Resolution Arete - Bill's Route Description

At this point you'll be on a shelf on the right side of the arête. Your goal here is to get to the notch between the sub-tower you're on and the main wall. At this notch you cross over to the left side of the arête. To do this you go up twenty or thirty feet, across a slab and back down a crack. At this point you will be directly across from the belay at the top of the fifth pitch and only about 50 feet away. You can't get there directly because it is a steep, unprotectable slab. Once here you head up and left (as you look directly at the mountain). Just follow the line of least resistance and it is obvious. From the notch descend down to a ledge with a bush. Once again this is pretty obvious. I'm counting this whole, 300-foot section as pitch 6. We only belayed the first section.

Here, there is some doubt of where to go. There will be a few corner/crack systems. Take the one on the far left (a left facing corner). This system appears to be the least continuous and least difficult of the three. It also clearly leads to a big roof with a crack through it. This roof is also visible from the top of the fifth pitch. It is key to identify this roof. The crack through the roof trends from left to right and the terrain above and below this roof is considerably less than vertical.

The next four pitches (7-10) are easy route finding as you climb up to and over the roof and then up the 5.10 corner to a huge ledge with a single bolt. Here things can be a bit confusing and this is where the Trashman went wrong, though I think once again, the most obvious route is the way to go. You climb up a pyramid on the right side and then get into a slanting (right to left), left facing corner system. Climb up this system (don't exit out right onto the unprotected face) until it merges into a chimney, which is mostly face climbed up to the notch (through which you can see a bivy spot below).

From the top of this pitch you'll be able to look up and see a steep face with a crack that runs diagonally across from right to left. This crack ends in a chimney. This is the 13th pitch. You've just done the 11th pitch and the 12th pitch leads up to the base of this crack.

The 13th pitch is the crack and the 14th pitch heads up the chimney and then straight up the easiest line to the top of the ridge. Now the tricky 15th pitch. Move left across a jumble of rocks to a steep wall. Climb this on the right and angle up and left across the wall and around a bulge. Now you'll be on a ledge with a gaping, flaring chimney down and against the main wall of the mountain. It is possible (even the route description describes it) to descend into this chimney and then climb up it. Instead, we turned the overhang directly above your head (I thought this was a 5.10 move, but others thought it was easier) to gain the ridge/arête that is just left of the chimney. Once above the starting overhang the climbing is trivial and leads to a ledge (not the Catwalk!) which you traverse way to the left until you reach an offwidth crack.

The 16th pitch is the offwidth (5.8) and ends on another huge ledge. The 17th pitch is to traverse left on a very flat ledge cut into a low angle slab. This is the Catwalk. It ends with a step across move into an alcove with a number of ascent options, none of which are 5.4 as described in the book. There will be three distinct possibilities from here. A roof 40 feet up on the left (looks quite hard), a huge chimney, gully thing on the right (looks hard, unprotectable, and uninviting) and a right facing corner system in the middle. This is the way to go and the 18th pitch. The climbing is probably 5.8 on this wide, crumbly crack. Run out about 140 feet of rope to a good, blocky stance/ledge with marginal gear for a belay.

The 19th pitch heads up and slightly left from here to an obvious roof that seems to be composed of loose blocks (it is) and looks hard (it isn't.) Turn the roof at about 5.7 and above you'll reach another great ledge.

From this ledge we descended slightly to a huge pine tree and then headed up the route of least resistance. We probably climbed another 300 feet before unroping with most of it being quite easy, but a couple of short (10-15 foot) 5.8 sections. Just over the last hard section, I belayed and we unroped.

Now follow the easiest route (class 3) to the summit where there is a geological marker and a summit register. The descent is trivial route finding. Head straight west to the saddle and then turn left (south) and head down First Creek Canyon. In general, you want to stay close to the wash on this descent. Major deviations usually lead to horrible bushwhacking. There are some tricky sections, but the route finding is easy. Expect endless climbing over, around, under, and through large sandstone boulders. The descent took us two hours and forty minutes with a couple of short breaks. Also, we weren't carrying much weight.