Sharks Fin - Wiggins Arete Free

"Here one must leave behind all hesitation; here every cowardice must meet its death." (Inferno III:14-15)

In twelve years of climbing, this was one of the most rewarding and most intense experiences I've ever had. Over the course of five days, Noah McKelvin and I secured the third free ascent of the Sharks Fin in Canyonlands via the Wiggins Arete (5.12 R). The original aid route was established in 1986 by rock legend Earl Wiggins. Graded at a stout A4, it was the hardest desert aid line of its time. It is the steepest tower route in the desert -- a plumb line from the summit to the ground (around 300') lands 75 feet from the base.

In 2008, the route saw its first free ascent by one of the hardest-working professional climbers in the game, Rob Pizem from Grand Junction, CO. In an article published by Climbing Magazine, he emphasized the serious and heady nature of the climb, calling it a "classic desert testpiece and fight-fest." To that description we would add "fright-fest." Between the sustained overhanging nature of the route, incessant loose rock and petrified mud, runouts over

intermittent and questionable gear placements -- and most importantly, decrepit fixed hardware that was installed thirty-five years ago -- the Wiggins Arete is a grave undertaking.

Freeing this route has been Noah's dream for a decade. He shared the vision with me just as I was embarking on a four-month road trip through the West. I knew little about it except that the route had only been climbed without aid by two parties: Piz in 2008 and Alex Honnold in 2014. Noah is a true connoisseur of adventure climbing. His resume of bold ascents includes every summit in the Fisher Towers, an area infamous for high-pucker-factor rock that inspires soul-searching, to put it lightly. Two years ago, Noah and I spent two days on Event Horizon in the Black Canyon (5.12 2000'). We took an arduous approach from the opposite rim and ran out of water at the beginning of the second day, just before crux pitch with a thousand feet of climbing to go. From this experience I knew that Noah understands how to dig deep.

We needed to dig deep for this undertaking. The day before our departure, the third member of our crew had to bail. With him went our only 4x4 option for driving into the rim and bringing a comfortable amount of supplies. Undeterred, we decided to backpack in from Grandview Point. This required carrying eighty-pound packs down an exposed ledge system and then trekking overland for three miles. As the following video shows, the approach was formidable.

It took us six hours to complete the three-mile approach from Grandview. On several occasions we slipped on steep scree and went for a tumble thanks to our ungainly loads. When we at last reached our bivy spot at the base of the Sharks Fin, we set up camp, laid out our gear for the next day, devoured mashed potato tuna burritos, and went to bed at 8:00.

Our plan was to summit the Sharks Fin via the Fetish Arete (5.10+ R), hauling up four ropes, and then rappel Wiggins Arete, backing up each ghastly fixed anchor with a line from the summit. The top anchor wasn't stellar (two ring pins, a spinning modern bolt and a small hueco threaded with a bowline) but it gave us a small modicum of confidence in the far-too-plausible scenario of ripping one of the Wiggins anchors in a factor-two fall.

The Fetish Arete proved an excellent adventure climb with a respectable amount of spicy climbing on loose rock. Noah took the first pitch (5.9 R) and made good time despite the unhealthy amount of exfoliating sandstone flakes.

I took the second (5.10 PG-13+), which involved some devious routefinding, some wide crack shenanigans and a bit of ledgefall potential.

Noah led the third, which included some sandy, exposed mantels without gear.

Fetish continued to impress us with its dastardly brilliance with the fourth pitch. I clove-hitched a protruding fixed pin for the 5.10c face crux.

A short scramble across the long summit ridge brought us to the top of the Sharks Fin. Many thanks to Steve "Crusher" Bartlett for establishing this delightful, devious route.

We then located the anchors for Wiggins: a threaded hueco through which we tied a rope and then gingerly downclimbed to a stance with two ring pins and a spinning modern bolt.

Then came the mental crux of the entire trip: rappelling into the abyss.

Days later, we both revealed that at that moment, we were each thinking the same thing: "If he says we should bail, I won't argue." Fortunately, neither of us said it.

The crux pin fifteen feet off the belay was less than confidence inspiring, so we backed it up with our fixed line to the summit. Otherwise, falling before that pin or ripping it would undoubtedly result in catastrophic anchor failure on those three star-drive bolts from 1986 (two spinning, one rusted). Noah and I each toproped the crux 5.12b pitch. Words can't describe the wild exposure as you cut feet and swing over the void, then throw a left heelhook above your head. It's one of the coolest sequences I've ever pulled on a tower.

Noah then flipped a switch in his brain and tied in for the lead.

In a manner of minutes, he was past the monster roof and placing an offset 0.1/0.2. One more balancy high step led to easier (read: crumblier) ground, and then he was at the top. I followed the pitch cleanly, and the crux of Wiggins Arete Free was complete. We rapped the rest of the route, setting up a series of fixed lines to back up each atrocious anchor to the one above it, and ultimately to that bowline through a hole at the summit. On the ground, we celebrated with more tuna burritos. The next morning, we got a leisurely start and soaked in the magnificence of Monument Basin.

