Monkeyfingers

My friend Matt joined us in St. George for the last day or two of sport climbing. I had climbed with him in Tahoe a couple days earlier in the year so I knew he was a solid crack climber. Turns out he's a wall rat. With several ascents of El Cap under his belt and a lot of experience in Zion, he was the perfect guy for me to partner with to 'learn the ropes' literally of hard multi-pitch crack climbing in Zion.

I was thinking we'd get on the touchstone wall or one of the other entry level wall climbs in the canyon. Matt had his sights set on Monkeyfinger
5.12b most often done as a free climb. I thought 'oh jeez, how am I even going to follow a route that hard'. With some trepidation I agreed, figuring I could pull on gear through the hard parts. 

The first day, we got a nice late start as we waited  for the canyon to warm up. I nervously led the first pitch, a dirty 5.6 slab with two trees for pro and not much else. I knew Zion rock was known for its varying quality so I fussed and double checked every placement. I arrived at the belay ledge below THE corner, which pretty much runs all the way to the top of the wall. Dead fricken vertical.

Matt took the next pitch which was a 5.10 hands with a step across a pillar to 5.11 fingers. Following this pitch wasn't as bad as I expected. My length came in handy reaching across the pillar. From the top of the pillar started the 'Black corner' 20 ft of desperate stemming and trying to fit tips into a tiny crack. Honnold (flash) soloed this? Are you kidding? I never felt secure and had to take a bunch of times but eventually got to the top of the pitch. After just 3 or 4 hrs on the wall were done for the day. We fixed our rope and did a (scary…) single rope rap down these 3 pitches back to the ground. That (Halloween) night, we laid low and prepared for a big day two. Much to my chagrin I might add.. Halloween is my favorite holiday after all.

End of Day 1

The next day we rocked up to the climb just a little earlier than the day before. With only two jumars, two ladders and two grigri's between the two of us we each did 210 feet of ghetto jugging with one jumar and grigri each. I had never jugged before, so I didn't really know the difference, but it sure felt hard as hell. I had a pretty solid sweat going by the time we got to the belay below the 4th pitch. 

Here we encountered an awkward 5.11 roof with no good foot holds followed by 90 feet of 5.11 fingers. Matt stuffed in small master cams as he made his way around the roof, with some trouble he eventually made it to the next belay. I had a hell of a time following this pitch. Most of my difficulties lied in getting those dang master cams out of the roof, which I was not entirely successful in doing. By the time I got to the (awful hanging) belay I was whooped. And the next pitch was mine… 

The awful hanging belay

I took a moment to gather myself and looked up at 70 feet of splitter ring locks and tight hands. 10B? I thought no way… The climbing looked fierce and the exposure was breathtaking. Above the roof the first 4 pitches disappear and you are looking 400 feet straight down to the ground. Eventually I took a few deep breaths, unhooked from the anchor and started climbing. Right off the belay the climbing was fierce, no good jams or feet for 10ft. I layed it back hard and stuffed a couple green c4's in. I was already redlining and not feeling super confident yet above my gear on the soft sandstone and opted to take about 15ft above the belay. Jeez only 55 more feet to go… Fortunately the climbing eased off a little and I began to calm down and climb a little better. With another take or two I made it to the next belay.

The 10b splitter 'tight hands'

Here you can opt for a wild tips traverse out into a perfect finger crack 'the monkeyfinger crack' which goes @ 12b. Or you can do 100 feet of 5.10 OW climbing. We went with the OW… I was dreading this pitch since the night before. With nightmares of the '5.9' squeeze on Midterm in Yosemite on my mind I was expecting a bloodbath. This OW/ squeeze wasn't nearly as bad, it still kicked my ass but I made it up with just one rest on the rope near the top. 

At this point we were running out of daylight and decided to give Matt a TR burn on the 12b finger crack instead of gunning for the top of the wall. Word was that the top pitches were a little funky/sandy anyways and I was feeling pretty satisfied with the climbing we had done thus far. Someday though I'd like to get back on the route and go to the top of the wall.