"The Russian Arete, you know, like Russian roulette." (A quote by Layton Kor taken from Black Canyon Rock Climbs by Robbie Williams)
As its name implies, the Russian Arete is a long, loose climb. The climbing is good and clean, due to much traffic over the years, but the loose rocks, flakes, and boulders are everywhere to be found. Remember to pull down and not out. That being said, the Russian Arete is a wonderful climb, ascending a series of chimneys for 800 feet, not including scrambling, from the river to the rim. Do not the let loose rock be a deterrence, but rather delight in a pleasant ascent of a Black Canyon classic. Expect 8 200 foot pitches on the route plus much scrambling to get to the base of the route from the river and the back off the thing to the rim.From the campground on the North Rim, descend the SOB Gully almost to the river. Look for 2 gullies on the downstream side. Head up the gully on the left, on third class terrain, aiming for the base of a large pillar. The climbing begins on the right side of the pillar, heading up a series of wide cracks. There are many ledges in this area, climb to the highest one possible and belay.Pitch 1 - Climb the wide cracks as high as possible, and belay on a ledge beneath the pink _railroad cracks_ that identifies the 2nd pitch. 5.8 200 feetPitch 2 - More of the same. Continue up the crack system, through the best climbing on the route, encountering a little bit of everything, hands, roof, and chimney. Belay where suitable, as high as possible. 5.9+ 200 feetPitch 3 - More of the same. Get the picture yet? Continue up a series of chimneys, belay as high as possible. 5.8 200 feetPitch 4 5 and 6 - More chimneys. There is supposed to be a 5.9 crack in this area somewhere, but with all of the chimneys, it gets lost in the shuffle. 5.8 to 5.9 200 feet each pitch.Now for the finish. Head up to the rim. Continue roped climbing for at least 2 more pitches or so to reach easier terrain that can be comfortably scrambled. Head to the highest point possible and back into the woods, trending ever so slightly to the right until the trail back to the ranger station is encountered. It is a good mile to mile and a half, depending on the level of dehydration and exhaustion, back to the ranger station.The route can be checked out from the North Rim overlook. Use Black Canyon Rock Climbs by Robbie Williams as a reference. Enjoy.
Protection
Bring a standard Black Canyon rack, up to number 4 camalot.
The route is great and well worth doing as the description above implies. I did not feel like I encountered any more loose rock than one might find on any big route in the Black. There is some here and there, but not too much in my opinion. That being said, I would think twice before climbing underneath another party on this route. The description here and in Robbie's book is generally good. I would offer the following comments having done the route twice now: A nice belay for pitch two is just after exiting the final roof and climbing the short slab out right. The wall kicks back a bit here and there is a good perch in some peg out right. You can get good cams placed downwards behind a large flake behind this stance. The next pitch (and all subsequent ones) heads up the obvious chimney system out left of this belay (20 feet). I found pitches 3 and 4 to be about 100-120 feet long and could be combined by stretching out a 60-70m rope, though there are some nice belay ledges that are hard to pass up. The 5th pitch goes for a long time (60 m) up through the chimneys and passes another 5.9 peg section below a black roof. After this pitch, the way is easy -- up another 30 feet of chimney and then easy terrain out right. Keep to the right until it is easy to break to the ridge crest which you can follow to the rim. Most of this the ridge is 4th class. The climbing is surprisingly good the whole way. It should take a competent party about 6-8 hours on route.
Had to climb over a friendly 5 ft. bull snake on this route...he was sunning on a small ledge around pitch 4 or 5at least it wasn't a buzzworm..still a little exciting though- nice snake,nice snake........
Did this route on April 29th of 08 with Erik Wellborn, and we were the only ones there.....Nice!! I suppose there are two ways to access the "true base" of this route (right of the big, detached pillar). Either way is loose and should be soloed with a good amount of space between you and your partner as you can see by my eye in one of the photos. Nonetheless, a fun route with lots of quality rock on it. Vince, thanks for the beta on the belay at pitch two, really fun pitch. There are so many ways to finish up the last scramble to the top, we took a way that involved a lot of 4th to 5th classing. Took us 8 hours to get back onto the trail and back to our beer. Great Route.
North Rim Routes
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