Moonlight Buttress, Lowe/Weiss Route

By: Steve Purcell | Climbers:Steve Purcell, Mike Esparza |Trip Dates: January 30-31, 1999

Photo: Mark Jonas

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Moonlight Buttress by Winter Moonlight

otherwise known as
The Red Alien
or
The Cheaters Way

It's six AM, the wind is blowing over a crusty two inches of snow, and there's black ice in the parking lot. We're going wall climbing today...

Oh Boy.

The Moonlight Buttress, supposed to be easy, supposed to be short, supposed to be fun.... Yeah, right.

We dash down to the Visitors Center to get our back country permit, then back up to the pullout. By now there is sun lighting the entire buttress; it is magnificent, and inviting. Crossing the ankle deep water is our first taste of our deliberately induced epic. My feet are turning blue as I stand on the other side wishing I could dry off my feet somehow. Oh well, shake 'em off McDonalds bathroom style and stuff em back into the boots. We toss our sandals over to my wife and I wave goodbye, wishing I didn't have to leave her alone all day and night tonight. Mike and I planned on doing this in one shot; no hauling, four liters of water eight power bars some Fig Newtons and a couple of cheese sticks. We talk while dressing in the parking lot how we may even be topping out by midnight, at least by morning we're sure. Like I said, a deliberately induced epic. There's something about walls and talkin shit... kind of like white mans hiphop. Anyway, like I said, I forlornly wave goodbye to my wife convinced I'll be joining her in the comfort of the pickup before sunrise.

I get the first pitch because Mike had already done it. The climbing is not too hard, but right away I realize HELLO....... THIS IS NAVAJO SANDSTONE HERE. I wouldn't recommend testing out any of the gear on this pitch, hell two of my cams just fell out under their own weight??? I get to the 5.9 traverse over to the tree and do a move of aid then teeter over to the belay anchors. Mike gets the second pitch and crawls up the aid at a painfully slow off the couch speed. It's short though and I'm soon on the bolt ladder of the third pitch. There are some truly funky bolts on this ladder. Two of them I push back in with my fingers and weight them to keep them in place, one of them is missing a hanger and I use a rivet hanger, another is just missing and I cheater stick over to the final bolt. All of this is protected by bomber new shiners though and creates a cool 'simulated hardman' kind of feel. At the top of the bolts you walk over to a few easy looking free moves which I aid (setting a pattern here). The chained block at the belay is not bad and certainly isn't going anywhere. It doesn't even compare to the death block that used to be up high on the Nose. Mike starts up the fourth and fifth pitches (definitely link these two because the pitch four belay sucks real bad). I didn't realize it until much later but this climb will have the first A2 pitches Mike has ever climbed. In any case I'm impatient and he is slow, and the entire rest of the day is gone when he reaches the end of the fifth pitch.

I jug up with the pack, suffering and gripping to myself about how tough overhanging ground is on the second. I get to the belay and we make the swap and soon I'm headed up towards a roof/overlap thingy. This is my first experience aiding sandstone and my introduction to sand grinding out from under my cams is met by more bitching. This would become commonplace and expected by the time we top out. As I approach the V chimney I'm beginning to wonder how the *&^%@$#& am I going to get into that thing (see chimney on wall topo be afraid). There was no mention of free climbing here; I've got my boots on; it's pitch dark..... homey don't free. So I call for the cheater stick and extend its full length to clip the five feet of tat hanging off the star drive in the chimney. I suppose by the looks of it that the chimney itself wouldn't be harder than 5.7, but getting into it and off the aiders could be interesting. I'll never know; I'll just clip and go. So there I am, aiding up this claustrophobic slot in an endless red alien crack (another pattern here). I put one red alien and one foot in one aider, and another red alien and the other foot in the other, and up I go. No time for high stepping shenanigans just crack jug, and leave some pro every once in a while. Well, to make a short story long, I eventually make it up to the ledge at the top of pitch six. This is a really nice ledge, and pretty damn comfortable for one guy to lay down on... which I do and immediately start dozing off.

