This post is written by Tai Xiang. His website report is here!

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We wake up at 5:05am to a rather spooky and high-pitched trill that is surprisingly frightening. Cathy has set her alarm sound 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 have also packed two turkey, gouda, hummus sandwiches on marble rye, four more muffins, and an assortment of bars. Additionally, we have two more hummus and cucumber sandwiches for a post-brownstone wall hike pick-me-up. The weight conscious trad climber perhaps cringes at the cornucopia of food that we are hauling around, but if it is within your means, why not live well? 

This discussion has thus far entirely been about food, so I think it’s best I discuss the objective for the day. We are headed to the base of brownstone wall to climb armatron, six pitches of jug-hauling, finger locks, and plate pulling. It’s allure lies in the dark and 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 around a year ago. Such features oftentimes make me wish I had taken a geology class in college.

Armatron also got a bit of fame a couple of months ago, when free soloing-enjoyer Alex honnold, through some peer pressuring and arm twisting, took YouTube vlogger and former Norwegian climbing champion magnus midtbo on a questionable free solo adventure on the route. Honnold purportedly forgot to inform midtbo of two sections of finger crack on the crux pitch, and though those sequences are fairly straightforward and secure, it doesnt appear like midtbo enjoyed the process of learning how to finger lock with a gun loaded with bullets of blunt impact pointed to his head. 

Armatron has the rather unfortunate drawback of being located on the brownstone wall, which is a rather long distance away from the pine creek canyon parking lot. Mountain project sandbaggers, keen to prop up their massive hearts and iron calves, claim the approach lasts around an hour and a half, but we are doubtful of this. Alternatively, if you desire to skip a section of the approach, you can instead hike to jackrabbit buttress and climb mysterz, which ends right at the base of armatron. However, this extends the climbing to 13 pitches, and given our past history, this is a pretty bad idea. 

So instead, we choose the option of a long hike. We get out the door at around 535am (we also pick up some coffee from Starbucks, which conveniently opens at 4:30am), seeking to arrive at the scenic loop when the gate opens up at 6am. We make it there almost exactly on time, and we wait behind a couple of cars as the entry station opens up. We enter the loop and begin the journey to pine creek canyon. Along the way, sporadic bursts of wind buffet the car, playing a rhythmic “chug-chug” against the windows. The weather forecast puts the highest winds to be at around 50 miles per hour, and Cathy is a little concerned. I tell her (and myself) that the wind will likely be damped out in the canyon, though I’m not sure if I succeed in convincing either of us. 

We arrive at pine creek as the sun begins to crawl higher into the sky, throwing splashes of orange into the stretches of dirt and desert ahead of us. It’s around 630. A few parties ahead of us are out of their cars and throwing on their packs and heading into the trail, perhaps heading to mescalito or cloud tower or jack rabbit buttress or, unfortunately, brownstone wall. 

On the other hand, my diligence for packing food does not extend to packing gear, and our splayed mess of cams and alpine draws sit in two boxes, far away from our packs. For the next 15 minutes, we pack our gear and watch more parties head in ahead of us. Cams, a set of nuts (that are the most important pieces of gear for this route, according to mountain project. You thread nuts in between the black varnished plates for protection.), ball nuts, belay devices, four sandwiches, four muffins, a bag of strawberries, four bars, a bag of dried apricots, we are good to go. 

The hike starts out pretty mellow. We head straight towards mescalito before hanging a left, curving us over a hill and towards jackrabbit buttress. We encounter a party of three resting on the side of the trail. I inquire about their plans for the day. 

“Where are yall 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 try to find the route together… Or get lost together…”

They nod hesitantly. I hang a right and start up a hill. Cathy stops me and tells me I’m headed the wrong way. 

“Oh yeah… Uh… You want to go straight.” 

A member of their party attempts to save face after Cathy has corrected me, but it’s too late. I see their true face now. Past the veneer of supposed jolly collaboration is a cesspool of rot and decay. These weaklings, resting on a hilariously mild trail, want to mislead us so they can get on the route first? Something awakens inside of me, and a rivalry is born. I refuse to get on this route after this party. If they have to rest this far into the hike, it’s inevitable they will be hangdogging every pitch, power screaming their way up 5.6 and fighting for their life on the most trivial of jug hauls. I refuse to sniff their butts for the whole day. The race is on. We must be decisive and clear-headed. We must not get lost. 

