needless to say I was committed and willing to try. We planned, and left on Friday 4/25. I was able to weasel my way out of work at noon; we bought some food for the trip quickly, and were on the road from San Diego by 1:30pm. I hadn’t expected to leave work that early but fate had dealt me a good hand and we were on time for possibly seeing the monster by daylight! We cruised through Riverside with a little slowing but nothing serious and I thought we were home free!
I was wrong. I didn’t think that I’d ever park on I-15 fifty miles from any and everything! We never did figure out exactly what the problem was, but after walking around a little, the traffic finally had mercy. We had lost crucial time that might decide the next day’s success simply by seeing our approach by daylight. Still we were cruising again with hope.
Have you ever looked away from the road for a split second and looked back to see a car flipping through the air? Let’s just say that it grabs your attention. I quickly stopped and my friend and I were the first ones on the scene. Imagine this: you jump out of your truck and stroll forward trying to remain calm. Blocking both lanes of the road is a truck that has rolled and the cab is halfway crushed in. On the left, nose down in a cement canal is the car I had seen flipping through the air with the horn eerily rending the air. Between them is a body sprawled on the road not moving and as you get closer you see blood coming out of the head. It’s amazing how hard it is to remember your first aid training at a moment like this.
I think that my instinct at that moment was to figure out the situation of all the people involved in the crash. My friend, however, said, “Get a blanket.” I was perfectly happy to take an order and be productive. I didn’t have one, so I ended up getting my sleeping bag. At some point relatively quickly another man in the cab of the truck crawled out seemingly unscathed. He ran to his friend (relative?) on the verge of tears saying his name. I returned with the sleeping bag to place over the man on the road to help him when (not if) shock set in. Other people were showing up at this point, some to donate shirts to apply pressure to the head wounds, others to pray. Small rant: if there is someone severely injured lying on the ground needing medical attention, they don’t need millions of people crowding them, especially to do something as stupid as pray. Go pray in your car, God is omnipresent. I went to inspect the car nose down in the canal. It was lucky that I went for the blanket instead of searching the car since the truck had been towing it and there were no passengers, we quickly found out. The horn issue was unsolvable. The constant noise got to me and added to the tension at the scene. I went back over to see the man on the ground. The shirts that had been donated were quickly filling with blood so I donated a shirt as well. Amazingly, in about a minute there was a doctor on the scene. It was extremely lucky that he spoke Spanish since the men from the truck were Hispanic and the injured one spoke no English. I’ll wrap this part of the story up, the man was conscious, could move everything, and could slowly respond to questions. Pretty good for someone that was ejected from a truck that had been traveling 80 mph. The cops showed up in less than five minutes and the ambulance was there in probably under twenty (good for how far in the desert we were still). I got the sleeping bag back relatively unstained, and we left when the police asked us to (we waited for them to supply a blanket of some sort).
On the road again, we realized this accident was the nail in the coffin. Since we were waking at 3am, we had no hope of scoping the complex two hour approach by daylight, throwing our success into question. I was almost more intimidated by the approach than the climb at this point. We pulled up at the trailhead past 8pm and looked at what we could by the lights of Vegas reflecting off the few clouds in the sky. We did a few minutes of walking on the initial trail and turned back quickly to find a place to park, eat, and sleep (bandit camping of course!). My friend, who knows enough random information to surprise me daily, lead us to a perfect bandit camping spot a few miles down the road. We packed, ate our dinner, and passed out with the alarm set for 3pm. Amazingly I slept well considering how intimidated I still was about the climb. The buzzing woke me at 3, and we had some hot food and headed back up the road to the trail. Without delay, we were off about 4am. Vegastradguy’s description lead us perfectly. John has a great memory! We made a b-line to the base in about 2 hours and 30 minutes.
Even the approach was eventful. I slipped in the darkness, and my hand came down on a plant. It hurt immediately. I lifted it to pull multiple spines out and survey the damage. The pain wasn’t proportional to the visual damage. Then I noticed that in less than one minute the hand was swelling and was heating up as if there was some sort of toxin in it. The pain grew with the swelling, but we had come this far and I refused to turn back. My friend said, “Let’s get to the base and see how it’s doing.” Over an hour later, we arrived at the base of the intimidating first pitch. My hand was stiff, and pinching motion was excruciating. There was no turning back though; there was no way I was turning around!
The business of the route begins immediately. You squeeze through about a 12” notch and pop out on the other side for a 30’ face traverse maybe 5.7 to a crack. Intimidatingly, below you is a fall of hundreds of feet and there is no gear for the belay. I sat down belaying with my feet out hoping that if my friend fell I would be able to wedge in the notch and not sent us both to meet our maker. Of course it was easier than it looked, and we were off. He made quick work of his block of pitches, and took the lead. I think my first lead pitch was the only R rated pitch. It wasn’t too bad if you don’t count the hand holds I blew off that landed on my partner from over 100’ up. If you do this route, be prepared for adventure! The next “pitch” is mostly ledge scambling that follows a little fifth class. I belayed my partner through the intimidating section as soon as he was up, and soloed after him. The exposure scared the crap out of me and so did the bad plant filled crack for footing.
