Mountain of the Sun~
“This is a bad idea,” I want to tell James. We’d both managed to convince our friend Scott Morely that this soaring 2,500-foot ridge presented a much better option than an afternoon of climbing splitter hand cracks. Morely, who has been making the spring and fall migration from Jackson Hole to Zion for years, isn’t buying our “back home for dinner” timeline.
“It’s going to be a long, cold night, definitely below freezing,” Morely says with resignation. He stuffs a bivy parka into his pack, and we take off.
By the time we’ve stumbled up the trail, bushwhacked through a piñon stand, and scrambled to the route’s base, we have five hours of daylight. We slump on the ground and refuse to make eye contact. Glowing with orange afternoon light, the Mountain of the Sun looks like a golden tombstone. From below, we pick apart the the North Ridge’s complex topography — a series of ledges, a deep gash, and a broad ridge capped by a cockscomb of iron-tinged rock dubbed the “Golden Spur”.
Like an interlocking puzzle yielding to patient hands, the route unfolds before us. Shuffle along deteriorating ledge. Friction-climb for 10 feet. Follow a broad, sandy ledge. Wrestle through a yucca webbed with spikes of various lengths. Swear. Hurl softball-sized rock in frustration over route-finding mistakes and pace across a small ledge. We smile after discovering a 50-foot 5.6 hand crack, and slide hands into the snug fissure, moving up rapidly.
Twenty minutes later, I grovel up the last stretch of 5.7 chimney. “We’re here,” says James. “Hopefully this will put us on the summit.”
Ahead of us sits the 500-foot Golden Spur, its teetering, golden rock seracs stacked haphazardly, like a distracted child’s building blocks. We bounce from one side of the thin ridge to the next, lightly pulling on rock fins and stacked rubble. I pound a block with an open palm and cringe at the resulting dull, hollow ring, then mantel onto it before I have time to think. After two weeks of ridge running, I’ve grown oddly comfortable with the loose rock and constant exposure — two elements I typically prefer to deal with one at a time. And while we’ve been almost religious about roping up for fifth-class terrain, today we free solo. I relish the occasional, hearty hand jam or finger lock. To the right, there is nothing but yawning canyon and thick fall sunlight. My stomach tightens with each dose of exposure. Few 5.7s award a climber with 3,000 feet of air. We summit soon, and then begin the mad race to the car. Darkness hits just as we reach the mouth of Employee Canyon. Our headlamps’ blue, tepid beams do little to push back the night as we prepare the first of many rappels. We slide silently down the ropes into a slot canyon and Zion’s embrace.