Cathy agrees with my assessment and we pick up the pace, storming our way towards Juniper canyon and jackrabbit buttress. We quickly arrive at the mouth of the canyon and enter the creek. Route finding gets weird here. Tangles of brush and a web of trails (or washes) mixed in with the branching creek bed make navigating difficult. We walk left, then right, hug jackrabbit buttress, then move away from it. A healthy quantity of bushwacking 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 a bit and eventually find a section of talus outlined by mountain project. The jingling cannot be heard anymore, and we worry that the other party has already cruised their way up to the base of brownstone while we were busy being assailed by stray bushes. There’s nothing we can do about it now. We head up the talus, then up a set of slabs, looking up to see the dark varnish of brownstone wall hanging above our heads. The hike takes us around two and a half hours. Fuck you mountain project sandbag gers. Finally, we arrive at the base of Armatron. 

There is no one here. The party that is purportedly before us is nowhere to be found. The formerly-resting party is nowhere in sight. This is a strange and unsatisfactory victory, but it is victory nonetheless. I take a seat and enjoy a cucumber hummus sandwich as Cathy begins to gear up for her lead. 

The first pitch (5.7) up Armatron follows juggy plates up to a nice belay ledge. It’s bolted, albeit somewhat sparsely. The winds aren’t anywhere near the fifty miles per hour predictions, and we both feel fairly comfortable. Cathy cruises up the plates and I follow quickly behind. The other parties are still nowhere in sight. 

The second pitch is the crux pitch (5.9). I move up it and find a thin fingercrack, which fits a nice ball nut. I imagine that I am a rope-less blonde Norwegian desperately trying to crimp the crack, but that becomes a little boring quickly, so I opt for a fingerlock. A few more moves takes things into juggier plates. I move right to a second fingercrack, climb above that, and connect into the black varnished plates. They feel smooth and sturdy, and looking up the belly of the route is akin to studying the reinforced carapace of some mythological monster, the continually repeating sequence of squares and rectangles flowing far above my eye line. I climb up to a ledge and belay Cathy up. By now, a party of two has arrived at the base and begins to set up their gear. 

The next pitch is the money pitch: plate-cruising. I take this pitch as Cathy is a bit worried about the amount of gear. I start up, slotting a nut between two plates for protection. I continue onwards and test out another nut. It doesn’t quite fit, so I swap it out for another. That one also doesn’t really work out, so I go for attempt three. 

However, a third attempt is never made. I’m unclear as to what exactly happened, but the entire carabiner of nuts is suddenly freefalling through the air. I am too shocked to tell “rock”, but thankfully Cathy gives a shout, warning the party below us. The nuts bounce off the wall, roll onto the slab, then stop. I frown. Not ideal. 

Cathy is a bit concerned as the pitch is rather long and nuts between plates are the primary protection. She offers a suggestion of downclimbing back the anchor, but my last piece of protection is still a ways below me. I think about it, then decide to continue climbing. Running out a 5.6 on some pretty solid jugs doesn’t seem too horrible an idea, and I still have the ball nuts.

So I begin up the sea of black plates again, climbing rather cautiously and looking out for spots to sink a cam into. I try to place a ball nut, but the geometry of the plates makes things difficult, so I give up. I climb for a while, before a nifty horizontal crack pops up for me to sink a cam into. Then another horizontal crack shows up, then another, until I have placed three cams in close succession. A couple more meters of climbing lead me to the bolted anchors and I go in direct. No nuts needed after all. Mountain project lies again. At this point, we are out of earshot, so I radio Cathy that I am in direct. Thank God, she mutters in response. 

Cathy quickly cruises up the black varnish, and after discussing how gorgeous the features are, we talk about our plan for the next pitches. We have no nuts, so I offer to lead the next pitch (5.6) and just run it out if needed. I start up and find a bunch more horizontal cam placements. Nice! 