Our only objective for the day was for me to free the first pitch (140' 5.10+++ PG-13+). I took two toprope burns and then went for the lead. On my first go, a crucial foothold decided that its sandstone existence was no longer worth leading. The result was captured on my phone from the base:

Thankfully, the red Metolius ULMC held like a champ. Also note Noah's excellent belay technique in jumping backward to take in slack as I fell. This close to the ground, I don't want a soft catch. After a quick walk to burn off excess nervous energy, I tied back in and sent the pitch. There were four distinct moves that felt like 5.10d, plus some tricky traversing involving tiptoeing across ball-bearing strewn kitty-litter rock. I was quite relieved to clip the not-chains. Two pitches down, two to go.

An intense windstorm made for a difficult night's sleep. The next day we jugged up to the start of P2 and brought the inflatable G7 portaledge to make the belay more palatable. This pitch (5.11d R) was the most consistently steep and featured an intensely body-positional sequence at the end of the traverse. After two learn-n-burns, Noah led it with style.

All that remained was for me to send P3, then we could jug out and rap Fetish Arete and go home. Anxiety loomed -- we didn't have enough water to spend an extra day, so if I failed to lead this pitch clean, we would have to admit defeat and leave the tower incomplete. Neither of us wanted to come back and hang on those anchors ever again, so the stakes were high.

I had a lot of time to think about this after Noah finished P2 in the early afternoon, so I tried to distract myself by going for a walk around the basin to scope out potential new lines.

As always, the desert teemed with vibrant brown beauty.

Our last morning, I woke before dawn. We didn't have enough water to make coffee, so I slugged some oatmeal and then jumared two hundred feet of free-hanging rope to the start of my pitch. My mind was a morass of doubts.

Due to our strenous backpacking approach and limited supplies, I was nowhere near sufficiently hydrated considering the 1100' total of climbing I had done over the last three days. And just plain sore. My first toprope burn on p3 (5.11d PG-13) was mystifying. Three stacked roofs off the belay led to a dihedral with marginal gear (including a ballnut, a tipped-out #4 in a horizontal, and a quarter-inch lead bolt clipped with a Yates Screamer). I began to seriously question whether I would fail to send this pitch.

On the second burn, I unlocked the crux after five attempts. It involved a hand jam at my waist, then matching a heel-toe cam almost on top of the same hand, then a pinch on a crispy fin, then rocking up on the heel to barely reach a crimp at full extension. Very trad-bouldery. I had a blue Totem below my feet and #3 Ballnut at my face. Feeling somewhat better, I got back to the belay and set my timer for a full one-hour break. During that time, I listened to Bach's Well-Tempered Klavier, the flowing preludes and intricate fugues serving to quiet my mind somewhat. I used to play many of them on piano in high school and college, so it's a nice reminder that there's life beyond climbing. The timer jarred me back to reality at the hanging belay stance. As the afternoon wind picked up, I put on my Katakis, tied in and repeated the mantra that I say before every lead pitch: "May the peace of G-d which transcends all human understanding guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus."

Hell yeah, let's do this.

Twenty minutes later, I was clipping the anchor and yelling "off belay." Words can't express the relief I felt at having sent the pitch. We had successfully freed Wiggins Arete. Now we just needed to get down! We jumared out the roof (which involved performing a lowerout on a Munter, cool aid tricks galore), reached the summit again and signed the historic summit log a few pages after Earl, Art and Katy.

Though we had accomplished our goal, the adventure was far from over. Chopping up one of our core-shot ropes (three of our four got coreshot on this trip), we backed up the Fetish Arete anchors and rappelled.

We regained blessed terra firma at 3:00 and wasted no time getting packed up for the grueling hike out. I had sixteen ounces of water left. We bid farewell to Monument Basin and struggled with our lighter-but-still-dang-heavy packs back up toward Grandview Point. Just when we thought the spicy part of the trip was finished, we encountered this:

We gave the five-foot rattler a wide berth and booked it for the final scramble. Darkness fell as Noah was hauling our packs up the 5.4 section. Headlamps on, we pressed onward and upward toward the Prius and the tantalizing prospect of making it to a greasy spoon diner before they closed at 11:00pm. I almost wept when we hit pavement. After five and a half hours of hiking (17 hour push total from the start that morning), we reached the end of our quest.

It's still too soon for me to fully process the events of those five days, but I wanted to record all of it while it was still fresh. Without a doubt, freeing Wiggins Arete was one of the most rewarding experiences of my climbing career. Big thanks to Noah for inviting me to share in this wild vision quest. I will never forget the agony and ecstasy of this true adventure.