Took a trip out to Quandary on 6/20 to give a shot at the Inwood Arete.

Researching the Route: In researching this route I found relatively limited information. The most information I could find featured primarily the starting options followed by a little bit of information about the slab immediately above the starting options. Lastly, I found some information on navigating through the three towers above those slabs. Beyond this, I wasn't able to find much else. It is now apparent to me that there is little to no information to because it's very simply a class 3-4, pick your route, scramble past the towers up to 13,800 where you exit the scrambling elements of the route. Not much navigation assistance is necessary as it's mostly talus hopping and just navigating the terrain. I generally like to attempt climbs like these with a GPX so I can have a good sense of where to go. I was not able to find a GPX for this route so part of my goal was to make and publish what appears to be the first GPX track for this route.

Getting there: I took the shuttle from Breckenridge in town to the Quandary Standard Trailhead. From there I walked up the McCullough Gulch Road all the way around the mountain, up past the waterfalls and to the lake right below the starting point of the Arete. There were varying recommendations on where exactly you should cut up from the trail in McCullough Gulch up to the starting point of the Arete. I ultimately decided to hike all the way up to the lake and cut south (towards the Arete) ~20 yards before hitting the lake and and follow a small trail to a stream crossing to where I was able to cross and very easily navigate to the base.

Getting Started: I was most interested in the 5.2 - 5.4 variation. My route is depicted as the green line in this image. Just to the right of where I started, you can see the slab as reported 5.7, also known as the "direct" start. I saw a few other trip reports where some folks started between the slab and my starting point (the depression between the slab on the right and my starting point). It looked a little too easy for what I was interested in.

The Route: the first 2-3 pitches are where I saw most of the difficulty however the difficulty was not sustained. The initial 2-3 moves getting onto the rock were the most awkward with a backpack on. Other than that the route was very manageable. I would describe the overall difficulty as nothing more difficult than the freeway in the Flatirons. After getting up the chimney and onto the route, the climb is ledgy up to the top of a small grassy knoll, where you then work up some very straightforward slab.

Looking up from the very bottom of the route, take note that what appears to be the high point as far as you are able to see is Tower 1. As you work up and past the slab an towards Tower 1, you will pass the Tower on the left in a very obvious gully. Once you pass over to the right side through this small gully, you will then walk up on the right side of Towers 2 and 3. From this point it's class 3-4, nothing to write home about. As you continue up the route and stay close to ridge direct as possible, you will encounter a feature that looks like a 6 foot tall wall running along the ridge a couple hundred yards above the towers. Here you will notice a need to downclimb as you'll encounter a gash in the ridge. You can circumvent this by descending easily to the right and continue up.

Other Route Comments: For the most part, you will work to stay as close to the ridge on the right side. You will notice the left side of the ridge is carries most of the exposure. As you work up above and past the towers, you will encounter places here and there where you're able to increase the difficulty to your desire. Some slab is present further up the route where you can veer off route a little bit to climb (I did in a few spots - as indicated on my GPX track).