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Zion


bigwalling

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I just got back from Zion and most certainly did my best to avoid any AID climbing. However, I did watch an aid climbing party across the canyon manage almost ONE whole pitch in the frigid shade while we cruised up a naughty little grade IV in the GLORIOUS sunshine. I snickered as we drank beer at the car in the evening and they froze on their little portaledge. Silly aid climbers.

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There's some great obscure long free routes there than few people climb because they are too dirty / sandy and have lots of wide cracks.

 

We camped next to some Colorado dudes, one of whom was supposed to be some badass alpine ace. All he did was whine about how shitty, dirty, and loose Zion was. They bailed from one climb and tried to do another but ended up hiking around and could't even find it. Then they ended up packing up and going to Indian Creek.

 

We had a blast though. Great adventurous climbing.

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I've always drueled over LoveLace, that line and all the others on that wall look spectacular. What resulted in failure? Aren't the cruxes down low? How much OW? How was the aid? Tell me! Tell me!

 

Bigwalling...I climbed the Titan a couple times two years ago. The Fishers are great. All the stories of horrid, terrifying, insane climbing are completely blown out of proportion by CO climbers trying to inflate their egos. ...well at least on the trade routes crazy.gif.

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The Finger of Fate Route on the Titan is very cool and pretty clean for the Fishers....At least 22 years ago it was pretty clean (in terms of loose rock). Having said that, the old bolts were only 1/4" by 1 1/2" long so be wary if there are any of those left. That rock can be manky though, a friend was juggin and there was an outward force on one of those old bolts. The bolt didnt pull but it did pull out a whole chunk of rock with the bolt! Pretty amazing actually.

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Lovelace is funny. Its all a very straight forward climb, until, well... the 5.8 chimney pitch towards the top. Starts out fun 5.9, then straight forward aid pitch with like one or two smaller nuts at the crux. Then two fun 5.9 pitches (one a cool fists / off fists offwidth). Then the crux - a 5.10+ bigger than fists offwidth. After the "crux," we thought we were home free, with the topo showing a 5.8 pitch then a 5.9+ fists to the top out.

 

Of course we started this Grade V at like 10 in the morning, so it was getting late at that point. But 2 easy pitches no problem. So, Eric goes on lead and pretty soon is like "you sure this is the way?" Of course, its obviously the way. To summarize: Eric thrashes and struggles with the "5.8" pitch witch turns out to be a 5.11 flaring chimney. Trying to climb it inside with a tipped out #5 for pro was a hateful sandy squeeze and going outside offer no pro, serious exposure, and apparantly a very akward chimney due to the flair.

 

I wanted to give it a go, but it was near dark, so Eric downclimbed to a drilled angle about half-way up the pitch and we lowered. Then we bailed getting down to the base at dark.

 

Talking to some locals later, we found out that pitch is a notorious sandbag and has turned back many a strong climber. Nevertheless its a super bitchin climb and we had lots of fun even though we didn't top out.

 

The other lines on the East Temple sure look cool. Cowboy Bob looks rad, and apparently one rumor is that the last pitch - the 5.10+ R sandy face isn't so bad or you can go around or something.

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