Gym Arete Direct 

This route is action-packed from the moment your feet leave the earth. A powerful opening sequence followed by clip after clip of sustained, intricate face climbing makes this one exciting all the way to the chains. Solid for the grade, quality rock, and oh so clean, this is certainly one of the best routes at Shelf Road.

It was my FA. About the grade... .12c seemed right. We were seeing some soft graded routes popping up, and I wanted to be sure with the 12c in spite of people stating that it was easily a letter harder. When I bolted the original Gym Arete (yes I bolted it, but Bob asked if he could have a run on it, thus the FA), my eye was on the direct even then, but I wasn't even sure if there were holds there. A few years later when lowering from the original line, I asked Dave Dangle or Richard Aschert if I could suss the moves. Sure enough it was all there.

The left handed side-pull, by the second bolt, cracked and feels a bit loose now and may break. It is easy to bypass however, and doesn't really make it any harder.

As far as the grade, definitely not .12d, pretty benchmark for .12c

If you're climbing the grade, skip the arcing traditional start and just do this one. Continuous difficulty makes perfect beta on the upper crux essential. I'd agree with one of the best routes at Shelf and easily one of the best I've done.