Red Lantern is most definitely a burly route that requires a little bit of lunacy to climb. It got its name from a very random rusted out red lantern near the start of the climb. I have no idea how it got there but I do wonder who brings an ancient lantern out to the middle of nowhere. Regardless of how it got there, I like the flavor that it brings the route.
To be open and honest I did not climb this route but instead relegated myself to photography duty while Wes and Ben climbed. The start of the route is pretty straight forward. There is a crack… and you climb it. The rock has a thin layer of loose lichen that makes stemming and smearing tricky but luckily it is not the black, crunchy, flakey lichen which would make this route a nightmare to send.
After about 40 feet of clean-ish crack climbing the burly nature of the route reveals itself. For the next 50 feet or so it is some off-width nastiness that runs horizontal as much as it does vertical.
I don’t know whether I consider Wes bold or crazy but he certainly can climb, so when he said that it blanked out for a bit I believed him. Not the type to back down from a challenge he aided the blanked out crux and continued to free climb to the closest thing that could be considered a belay station. Now it was Ben’s turn.
I’d like to say that Ben was able to free the crux on second but it was not to be. There was much thrash n’ dangling and quite a bit of huffing n’ puffing but in the end he made it up in one piece. There is a second pitch to Red Lantern but after the struggle up the first pitch it would have to wait for another day. Down was the only option but there was no way the two of them were going to leave gear behind to rappel off of. That left them with the always daunting task of down climbing on rotten rock.
After a great deal of time setting up, Ben lowered Wes as he cleared the route. When I say Wes cleared the route I do not mean he scrapped off some lichen and brushed away some dirt, I mean he blitzkrieged the entire down climb of rotten rock. Luckily I was quite a ways away because there were verifiable avalanches of toaster sized boulders raining down. It was quite the sight to be seen (and sound to be heard) as Wes declared war on the rock.
After they were back on terra firma I think it was agreed that Red Lantern was a little more than they bargained for but fun none the less.
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-Jon
