Spaceshot (Zion)

By: Mike Sofranko | Climbers: Mike Sofranko, Mark Neubauer |Trip Dates: April 8-12, 2001

Photo: Andrew Gale

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Voice #1: "Dispatch, I have a passenger here who would like to know what time the lodge starts serving lunch."

A pause.

Voice #2: "Uhhh… lunchtime, I think."

Riding up Zion Canyon in a shuttle bus late Sunday morning, I was disheartened to see much white stuff on the canyon rim. The sporadic traffic on the bus driver's radio provided some entertainment, but I wasn't in a cheery mood. The abundant rain from the night before had landed as snow at the higher elevations. Climbing was out of the question, so Mark and I compensated by hiking Angel's Landing. With a mini blizzard as we approached the summit, which was covered in 6 inches of wet snow, we imagined ourselves as hardcore mountaineers fighting the elements and conquering an elusive summit. Then the two grandmothers (aged 61 and 63 they told us) appeared, bouncing around with way too much energy. We slogged down the trail behind them as they skipped and laughed and had a joyous time. Damn them.

The shuttle bus drivers also serve as tour guides as they drive through the canyon. There are specific things every driver points out, but more often than not a driver will have their own little bit of information to add.

"If you look closely on the right you can see an old Indian ruin in the alcove. Does anybody see it?"

Even though I had seen it before, I craned my neck like everyone else. I guess I'm a drive-through tourist at heart.

"Up ahead on the right you can see a rope hanging from the rock. I don't see any rock climbers up there now, probably because of the storm last night. They'll be back sometime later."

Once again I craned my neck. Touchstone Wall. That was our secondary objective for the week - we were here for Space Shot. Space Shot is known as a super easy mini wall climb, which suited Mark and me just fine. I wasn't concerned (too much) about our technical abilities, but I was concerned about other traffic on the route. However, now that I was in the canyon, my worries about being held up by (and holding up) other climbers were mostly replaced by concerns about the weather and climbing conditions. The abundant waterfalls throughout the canyon were quite a sight, and I tried to appreciate them despite the fact that my hard-earned vacation time was ticking away.

We stopped at the backcountry desk in the visitor center for our bivy permit. I requested 3 nights for the Leaning Wall, the home of Space Shot. Both rangers rolled their eyes. I tried to explain that we were going to do the route in a day, and that I was just trying to allow for adverse weather, other parties, the shuttle system, etc., etc., etc. They weren't buying it, and I ended up with a lecture about climbing on wet sandstone. I gave up trying to convince them that I knew better, took my permit, and got on my way. I knew they were just doing their jobs, and in reality, I probably should have known better.

The weather had continued to get nicer throughout the day. Most of the snow was gone, and the Leaning Wall was dry except for some water streaks around the last pitch. We decided to get on with it and do a pitch or two and scope out the route for the next day. We headed back up the canyon and I found myself leading the 5.6 chimney as the sun was setting. It was slightly damp as expected and I liberally pulled on gear to get through it. We ditched the rack on the ledge and rapped to the ground, leaving the rope in place. It wasn't much, but it felt good to do something.

We were on the first shuttle at 7am the next morning. After an interminable journey up the canyon, we were finally jugging our fixed rope at 7:45. I led off on the circuitous 4th class munge to the right. Rope drag cut that short, so I brought Mark up, and we hopped up to the bottom of the bolt ladder.

I have always harbored dreams of being a sports star. Back in high school I wanted to be out on the basketball court with the crowds roaring at my heroics. I imagined myself hitting the game winning basket at the buzzer and walking off the court with a cheerleader in each arm. Alas, the finer points of passing, defense, and lay-ups eluded me. I would never be a sports hero. Until that first shuttle slowed to a stop below me, that is.

I could hear the muffled voice of the driver pointing us out to her passengers as I labored up the initial bolt ladder. I couldn't actually make out the words, but I knew what the driver was saying. As a matter of fact, it was the same friendly lady that drove us up the canyon in the morning.

"If you look up above you can see some climbers. You might think they're crazy, but I dropped them off this morning and they were pretty nice guys. They'll be up there all day, so you can check back later to see how they're doing."

