Red Rock 3/28/24: Armatron

This post is written by Tai Xiang. His write-up is here.

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We wake up at 5:05am to a rather spooky, high-pitched trill that is surprisingly frightening. Cathy has set her alarm to something spooky for comedic effect, though the only emotion I get from it is horror.

A climbing day is best started with a great breakfast, and me-from-the-past has made sure of that. We have two soft-boiled eggs, a cup of Greek yogurt, and a pumpkin muffin with chocolate chips and dried apricots. For our multicourse meal at Juniper Peak, I've also packed two turkey-gouda-hummus sandwiches on marble rye, four more muffins, and an assortment of bars. Plus two cucumber-hummus sandwiches for a post-Brownstone Wall pick-me-up. The weight-conscious trad climber may cringe at the cornucopia we're hauling, but if it's within your means, why not live well?

This has thus far been entirely about food, so I should mention the objective. We're headed to the base of Brownstone Wall to climb Armatron: six pitches of jug-hauling, finger locks, and plate-pulling. Its allure lies in the dark, chocolatey sea of perfect, shiny plates that swim up the middle of the face for hundreds of feet — a striking geometric pattern that caught my eye about a year ago. Features like this make me wish I'd taken a geology class in college.

Armatron got a bit of fame a couple months ago, when free-soloing-enjoyer Alex Honnold, through some peer pressure and arm-twisting, took YouTuber and former Norwegian climbing champion Magnus Midtbø on a questionable free solo of the route. Honnold purportedly forgot to mention two sections of finger crack on the crux pitch — straightforward and secure, but it didn't look like Magnus enjoyed learning to finger lock with a metaphorical gun to his head.

Armatron has the unfortunate drawback of sitting on Brownstone Wall, a long way from the Pine Creek Canyon lot. Mountain Project sandbaggers, keen to prop up their massive hearts and iron calves, claim the approach is about an hour and a half. We are doubtful.

So we choose the long hike. We're out the door around 5:35am (with a Starbucks stop, conveniently open at 4:30am), aiming to hit the scenic loop right when the gate opens at 6am. We make it almost exactly on time and wait behind a few cars. Along the drive, gusts buffet the car in a rhythmic "chug-chug" against the windows. The forecast calls for winds up to 50 mph, and Cathy is a little concerned. I tell her — and myself — that the wind will likely be damped in the canyon. I'm not sure I convince either of us.

We arrive at Pine Creek as the sun climbs higher, throwing splashes of orange across the desert. A few parties are already throwing on packs and heading in. My diligence for packing food does not extend to packing gear, so we spend 15 minutes sorting our splayed mess of cams, nuts, and alpine draws while more parties pass us. Cams, a set of nuts (the most important gear here, per Mountain Project — you thread them between the varnished plates), ball nuts, belay devices, four sandwiches, four muffins, strawberries, four bars, dried apricots. Good to go.

The hike starts mellow. We aim for Mescalito, hang a left, curve over a hill toward Jackrabbit Buttress, and meet a party of three resting on the side of the trail.

"Where are y'all headed?"

"We're looking to do Armatron. What about you guys?"

"Armatron as well."

"There's another party ahead of us also looking to get on Armatron."

"Looks like we're all headed there. Maybe we can find the route together… or get lost together."

They nod hesitantly. I start up a hill. Cathy stops me and tells me I'm going the wrong way. "Oh yeah… uh… you want to go straight." A member of their party tries to save face after Cathy corrects me, but it's too late — I see their true face now. Past the veneer of jolly collaboration is a cesspool of rot and decay. These weaklings, resting this early on a mild trail, want to mislead us so they can get on the route first? Something awakens in me, and a rivalry is born. I refuse to follow this party up the route. The race is on. We must be decisive. We must not get lost.

We pick up the pace toward Juniper Canyon and Jackrabbit Buttress, hit the mouth of the canyon, and enter the creek. Route-finding gets weird — tangles of brush and a web of trails and washes braided with the creek bed. We walk left, then right, hug the buttress, then move away. A healthy dose of bushwhacking and confusion are good indicators that we are now lost. From afar, I hear the jingling of gear and feel a twinge of fear.

