Spaceshot (Zion)
By: Michael Esparza | Climbers: Andrew Gale, Michael Esparza |Trip Dates: February 28-29, 2000
Photo: Andrew Gale
® The author(s) and naclassics.com | 
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Spaceshot (Zion) By: Michael Esparza | Climbers: Andrew Gale, Michael Esparza |Trip Dates: February 28-29, 2000 |
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Photo: Andrew Gale |
® The author(s) and naclassics.com | |
| I knew I would do this route some day but never figured when. Probably on a cool Fall day when I would be travelling with my family; maybe on a nice long Spring day; hell, maybe a solo. Instead, the climb took place in February. Andy Gale and I met up at last year's Halloween bash in Josh. We had never talked much but seemed to run into each other at the oddest times. We planned on going to the Valley for a Grade V, but the weather was not promising. The forecast for Zion looked slightly better. We left Southern California and arrived in Zion in mid afternoon while it was snowing and raining. Fortunately we found a cool little restaurant/coffee house to loiter in. I brought my Dominos set and we ended up playing for about 4 hours with two locals while we watched the snow fall. I felt uneasy that we wouldn't be able to climb due to the weather. I did not want to fail or get skunked by the weather. For one thing, it is a long-ass drive to do a climb. Another is the fact that this would be my last weekend to climb for a while since both of my daughters' Little League Baseball seasons were starting (I am their coach) the following week; not to mention the birth of my new son a month and a half earlier. We crashed out and woke to clear skies but snow and ice everywhere. We decided on Spaceshot because it was a short climb with a short approach and a relatively easy descent in case the weather turned bad again. Around 10 am we had loaded everything up and were ready for the first three pitches of punishment. The first three go from 5.4 to 5.6 and we had been told that they are really easy. Unfortunately for us, snow and ice was covering mostly everything, turning the first couple of pitches into sketchy mountaineering rather than easy free climbing. There were many spots where my boots would slip off, spots which were covered with snow and ice that had to be removed and spots that were too damn moist. With all these problems, it took us some time to maneuver through. The following lists a pitch by pitch description.: Pitch 1: I think 5.6 easy climbing with rock shoes and some 4th class. With snow, ice and boots, it seemed like 5.9 in some spots. Snow covered many key hold areas, which made the climbing seem somewhat dangerous. Pitch 2: More 5.6 up a crack to a narrow chimney. The sandstone was wet with patches of snow in it. It was very difficult and I had to aid through some parts of it. After exiting the chimney, you arrive on a shelf, which continues up the corner. More snow made the climbing very difficult and I seriously thought I was going to slip down some of the snow patches. I finally arrived on top, happy to be done. These two pitches seemed to be the most strenuous for me. Pitch 3: This was Andy's Pitch and looked to be similar to what I had gone up. He had to aid some parts down low due to the same problems listed above. The upper part smoothes out OK. Pitch 4: Finally, the start of the wall! Reachy bolt/angle ladder which required one hook move. Bolt ladder goes for about 60 feet or so into a crack. I thought the crack was somewhat difficult. There were some marginal placements in several spots. One was a sideways stopper and the other was an area where a large chunk of rock had blown out, leaving only room for one size piece, which I did not have. Luckily, the key piece was below (a red or orange TCU, can't remember which since it was getting dark) and I could haul it up. The crack goes for about 100 feet or so and ends on some bolts in a dish-like area. I also used many HB offsets, my aliens, and a couple of Camalots. We had started the route late due to the conditions and knew we would be sleeping somewhere on the wall. We set the ledge up on top of pitch four for a nice night's rest. While setting the ledge up, I realized that I left the fly at home. This turned out to be a good thing because the night was totally clear with the most beautiful star gazing one could imagine. The temp was somewhere near 25 degrees that night as some of the water in my bottle froze. I heard commotion below and noticed that a party of three was getting ready to start Desert Shield at night. Before this, Andy, I, and another party on Touchstone were the only dudes out climbing. We awoke rather early and saw the Desert Shield guys down below. It was amazing to see how much snow there was everywhere. We were stoked because we had got the heinous mountaineering section out of the way and it looked like the Desert Shield dudes were about to get started on theirs. Pitch 5: Andy took off on this pitch while I put the ledge away and fixed everything up. There was one tricky section, the lightening bolt zigzag, which required Andy to use a key Lowe ball and some small offsets. The pitch looked awesome and I'm sure Andy had a good time on it. Pitch 6: This is the awesome looking 5.10 free climbing crack. For Andy and me, it is C1! The crack takes many #2, and #3 size Camalots, mostly #2. I did a lot of leap-frogging but felt really safe since the cams were so bomber. Pitch 7: Same as above; Andy led this to Earth Orbit Ledge. Pitch 8: Kind of heinous near the top with all the aid crap hanging off of you. I left a piece of gear down below which caused some hideous rope drag. After traversing to some easy but exposed climbing, you reach some bolts and fixed angles which continue for about 50 feet or so. Some of the angles look like they will pop out sooner than later. At the last bolt there is a weird right-traversing crack, which I squirmed over to the next crack system, taking me to the top anchors. The top part of this pitch was very strenuous. Andy belayed the bag out for a somewhat easy haul. When Andy arrived, he traversed over the long ledge to an area of trees. It was dark now and getting cold. Luckily, Andy stumbled across a bottle of Malibu rum, 2 cans of Old Milwaukee's Best, water, and a can of chili. We were stoked. We pounded the two beers, drank most of the rum and I polished down the Chili since I did not want to settle for Powerbars. It was hard to tell what the traverse to the rappels would be like since it was now dark. We did not want to risk slipping on ice and taking a dive down to the road, so we wisely choose to spend the night on top. I fell into a deep sleep and had some wild dreams involving 3 beautiful women. When we awoke, I told Andy about my dream and he replied that he heard me moving around a lot in my bag and making some weird noises. We laughed and packed our stuff for the traverse. We had make a good decision by sleeping up top. There was ice everywhere and it was actually kind of scary. If you slipped you were going for a ride for sure. You need to traverse all the way to a tree on the eastern part of the area. The first rappel was tough since the slab was covered with ice everywhere. We slipped and slid down with no problems, fortunately. Next, we had to traverse roped over more snow and ice up to the next rappel. From this rappel, it is straight down a chimney to the next set of bolts. The remaining three rappels did not offer the same problems as above and went much faster. We finally arrived at the bottom and the car. I popped open a Guiness around 10 am and was stoked to have done the climb in winter conditions; just made it a little sweeter. The Desert Shield guys looked like they had got punished with the conditions on the lower sections and ended up taking off. There were now climbers on Moonlight Buttress (looked like 3 parties). I finished my Guiness, shook hands with my partner and we complimented each other for a fun rewarding climb. Our rack:
(I would bring some 1/2 inch angles, some look like time bombs.) |