Mike jugs up worrying about the rope over the last bulge where I stupidly forgot to leave some slingage. He gets there and sits down and the comfort of the ledge has grabbed him as well. He says 'let's chill out for a while'. No play on words here I'm sure, he's just exhausted because I made him drive so I got a few more hours of sleep the day before. That's OK with me because I don't want to lead the next pitch, and I'm falling asleep anyway. So there we huddle in the freezing wind of the night. Mike straps himself up in a sitting position and I lay down in a fetal position with my head on his feet (lucky feet). We're absolutely freezing, my feet are killing me, and there we sit for about four hours or so. I know Mike gets a little sleep because I can here him snore every once in while. I suppose I snatched a couple minutes as well, but mostly I just watch the shadow of the moon rise up the wall on the opposite side of the canyon, and the stars peak in and out of some gathering clouds.

Eventually I'm just too cold to stay there anymore, and I'm really afraid it's about to snow, so I urge Mike into his lead. He gets started slowly; it's cold and I'm afraid he'll make a mistake out of exhaustion. No worries though, he gets to the belay at 7 AM or so. We get snow flakes and then the sun comes out in full. I start up the next pitch, which is pretty easy, after another eternally slow lead I get to the semi hanger below the A2 pitch at the top. I'd like to lead this one just because I think I could go faster, but I feel like puking and I'm falling asleep, besides there's plenty of daylight and Mike needs the practice. And after all, it's his pitch, and up he goes. Sure enough he's slow on it, but it is clear from below that it is thin and dicey. I'm afraid he'll rip a bunch of pieces and have to re-climb some moves, but he never does. It dawns on me now that this is probably his first real A2 pitch so I cut him some slack silently and continue to whine about running out of daylight again.

He gets to the belay below the last pitch and up I come on the jugs, bitching and cursing overhanging rock, and trying to figure out how I'm going to weasel out of the last pitch. Of course he won't let me 'cause now he's about to puke and falling asleep at the belay. I know what my job is, so I strap on the gear and head off up the last pitch aiding over the small roof on (what else) red aliens. The position at this point is superb, if you dropped something from here it would land in the weeds many feet out from the base of the slabs that lap up against this overhanging buttress. I pull the roof and aid up into some mixed free and aid. I suppose this would be easy free, but like I said HOMEY DON'T FREE. Well that is until I get to the parts that would be just crazy to aid. I put a green alien behind some choss and the rock just oozes out from under it when I test it. *&^$% that, I free a little bit, plug a cam, free a little bit, plug a cam. I get to the top and I'm thinking "slab, what slab?". I place a small cam and suddenly I realize there is about ten feet of blank rock between me and flat ground. Well, after some up and down I'm finally committed, and like another report said "once the first moves are done the rest is just a walk". A walk that is unless you step on your aiders and get Gri Gri'd at the last move. I ooze my foot off the aider latch onto the rim of the valley and make a mighty heave and UGGH, no rope. I scream down something and Mike gives me a quick bit of rope and I flop like a dying fish on the top.

The sight from here cannot be described in words; you just have to go do the climb to experience it. The top of the wall is brilliantly red with green craggy pine trees growing out of it. All around are stunning walls and terrifying chasms. This place truly rivals any others for beauty. Finally I can appreciate where I am, and I silently curse myself for disliking the climb. These summit pitches will get you every time. Just after two days of telling myself "I'm through with walls" I know I'll do another. The sublime tears of satisfaction that come to me are a drug I must taste again.

The light is fading on another day as we walk down the incredible West Rim trail to the footbridge. Here we meet my wife, and she is ever so gracious about our delay, and I am ever so apologetic for ruining her Sunday.

So there it is: The Red Alien, or the Cheaters Way, grade V 5.8 PG C2 Cheat 0 old school.