We backtrack and eventually find a section of talus from the Mountain Project description. We head up the talus, then a set of slabs, looking up at the dark varnish of Brownstone Wall hanging above us. The hike takes two and a half hours. Finally, we arrive at the base of Armatron.

There is no one here. The party supposedly ahead of us is nowhere to be found. A strange, unsatisfactory victory — but a victory nonetheless. I enjoy a cucumber-hummus sandwich while Cathy gears up for her lead.

The first pitch (5.7) follows juggy plates to a nice ledge, bolted if a little sparse. The wind is nowhere near the predictions, and we both feel comfortable. Cathy cruises up; I follow.

The second pitch is the crux (5.9). I find a thin finger crack that takes a nice ball nut. I imagine I'm a rope-less blonde Norwegian desperately crimping, but that gets boring, so I opt for a finger lock. The black varnished plates feel smooth and sturdy; looking up the belly of the route is like studying the carapace of some mythological monster, squares and rectangles repeating far above my eyeline.

The next pitch is the money pitch: plate-cruising. I take it, slotting a nut between two plates. I test another — doesn't fit. Swap it. Doesn't work. Go for attempt three.

A third attempt is never made. I'm unclear on what exactly happened, but the entire carabiner of nuts is suddenly freefalling through the air. I'm too shocked to yell "rock," but Cathy shouts a warning to the party below. The nuts bounce off the wall, roll onto the slab, and stop. I frown. Not ideal.

Cathy's a bit concerned — the pitch is long, and nuts are the primary protection. She suggests downclimbing to the anchor, but my last piece is a ways below me. I decide to keep climbing; running out a 5.6 on solid jugs doesn't seem too horrible, and I still have the ball nuts. I climb cautiously, looking for placements. A nifty horizontal crack appears for a cam, then another, then another — three in close succession — and a few more meters lead to the bolted anchor. No nuts needed after all. Mountain Project lies again. I radio Cathy that I'm in direct. "Thank God," she mutters.

Cathy leads the next pitch (5.7); I take the final pitch (5.6). The climbing is uneventful and a little uninspiring compared to the early pitches, and the wind has begun to whip us. After a short scramble we top out on Juniper Peak, hunt down some cairns, and put our names in the summit register. Success. The wind is a constant roar now, so we find a wind-shadowed spot for our multicourse meal. Two o'clock. Good time.

We mess around before deciding to descend. Everyone on Mountain Project says the descent is easy and well-marked, and the consensus convinces me it's not a sandbag. As directed, we face Las Vegas, turn left, and follow set after set of cairns. At a small tree we turn left… and end up at a cliff. Strange. We backtrack, follow another set of cairns, and arrive at another cliff. The wind really roars now, and anxiety rises in me. When an especially strong gust hits, I grab a rock and hold tight, trying to quell the imaginary scenarios unfolding in my head.

Eventually we conclude something is wrong and take the safest option: hike all the way back to the summit and reset. Two hours have passed. We face Vegas again and turn left. The same cairns lead to the same tree — but this time we notice another set heading right, diving into a fast-descending gully. A string of expletives and comments on how stupid we are fly out of both our mouths. One small wrong turn cost us an hour and a half on tough terrain.

The real trail is exactly as described: trivial and straightforward. We make our way down to the base of Brownstone Wall and breathe a sigh of relief. We hunt for our nuts to no avail — another party likely grabbed them, which is a little gross given they're caked in my blood — and begin the descent to the lot. The air is full of mourning.

The descent is tough. Fried from the approach, the climbing, and the aimless wandering, we both feel cooked. The lot looks miles away and the long slab is hard on the knees. On the way down we admire the rocks, splotched with leopard spots and watercolor spirals. Cathy decides she wants a pretty rock, and being the leave-no-trace warriors we are, we begin the hunt. I find a small rock ringed with red stripes and feel satisfied. A few minutes later I hear Cathy's signature hum of excitement and watch her round the corner with a behemoth held in both hands — quite pretty, geometric red lines encircling it, and easily five pounds. Being the idiots we are, we shove it into the pack and continue.

Tiredness takes over, and I resort to whispering "an object in motion stays in motion." At approximately 6:47pm — twelve hours after we started — we arrive in the Pine Creek parking lot. We are broken, grimy, and nut-less. And in spite of all that, we are victors.