I was in the spotlight! I was a sports star! Space Shot is the route where dreams are made real!

The bolt ladder was a rude introduction to easy aid, that's for sure. The first two bolts were rather well spaced. After that obstacle, it went pretty smooth for a while. I left a runner on every third or fourth bolt and made decent progress. Soon, I reached the last bolt in the ladder and the start of the real climbing. There was a bail biner hanging ominously from the last bolt. I soon discovered why.

"Up on the right we have some climbers on a climb called Space Shot. They haven't moved much since I saw them last, maybe they're scared. Or perhaps they just suck."

Hhhmmm. That wasn't the pleasant lady from the morning ride, that was a grumpy old man. Those bus drivers were getting mean. They obviously didn't realize what I was faced with. So far the flared and bottomed out scar had rejected everything from cams to nuts to hooks to tricams to sliders to cam hooks. I was stuck and bumming, sure that the climb was over. Finally I got a cam hook to stick somehow, and slowly eased my weight onto it, holding my breath as tiny bits of sand crumbled out around it. Amazingly, it held, and I moved up a couple steps in my aiders, the whole time expecting to go for a ride. I fumbled for another piece of gear, but all I could find was another cam hook. I eased onto that slightly better placement, and slowly moved up once again. Things were getting ridiculous. I then slotted a perfect nut and finally breathed, relieved to have my first-ever cam hook moves successfully behind me.

After an eternity and several more cam hooks, I reached the belay. I was already thinking we would have to bail. Mark had trouble with the nut I placed, and after a few minutes I told him to just leave it. I led the next pitch to an intermediate anchor, and decided that we weren't climbing fast enough to get down before dark.

The rappels went quickly, and I had a full afternoon to mope around and regret my decision. My main concern had been dealing with crowding, and we had bailed off an empty route. To make matters worse, I forgot to clean my stuck nut on the rap down. We bailed because I sucked, plain and simple. However, since we were the only ones on the route that day, we hadn't inconvenienced anyone else with our bumbling. That was very important to me.

A storm moved in that night. If we had gone for it and bivied at the top, we would have been rather uncomfortable. This made me feel a little better on Tuesday morning, but once again I felt my vacation time ticking away as another day was sure to be wasted. We drove to Bryce Canyon (through a blizzard) for a short hike (in the snow), then headed back to Zion.

"Up ahead you can see some rock climbers above. As a matter of fact, we have some climbers with us on the bus right now. They looked like ordinary guys to me, what do you think?"

Once again we were below Touchstone, and now we were on the spot with the tourists because the driver had blown our cover. The day had steadily improved, and at 5pm, on the way back from Bryce, we had decided to go for Space Shot once again. This was to be the third day in a row. "Does your mother know you do this!?!?!" An incredulous lady on the bus questioned me in a thick German accent. I wanted to say, "Yep, that's her on Touchstone," but all I did was smile and nod my head.

The initial chimney went quickly, and this time we headed straight up 5.7 ground to the bolt ladder. This pitch was much better and quicker than the junk off to the right. Since there was still a little light left, I decided to get started on the bolt ladder. Near the last bolt it started to get dark, so I fixed the line and rapped. We then settled into our bivy below the chimney pitch with the 3 ropes fixed above us. I swung over to the flat ledge at the top of the Alpine Start - truly a prime bivy spot. The bus the previous morning hadn't gotten us to the base of the route as early as we would have liked, so we slept at the base to get started at an hour more appropriate to our inexperience. Except for a team bivied below Moonlight, we were the only two climbers in the canyon.

The alarm went off at 5am, but I ignored it. It was dark and cold, and I didn't see the point in moving. After a while I heard the distinctive click of a biner gate. All of a sudden I was wide-awake with the realization that we were getting passed before we even got started. Damn.

I talked to the belayer (who I will refer to as Bob since I'm bad with names) as the leader worked up the 5.6 chimney. Bob said they were planning on doing both Space Shot and Touchstone that day, and had secured a vehicle permit for their early start. I felt much better about getting passed with this news, so Mark and I took our time getting packed up. We slowly jugged our ropes, and reached the bottom of the bolt ladder as Bob's partner was part way through the bolt ladder. I put on all my clothes and got comfortable for the wait.

