Arrowhead
Date: July 8, 2021 (Thu)Trip Report #: 476Partner: Will Starks
Route: Full Metal Jacket (5.10c, 3p)
An obscure wide crack climb. Two good pitches, one kinda horrible pitch, and a lot of hiking.
Intro
Full Metal Jacket ascends a very prominent crack system up the south face of the East Buttress of Arrowhead. The FA of this route was done by Richard Rossiter via rope solo in 2007. A lack of photos or comments on mountainproject suggest this route is not climbed frequently.
This route looks good from below and has a cool route name, but to be honest Will and I did not really enjoy this route. It is a lot of approaching and de-approaching on rough terrain for a few pitches of climbing. The first and second pitches are quite good, but we found the third pitch to have a dirty and friable untraveled feel.
The following page provides a trip report for the adventure climb. Enjoy!
Route Overlay
Pitch-by-Pitch Photos
Approach
3rd to low 5th
The Rossiter guidebook describes two ways to reach the East Buttress, noting that neither is a piece of cake. We chose to Rossiter's Approach 3, which comes at the East Buttress from below and gains Ledge One between Arrowhead Spire and the East Buttress. We soloed some low-5th terrain on this approach. We didn't like this approach much (long and a bit sketchy) and decided we would try Approach 2 for the descent.
Pitch 1
5.10a, 80'
Climb the crack on the right and bridge up through a slot followed by a short squeeze chimney. Then jam fists and hands to a good stance in a left-facing dihedral, behind the Bullet (a large, pointed spike).
Pitch 2
5.10c, 120'
Continue in the same crack (mostly hands) to the base of a 12-inch slot. Climb up the slot, slinging a chockstone and using a big cam for pro. Rossiter's gear list calls for a #5, but we found a #6 to be essential to safely protect this section. At the top of the slot, exit right onto an airy stance and then continue up a hand crack to Ledge Two. Move the belay to a slot beneath the right of two dihedrals.
Pitch 3
5.10a, 100'
Bridge up the slot or climb in from the right, then jam and stem the dihedral to Ledge Three, near the top of the East Buttress. This pitch was very dirty and friable (as if it has not been climbed in years) and was a bit horrible at times. Fortunately, gear was pretty good throughout.
Descent
Rappel route + 3rd to low 5th
We rappelled the route, creating rap anchors at the top of each pitch off a slung horn or block. The slings mentioned in a 2017 post on mountainproject had disappeared, likely due to a few years of wind and storms. We had no desire to reverse the Rossiter Approach 3, so we decided to take Rossiter Approach 2 along Ledge One as our descent back to the base of Arrowhead proper. We liked this way better than Approach 3, but had to rope up to get around a steep bulge where Ledge One meets the South Ridge of Arrowhead Spire (Rossiter had not described this brief class 5 section, but perhaps it is possible to avoid the 5th class by being on a slightly lower ledge system).
(Another descent option—which might actually be better compared to creating rappel anchors and traversing Ledge One— is to not leave any gear at the base of the route and escape north and west over the summit of the East Buttress and scramble to a junction with South Ramp and descend the relatively mellow South Ramp.)