While we finished the scramble we started looking for the route and instantly became extremely spooked. Hanging from the next pitch was a pair of twin or half ropes. Both of us instantly thought that something had happened to other climbers, an accident perhaps. We yelled, “Hello!” but got no response. We approached the ropes cautiously, not thinking something would happen to us but afraid of what we might find. The ropes were hanging over a drop off of hundreds if not a thousand feet. We found nothing but signs of a desperate hasty retreat. There was an 8 on a bight tied in the rope and it was stuck, and both ends of the rope had been cut. Someone was trying to get off the route quickly enough that they didn’t want to take the time to jug the 130’ pitch to free their rope. Above was the first 5.10 pitch and it was mine to lead. This trip was definitely spooky…
The pitch was cruiser with the only hard part a 3-4’ roof with perfect jams and great pro I dispatched with relative ease, and above was the roof’s bigger brother the 7’ aid roof. I foolishly picked the wrong crack through the roof and found myself traversing out under it on the worst quality rock I’ve ever encountered in my climbing career. I was blowing hand and foot holds off, catching myself with holds that failed moments later. I think that luck allowed me to handle that tricky traverse. After getting under the crack and realizing it was more like 5.20 and too thin to aid I searched the roof and saw a metolius FCU sticking out of another crack in the roof. Damn my partial colorblindness for not making this more apparent. I tiptoed back to the correct crack blowing more rock off, and built the only hanging belay on the route.
My partner quickly dispatched the roof using two and four foot slings to aid through it and I was following his lead in no time. The found cam would have been a happier moment if my partner hadn’t dropped my .4 camalot on the next pitch. Above this is the free climbing crux of the route; a beautiful corner that hides the crux from the belay. It’s hard to unlock what the moves are from the ground, and a little tricky while climbing. My friend made quick work of this and following it didn’t feel that bad at all.
We had a nice lunch of Ralph’s sandwiches on the top of that belay ledge and scampered up the rest of the route (about 10 pitches) uneventfully. We moved efficiently at a little under 30 minutes a pitch on average and loved the route. It’s the most “alpine” route I’ve done and it was in the desert. There are hazards like a 5th class approach, hanging off of branches over huge drop-offs to get from one point to another, a great 3-4’ hop over hundreds of feet exposure on an unroped pitch called the “catwalk” and more loose rock than I’d like to encounter ever again. There’s nothing like cowering in a corner hoping that if your leader blows some of the rocks off the bottom of a roof right over the belay they don’t land square on your helmet. The views were breathtaking, the weather couldn’t have been better, and the adventure was unforgettable.
I climb predominantly in “old school” areas such as Joshua Tree and Tahquitz, so the ratings felt soft. The cruxes were short and usually well protected. We climbed the route in I believe 9 hours. The approach was about 2 ½ hours and the descent was about 4-4 ½. The descent would have been much smoother and taken as little as 3 hours, but of course to top off the trip I rolled my ankle about 3 miles from the car. It was absolutely excruciating at first and I had to have my partner find me a large branch to use as a walking stick. After about an hour of one foot butt-sliding, boulder hopping, and slow walking the pain started to subside for whatever reason and I was able to limp at a descent pace for about the last mile and a half. The descent is otherwise relatively easy and obvious and I felt it to be much better than that of Epinephrine.
The trip wasn’t an epic, but it was memorable down to the drive home. My friend is relatively inexperienced at stick shift, but we were so tired we had to drive home in 4 shifts powered by 60 ounces of caffeine laden Mountain Dew. He killed the truck a few times, but not too many, and we made it home in one piece at around 2am. His roommate and my wife didn’t even have to call Red Rocks Search and Rescue as I had feared at the beginning of the trip!
Josh
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roughster
May 9, 2003, 6:54 AM
Post #2 of 8
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Registered: Apr 3, 2002
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nice trip report!
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bandycoot
May 9, 2003, 2:27 PM
Post #3 of 8
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Registered: Nov 25, 2002
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Thanks, if anyone has recommendations on what I should/shouldn't add/takeout of future trip reports to make them better let me know!
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vegastradguy
May 9, 2003, 5:13 PM
Post #4 of 8
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Registered: Aug 28, 2002
Posts: 5919
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excellent trip report. Resolution Arete is definitely a classic in the area, and you are to be commended for your speed on that wall....9 hours is an amazing time! A big congrats! Especially given the events leading up to it!
ps- thanks for the compliment, i'm glad I could help out at least a little bit! :D
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mikedano
May 9, 2003, 5:56 PM
Post #5 of 8
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Registered: Dec 19, 2001
Posts: 388
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Wow, great trip report! Excellent writing.
This story makes me feel better about my weekend adventure last year in Red Rocks, which involved rappelling Crimson Crystalis in the dark and getting lost in the desert coming off of Frogland. Ah, red rocks!
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mungeclimber
May 9, 2003, 7:28 PM
Post #6 of 8
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Registered: Nov 2, 2002
Posts: 648
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Great Trip Report.
Is Resolution Topo'd in one of the Guides. I have one of each guidebook, but am not from the area. I'd like to annotate my topo with the beta from the TR.
thx,
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vegastradguy
May 9, 2003, 7:47 PM
Post #7 of 8
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Registered: Aug 28, 2002
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actually, the Swain topo is crap. The best topo for Resolution is on the web in a handy printout format.
George Bell's Topo
these guys made an excellent topo and i give them top credit for it. you might also consult both Swain and Urioste to get a fuller picture, but this topo and the approach/descent beta in their trip report is more than enough to get you up that climb.
also, bandycoot will be an excellent source for topo updates on the climb.
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bandycoot
May 9, 2003, 7:51 PM
Post #8 of 8
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Registered: Nov 25, 2002
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Between Vegastradguy and this website:
http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/6260/trip_reports/res_bill.html
I found all the information that I needed. The guide book was almost completely unused by us. I have sent a very in detail pitch by pitch description of the route, pro needed, and moves at the cruxes to vegastradguy. I still have a copy, so if anyone wants it let me know!
Josh
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