The still unnamed leader reached an impasse at the last bolt. He had no cam hooks, and like myself couldn't get anything else to work. I sent him the appropriate hook on the trail line, but he still made no further upward progress. I explained exactly how to place the cam hook. This still didn't help. A tentative question drifted down from above, "Bob, you wanna try it?" Bob, the designated free-climber of his team, immediately suggested that I lead it since I had already done so. I didn't suggest otherwise, and got quiet as I knew it was time to put up or shut up.

"Looks like we have a mess up on Space Shot today. One party is passing another group, probably because the first group was too slow or got stuck. Often in situations like this, the alpha-climber will assert his or her dominance and take over the lead."

Somehow I found myself in the role of rope gun for a team planning on doing twice the climbing that I planned on that day. You-wanna-try-it asked us to leave a couple runners hanging from my fixed nut so they could bypass the problematic moves. They promised to clean my nut and buy beer for Mark and me that evening. Despite their apparent confidence in me, I was fairly concerned that I wouldn't be able to get past the crux moves again - it had been so sketchy the first time. However, even though the cam hook felt even more tenuous the second time around, it held, and soon I was motoring to the belay.

"It seems our heroes are back at it today. Hopefully they'll put on a better show this time around. Two days ago this team turned tail and fled in the middle of a perfect day with an empty route above them."

Mark cleaned the pitch as I stacked the trail line at the belay. Mark just wore our pack as he jugged. We weren't hauling because all we had was a bullet pack with a couple liters of water, some food, rain jackets, and a single headlamp. In a burst of unjustified optimism, I left my headlamp with our bivy gear at the base, sure that we would be down well before dark.

After we figured out the belay and re-racked the gear, I launched up the fourth pitch. I didn't want to hold up the group behind us, so I tried to move quickly. Soon, I was at my previous high point, and set off into the new terrain. After a long sideways reach to a bolt, I placed a tenuous two cam TCU followed by a hook, and I was through the supposed crux of the route. The rest of the pitch was a lot of fun, definitely interesting for easy aid. Mark was jugging as You-wanna-try-it reached the lower belay.

The initial bolt ladder starts out heading straight up a vertical wall. From there, the route gradually leans more to the right with every pitch, and the wall gradually gets steeper. This made Mark's job of cleaning the pitches very exciting. I aggressively back cleaned as I led, so Mark ended up going for a swing every time he removed a piece of gear. Because of the back cleaning, the fifth and sixth pitches started to wear on me mentally, as I felt like I was constantly looking at 40 to 50 foot falls if the piece I was on popped. I knew that of course the bomber cams would never blow, but it was tough convincing the free-climber within of this fact. My pace slowed linearly with altitude gained.

"If you look way high up to the right you can see some climbers. They started this morning, and it looks like they're making good progress."

As I led the 5th pitch I heard a call from below, "You wanna try it?" The two grade IV's in a day team was stuck once again. That was the last we heard of them, as they bailed and disappeared with my nut and their promise of beer. Another team, known as the Pig-boys, appeared below us. I was alerted to their presence by the sound of several large boulders cutting loose as they hauled up the initial pitches. I, however, was far above and unfazed by the crowds and falling blocks of death. The day was perfect, the climbing was going well, and life was good. I started to think that we just might pull it off.

"Hopefully those climbers up there know that some dark clouds are moving in from the southwest."

Alerted by the bus driver, I noticed that a few of the mountains down canyon looked a little more hazy than usual. Then I realized that it wasn't haze, it was precipitation. I was basking in the sun at the top of the 5th pitch of Space Shot, but I started to grow a little anxious about the weather.

