Climbing Red Rock’s Resolution Arete
Sponsored by Boreal
Dray Bullard has been climbing for 16 years and is active in all disciplines of the sport: bouldering, sport and traditional climbing, as well as ice and big walls. He has climbed in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Wyoming and the awesome mountains of Chamonix in France. Currently he is a sales representative for Boreal.
By Dray Bullard
Red Rock, Nevada. For me this means glowing desert landscapes, alien like flora, beautiful varnished sandstone and most of all, world class climbing. Few other areas in the world offer hundreds, sometimes thousands, of feet of air under your heels at almost every grade. Hard, easy, cracks, sport and bouldering, Red Rock has something to offer the all-rounder as well as any hardcore specialist. With around 2000 routes, it is hard to chip away at your ever increasing tick list. Sometimes routes are on that list for years. One such route for me was “Resolution Arete”. With the exception of maybe 3 easily aided moves of 5.11, the majority of the climb is 5.8 to 5.10 excellent crack climbing, about 2000 feet of it. It remained on my list and in my dreams for years.
One spring, on my way to Yosemite with a friend, we were deterred from our valley plans by gnarly spring storms hammering our objective, El Cap. We figured Red Rock would be a great alternative, but what should we do? Brainstorming around the campfire one night we finally decided on Resolution Arete. The first couple of attempts were ruined by late starts from indulging in the offerings that neighboring Las Vegas has to offer but once we settled down we finally found ourselves ready and willing at the base of this long moderate.
We found pitch after pitch of the best of everything. Off width sections, flares, hand cracks, perfect crimps, fingers, you name it, it was there. About half way up the route we were making good time and stopped for a quick snack and rest. The second half of the route was more of the same, pitch after pitch of perfect rock.
After roughly 15 hours, we finally hit the summit. Now for what I now consider the crux of the route, the descent, or at least it was with the beta we had. It is hard to find the right way down with: “walk ¾ of a mile and head down the wooded gully to your right” as the descent description, especially when there are A LOT of gullies on the right.
We walked for a bit, finally deciding to pick a gully, any gully, and get going. It was getting dark very quickly; it was time to get moving. We flipped a coin and began the adventure. Had we picked the right gully there it would’ve been only 4 rappels to do, 10 rappels later we knew we definitely lost the coin toss. We were tired, cold, hungry and far from the end of this ordeal so we opted for an open bivy, to reduce the chances of making a mistake in the dark.
Once the longest, coldest night ever had passed and the sunlight warmed us up, we continued. Several hours later we staggered to the car very hungry and very thirsty, with nothing in the cooler but pizza and beer. Drinking what we had we felt better with each swig. Resolution Arete was finally off of the list. I learned that the longer routes like this stay unclimbed and on your list you are prolonging great adventures with great friends. So thumb through your old guidebooks, find your old tick list and set of on that route that you’ve wanted to do forever and let the good times roll.
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