I landed in Las Vegas to old people smoking butts and playing video poker. I quickly retrieved my bags and went out to the arrival zone to meet Pete who had arrived a few hours earlier and picked up the rent a car. Our first destination, Red Rocks National Conservation Area, located about 20 minutes outside of the madness of the Vegas strip. With stable weather and endless climbing opportunities from single pitch sport routes to 30 pitch adventure climbs, Red Rocks is one of the best winter climbing destinations in the US.
The climb took us 10 hours from car to car and was everything we look for in a free climb, long, clean and challenging. Pitch after pitch of well protected corners led to a sunny summit. It was a great day and a perfect stepping stone for our next goal… The Moonlight Buttress!
After the rainbow wall we drove to Zion National Park and set up our camp a few miles outside the park boundaries. Zion is often referred to as the sandstone Yosemite. With hundreds of beautiful walls towering above the Virgin River, Zion is truly a climber’s paradise.
Our goal was to free climb (climb from the bottom to the top with no falls and with out weighting the rope) the moonlight Buttress. This is a true test piece for sandstone free climbing. A beautiful finger crack stretches for 1,100 feet from the valley floor. Out of the 11 pitches 6 of the pitches are 5.12a or harder. The climbing is physical, technical and sustained. This would be the hardest climb we have ever attempted by free climbing standards.
On November 11th we were up well before the sun peaked over the desert towers. We were soon in the car and on the way into the park. The approach to the climb is very short but involves wading across the freezing Virgin River. We left the car at 6:00 am and were quickly wading up to our knees in the river. With frozen feet Pete accurately stated “now that’s one strong cup of coffee.” As we regained feeling in our legs we racked up at the base of the route just as it was light enough to see. Pete and I split the leading up to work best with our strengths and weaknesses. Pete has huge gorilla hands that make a lot of the wide crack climbing easier, and I have skinny fingers, which meant all the thin climbing was for me. From the first pitch all the way to the top the climbing was amazing. One finger crack stretches the entire 1,100 feet to the summit with the crack size only changing and inch or two the entire way. Although Pete and I tried our hardest on every pitch we were unable to achieve our goal of climbing each pitch with out falling. Out of the 11 pitches we were able to climb 8 of them with out falling. We reached the summit in just over 6 hours and we were overwhelmed by the quality of climbing. We can’t wait to come back and give it another try!
After a day of rest we climbed an amazing route called Shune’s Buttress. This is another must- do climb in Zion with pitch after pitch of perfect crack climbing. The following day we climbed our final big route of the trip called the Monkey Finger. This is a 9-pitch classic with lots of wide crack systems.
Sore and tired we rested the following day and drove back to Vegas to catch our flight the following morning.
It has been a wonderful couple of weeks in the desert and we were able to do a ton of classic climbs. For me the thing I love most about these climbing trips is the simplicity. We wake up with the sun, we climb during the daylight hours, we eat as much food as we can, and we sleep when it gets dark. We have everything we need, and nothing we don’t, and for me that is perfect.
It is now 7:00am and I am back in the Las Vegas airport surrounded by old people smoking butts and playing video poker. It is time to go back to the great state of Maine and spend some much-needed time with my family and loved ones. I hope you all have a wonderful winter and a Happy Holiday season.
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