resolution arete TR

[layton]

I know I'm not a PNW climber for now and this has nothing to do w/ the north cascades, but I know lots of folks talk about doing this route.

 

Jason Martin, Jay Hack, Justin Thibault, and I did this over the past 2 days. Overall the pitches really kinda sucked, but the route as a whole was awesome. Defintely the hardest longest route I've been on!

Going as a team of 4 made it VERY slow going. We had two ropes and led pitches separetly. One of us managed to get all but 2 leads, but had to pull on some of gear on the higher pitches. One rope team led w/a pack and the partner followed w/ a pack. That team only carried an extra jacket for biving. The other two only had one pack w/a rock-wren sleeping bag, and a big down parka...not the way to go. The 2nd had a hell of a time w/this system.

 

It didn't matter cuz all 4 of us were up there having fun, getting mad, and laughing our asses off. There were some shenanagins w/ one of the leaders getting off route, and one of the 2nds getting the rope stuck behind a cam while cleaning the roof w/the huge pack on. Every pitch was hard, even the 5.7-5.2 piches being full on. If we did it right we could easily have gone car to car, but we had fun on the bivy ledge on pitch 17 getting drunk. Well at least I did. I only had a non-hooded jacket so I took 2 vicodin, 3 melatonin, 2 sominex, 6 shots of jim beam, and 1/2 a pack of smokes for my lighweight emergancy bivy kit. It got lit really quick and passed out not feeling cold until the sun hit and we got up to climb again.

 

We ran into hordes of Africanized Honey Bees (killer bees), ran out of water on the blazing hot summit, and one of us took a leader fall. We also decided that if 911 were to be a broadway play, that "It's Raining Men" would be the showstopping tune...literaly. At Albertsons I kicked an old lady out of my way as I raced to the Beverage Boulvard and the doughuts. We then proceeded to have an orgy of food at the buffet.

 

Gotta run, cuz I have a job to go to!