Armatron

Armatron is excellent. Pitch three will become a red rocks super-classic when the word gets out. The others are merely fun climbing on good rock.

P1: Mosey up and left past 5 bolts before traversing left on plates to a belay station in the scoop visible from the ground (below a crack). ~95', 5.8ish.

P2: Climb the finger crack up and step right to the second crack when convenient (25 or 30'). Go up this crack until the angle slacks off into a sandy slab to the bottom of a large left-facing corner. Do not go up the corner. Step out onto the featured face on the right, where you'll find a bolt after a couple yards. Keep heading up to another station in an unvarnished patch at the base of the beautiful chocolate pitch. ~165', 5.9.

P3: The money pitch. Step right, then head straight up on varnished plates forever. Load up the cracks with nuts and enjoy a rope length of perfect rock. ~160', sustained 5.6.

P4: Trend left off the belay, then follow the varnish up until stepping right on a ledge to another station. ~95', 5.6.

P5: Climb the arete above the ledge, passing three bolts along the way. You'll come to to a very large ledge, the Humorous Ledge. ~80', 5.7

P6: Mantle the large block by going directly up the face for a fun V1-ish boulder problem or just scramble up the side. Continue up the arete passing another two bolts to an anchor. ~100', 5.6

From here, scramble west towards a gully marked with some cairns. Be careful as it is somewhat exposed and there are few places where you definitely do not want to fall. Scramble up the gully and to the top of Juniper Peak.

Descent: There is a very quick walk-off from Juniper Peak. First, ensure you are standing on the summit proper of Juniper Peak (marked with cairns and an ammo can cache). Face Vegas and then walk to your left. There will be a trail marked with cairns. Follow the trail back down to the base. Do not try descending before reaching the true summit as there is a very well marked trail descending S/SW into Pine Creek that will not take you to the base of Armatron.

The route name comes from a robotic toy popular in the 80's (here's a picture of it from Honeybee's blog.). They were a lot of fun. So is this climb.

The route is on the brownstone wall, on the more broken right side. A major cleft up the middle of the wall divides the steeper left side from the aforementioned broken right side. On the right side, there are prominent patches of dark varnish near the base of the wall. The leftmost patch is on a pillar. Then there is a double patch further right, just above a slabby low-angle sandy apron of light-colored rock. Above the start of the climb, you can easily pick out the big stretch of perfect black rock with rectilinear (better word, anyone?) plating.

To get to the route, approach brownstone as for black dagger (up the talus, easy slabs) then follow cairns up and right until you can step onto the apron at the base of the route.

The route has 5 bolts on the first pitch, the first only a few feet off the slab, so you'll find it when you're close.

This route is heavy on the nuts. Most of your pro is slotting wires between excellent plates, so a double set of small and medium nuts is the basic rack, with a few big ones and a few tiny ones. Cams from blue alien to #2 camalot are nice, but you'd be hard pressed to use more than a single set. If you want to sew it up, consider yet more tiny, small, and medium nuts. If you happen to own them, small loweballs would make pro opportunities where nuts won't go, but you sure don't need 'em. And bring a ton of slings.