Cathy leads the pitch afterwards (5.7) and I take the final pitch (5.6) the climbing is uneventful and a little uninspiring compared to the early pitches. The wind has began to sporadically whip us, adding a touch of undesired spice to the climbing. After a short scramble, we make it to Juniper peak, where we hunt down some cairns and put our names in the summit registry. Success! The wind has picked up substantially now and is now at a constant roar, so we find a wind-shadowed spot for our multicourse meal. Two o clock. Making pretty good time. 

GRAPHIC SECTION AHEAD, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

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After lunch, I decide to go take a leak. Concerned about the wind I pick a strategic location so that my piss doesn’t blow back on me. As I begin to pee I realize that the wind is also blowing vertically. This realization is prompted by a spray of piss that covers my jacket, my harness, and my face. I do my best to redirect the stream, but a steady summer shower of piss still gets all over me. Defeated, I head back to Cathy and informs her of my trauma. Infuriatingly, she asks why I didn’t simply stop pissing, relocate, and then start pissing again. 

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We mess around for a bit before deciding to descend. Everyone on mountain project says that the descent is easy and straightforward, and the shocking amount of consensus leads me to believe that this is not a sandbag. Easy trail! Lots of cairns! Well marked! After my fair share of getting lost and ending up in sketchy spots during walk offs, this is a welcome surprise. 

As directed, we face Las Vegas and turn left, following sets upon sets of cairns. At a small tree we turn left, continuing on uncairned rock until another set of cairns presents a welcome sight. Heading southwest into pinecreek, we spot another set of cairns before we are welcomed by a cliff. Strange. This doesn’t seem right. 

We backtrack to the prior cairn and notice that in another direction, there are multiple sets of cairns. Convinced that those are the correct ones, we follow along, before arriving at another cliff. The wind has really begun to roar now, and I feel a rising anxiety in me. Shoe rubber pasted on some low angle slab holds me on Juniper peak, while the wind seeks to take me into motion. Occasionally, when an especially strong gust hits, I grab a rock and hold on tight, hoping to quell the host of imaginary scenarios that have begun to unfold in my mind. 

Eventually, we conclude that something is wrong. The descent is supposed to be easy and simple, yet here we are, flailing on slightly sketchy terrain. An hour and a half has passed. We opt to take the safest option and hike all the way back to the summit. Reset, try again. Two hours have passed. We face Vegas again and turn left. 

The same set of cairns leads us to the same tree. This time we notice another set of cairns that lead right and dive down into a fast-descending gully.

A string of expletives and comments on how fucking stupid we are fly out of both our mouths. One small wrong turn, and we ended up wandering around on tough terrain for an hour and a half. 

The actual trail turns out to be accurate to the mountain project description: trivial and straightforward. We make our way down to the base of Brownstone Wall eventually, breathing a sigh of relief. The welcome embrace of solid ground. 

We hunt around for our nuts to no avail, instead finding two nuts dropped by another group that we politely return to them. We eventually conclude that another party has likely taken them (which is a little gross, since those nuts are caked in a lot of my blood) and begin our descent back to the parking lot. The air is filled with mourning. 

The descent is tough. Tired from the approach, the climbing, and the aimless searching around the peak, we both feel a bit fried. The parking lot looks miles and miles away, and the long slab is tiring on the knees. We stop and go, cosplaying the weak party from the morning. 

On the way we admire the rocks, splotches with patterns of 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. Tiredness is replaced by a new mission. 

We find a small rock ringed by red stripes, and I feel pretty satisfied. A few minutes later, I hear Cathy’s signature hum of excitement, and I see her emerge around the corner with a behemoth rock held in both hands. It is quite pretty, with geometric red lines encircling, but it has to weigh at least 5 pounds. Being the idiots we are, we shove it into the pack and continue on the remainder of the long hike. 

Tiredness begins to take over, and I resort to whispering “an object in motion stays in motion” to continue. At approximately 6:47pm,12 hours after we first started, we arrive in the Pine Creek parking lot. We are broken, grimey, and nut less, yet in spite of all that, we are victors.