Moonlight Buttress

When I first started climbing indoors, I said I would never get into rock climbing on real rock - it seemed hard and a little scary and I was weak. Within a few months I was on my way to Acadia with Adam to rock climb outdoors for my first time. Next, I said sport climbing is great, but I will never be a trad climber - this year Adam taught me to trad climb and I led all eight pitches of a trad climb called Solar Slab in Red Rocks. Finally, I said I would never be a big wall climber - it seemed too arduous  and I wasn't sure if I was even capable of such a feat. In the past month and a half Adam and I have successfully climbed two well known big walls - one of them in a single day... which leads me to our most recent adventure: Moonlight Buttress.

The route Moonlight Buttress follows to the top.

Moonlight Buttress is a well known big wall in Zion National Park, Utah. It is described by Super Topo as "one of the most aesthetic sandstone crack systems in the world". When we first talked about Moonlight Buttress, we weren't too serious about climbing it - it was mostly this iconic climb we had always heard about (especially after Alex Honnold free soloed it) that would be really awesome to climb one day. It wasn't until after we climbed Rainbow Wall that Adam suggested we look up the difficulty of Moonlight Buttress and we started seriously talking about climbing it. So we woke up early the next day and finally said goodbye to Red Rocks as we headed 3 hours north to Zion with the goal of climbing Moonlight Buttress.

Often times, even on climbs I anticipate to be very difficult, I feel fairly confident everything will go smoothly - this was not one of those times. From the beginning I felt some reservations toward this climb. First of all, most of this climb is comprised of a clean crack system that shoots all the way to the top. Adam and I have had minimal experience actually crack climbing. Secondly, we were going to try and climb it in a single day (unlike Rainbow Wall we wouldn't fix any ropes the day before or bivy at the base of the wall). Thirdly, the walls in Zion are just plain intimidating! Everything in the canyon cowers under the towering walls, which rise up like giant gargoyles. You feel as if you're in a cathedral, looking up at the high ceilings, delicately painted with vibrant blues and swirling whitecaps.

Looking down canyon with Angel's Landing on the right.

All of these were problems we had faced before and I knew they wouldn't keep us from climbing this route, but there was one much bigger problem that did stand in our way - not enough gear. This route, like most routes in Zion and other places with splitter cracks, requires a TON of gear. Since the crack is consistently sized for long stretches of a pitch, you need repeats of the same size cam - so, instead of having one cam of every size (which is what we have, with the exception of a couple doubles), you need 4 or 5 of many sizes. As a result, we spent the first few days hiking in the park, since we couldn't find any climbs we had enough gear for. We debated about whether we could pull off Moonlight Buttress with the gear we had or if we should just call it quits and leave Zion. We definitely couldn't afford to buy the extra gear we needed (a single cam can cost anywhere from $50 to over $100) so it seemed like this climb wasn't going to happen - but, as you probably know, Adam and I are both very stubborn people, so despite not knowing how we were going to get the extra gear we needed to do the climb, we went to the park rangers on Friday, May 3rd and signed up for a permit to climb Moonlight Buttress on Monday.

I don't know whether it was fate or just dumb luck, but that same evening, as we ate dinner in the library park downtown, we met two other climbers eating dinner as well - Ari and Jason. Ari lives in Salt Lake City with his wife, who is expecting their first baby this July. We got to talking and told them about our hopes of doing Moonlight Buttress, but our concerns regarding gear. Ari has climbed the route many times and said it was a phenomenal climb. He was so excited for us to experience the route, however, he confirmed our fear, saying we definitely would not be able to do it with a single rack of gear. Then, without hesitation he offered us some of his gear to use for the climb on Monday. He explained that he has been in our shoes before and others were kind enough to share with him, so he would like to return the favor. We were both dumbfounded and ecstatic - he would be trusting complete strangers with hundreds of dollars worth of gear. The average person probably wouldn't be willing to do this, which goes to show the kind of people involved in the climbing community. So that was it - we exchanged numbers and met back up on Sunday afternoon to grab the gear from Ari and Jason (who, lent us a combined total of 18 cams!). That evening we organized and packed our gear, then went to bed early to prepare for a 4 AM wake up call.

Me with all our gear to climb Moonlight Buttress. (Photo by Adam)

Me seconding the pitch. (Photo by Adam)

We woke up and drove into the park while it was still dark, parking at The Grotto. We had a quick breakfast and were hiking by 5:40 AM. The sun started creeping over the horizon as we made the shockingly cold crossing down a section of the Virgin River. Nothing wakes you up quite like 45 degree water at 6:30 in the morning. We were at the base of the wall and climbing by a little after 7:00 - the morning butterflies in my stomach subsiding as we made good time up the first few pitches. We were extremely thankful for all the extra gear we had as we saw how runout and scary it would be without it. About halfway up the climb the clouds started to collect overhead and I felt the first few raindrops spill onto my helmet. Uh oh - the butterflies were back in my stomach. The temperature had dropped since the sun had disappeared and I felt chilled as I hung off the anchor belaying Adam up the next pitch, but, I felt confident that the clouds would pass, taking the rain with them. Before long the blue skies were back and I smiled at our luck once again. The hours flew by quickly as we kept on working our way up the crack system. It was a difficult route for leading and seconding and incredibly sustained. We were only three pitches from the top when I saw dark clouds starting to spill over the top on the far side of the canyon. They were fierce looking - angry - and I could see the line of rain they were spewing, slowly creeping down the canyon closer and closer. And then we heard it. The first roll of thunder, a second - a flash of lightning. When I made it to the top of the pitch Adam and I were both worried. The question was, should we rappel down or would it be faster to finish the last 3 pitches? If we could make it to the top, there was a short trail that leads to a paved path from Angel's Landing, which leads all the way back down to our car. It would be a straight forward hike down in the dark and there were bathrooms we could seek shelter in if the storm got really bad. If we rappelled down we would definitely get caught in the dark and finding the anchors in the dark could be a huge challenge. So we decided to keep moving up. The first wave of the storm had passed, but we could see more dark clouds brewing on the horizon so we didn't waste any time in our efforts to top out. As I belayed Adam up the final pitch, I was ready to be off the rock. I was completely exhausted - both mentally and physically - hungry, and still worried about the storm. I was damp from the rain, which was now starting to turn into hail. I topped out at 8:20 PM, after 13 straight hours of climbing, with only 25 minutes of daylight to spare. As I walked over to Adam the skies let loose and huge amounts of hail starting beating down on us - we had topped out just in time.

Me - as thoroughly spent as I look - just after topping out. 

The rock was thoroughly soaked now, making it super slick. We packed up our gear and carefully made our way across the rock and down to the paved trail. A few bright flashes of lightning lit up the sky once we made it down into the canyon. We were glad to have successfully climbed Moonlight Buttress, but were also very glad to be done. We made it back to the car by 9:30 PM, where we changed into dry clothes, had a quick bite to eat, and drove out of the park so we could go to bed.





(Thanks again to Ari and Jason - we couldn't have done it without the use of your gear!)