Fish Hook Arete - Mt Russell (14,084 ft), 5.8 III

My long-time climbing partner Eric and I finally climbed this beautiful route, which was to be his last Sierra route before leaving California (To go to Cleveland, OHIO????). We hiked in and camped at Upper Boy Scout Lake on June 2004 and decided to do a Russell "grand tour" by ascending the Fishhook Arete and descending the East Ridge.

   

We left at 4 am from our camp and hiked to the base of the route, which we reached at 6.30 am. We started climbing in the cold shade for 3 pitches before we reached the sunny part of the arete. After a 4th class pitch followed a hard pitch with a short and hard 5.9ish crack to gain the ridge proper. We got on top of the ridge for the next two 5.8 pitches before reaching a notch in the sun.

    

The fifth pitch was the most classic of all, with excellent face climbing and good pro.

            The next pitch was the chimney pitch, which wasn't as bad as we thought, except for me following with the pack...There were some chock stones inside that could be slinged, cracks on the sides, protection was not an issue.

   

We were doing an ok time, and took some time for pics.

      
We though we were done with the hard climbing but we still had one more pitch of 5.8 climbing with scarce protection before two easy pitches put us on top at 2 pm. Eric set a belay station by slinging the summit register...and a big boulder also. The climb was awesome on excellent rock, with great exposure and ambience. A classic. The descent was another classic.