The sixth pitch would have been a pretty spectacular pitch to climb free: bomber hand jams with some amazing exposure. It went as C1 for me until the last move to Earth Orbit Ledge. I placed a solid cam and pulled my aid gloves off. I sunk a bomber hand jam and clipped my aiders into my harness as I hung from one arm with 1000 feet of exposure below me. Then, I cranked for all I was worth, and flopped onto Earth Orbit with my best beached-whale impersonation. It was quite exciting in my heavy boots with all that aid gear hanging off me.

"We definitely have some weather coming in. I don't know about you all, but I sure wouldn't want to be stuck up there in the rain."

From my position on Earth Orbit Ledge, as I nursed my now bloody hands, I noticed that Moonlight Buttress was starting to look a little hazy. Soon, I realized that there was rain falling between Moonlight and myself. The next thing I realized, drops were hitting all around me.

"There are a couple climbers high on the cliff above us. You can't see them too well due to the rain. Generally speaking, their chances of survival if this storm keeps up are pretty slim. That's too bad, cause they really put on a good show today."

I really wished he would shut up already! The rain quickly turned to snow. Things were getting grim as Mark was swinging around and cleaning my lead. All I could do was sit and worry, something at which I excel.

"Yer gonna diiiieeeeee!!!!!!!!"

In a panic induced craze, I hurled a softball-sized rock at the bus driver (hanging out his window and yelling at us), but it cratered harmlessly into the road behind the bus as it pulled away. Shortly, Mark peaked over the lip of the ledge, the snow stopped, the sun came back out, and just like that life was good again. The hallucinations subsided.

Due to relativistic effects, Earth Orbit proved to be something of a time warp. In retrospect, I was starting to crash pretty hard due to the relatively long day with absolutely minimal food and water. Upon reaching the ledge, I had been without runners or other anchor material, so my lead line was an integral part of the anchor. I made the time consuming (from the frame of reference of an observer) switch to leading on the haul line, and set off looking for a better spot to belay the next lead. After another similar time consuming mess, I finally led off on the last pitch.

For some reason I once again had almost no free biners or runners. One would think that I would learn from my mistakes. Instead, I battled serious rope drag while aiding up some pretty crazy looking old bolts and pins. I finally reached a tree, and had to set an anchor short of the top for the simple reason that I could barely move. I was entangled in a mess of gear, and our plight appeared grim once again. There was no way I was going to be able to extricate myself and get us to the top.

After he reached the belay, Mark came through in a big way. He led a crazily exposed bit of rock in lousy shoes to get us to the summit. Summoning every last reserve of energy, I barely pulled through it on top rope with all the junk hanging off me, and soon we were shaking hands on the summit. In keeping with tradition, I drank all his water.

We didn't have much daylight left, so we didn't celebrate for long. After some scrambling and hiking, we found the first rappel down a wet and slimy slab. After we made sure our ropes were good and soaked with organic green and brown ooze, we quickly found the next rappel and were on our way. In the fading light, we noticed that the Pig-boys had settled into their portaledge at the bottom of the bolt ladder for the night. They apparently got stopped at the top of the bolt ladder, too. It was pretty much dark by the next rappel, and Mark led the way with our lone light. Finally I could sense that we were getting close to the ground. Mark somehow found the last anchor hidden in a nook along a narrow ledge - I was glad it was totally dark and I couldn't see the fall I was risking as I groveled along the ledge. After one last tangled rope, Mark touched down, and I soon joined him. At this point we saw fit to declare the climb a success.

However, we still had to retrieve our bivy gear that we had left on the ledge at the top of the Alpine Start. I scrambled up to the chimney, swung over, fixed a second line, lowered our gear, and rapped to the ground. After pulling a 10-pound block onto my luckily helmeted head, we packed up and hurried down to the road - catching the last shuttle of the night with 5 minutes to spare. I made a quick phone call to my unimpressed girlfriend ("I thought you climbed that a couple days ago,") and sleep came easily.

After a stormy night and a leisurely morning, we headed back up canyon. Mark walked up the Narrows a short way while I retrieved the ropes. The Pig-boys were nowhere in sight: Space Shot didn't see a very high success rate that week, that's for sure. I walked up canyon, met Mark, and we began the journey home (with a little detour to a couple shorter adventures on the Mexican Hat and in the Valley of the Gods.)