.zion2. (Monkeyfinger, Touchstone)

Once the sandstone had thoroughly dried, Alex and I returned to the land of Big Sand. Our first order of business was Monkeyfinger (5.12 900').

Alex took the 5.7R direct start, delicately picking his way up a well-featured but sandy slab where the first piece was a blue Metolius forty feet off the ground. The second pitch ascended the "Pillar of Faith," whose 5.11- crux move involved a crack switch into a thin tips jam. The excitement of that move was lean across the pillar out of the security of a hand jam and hope that my fingers landed in the best constriction to pull from, and then place a #0.2.

The technical crux of the route was a short but vicious thin corner that occasionally allowed for shallow tips locks. Calcite-ish feet made liebacking quite strenuous. I was very happy to follow it cleanly first attempt, and to not have to fiddle in the smallest cams on our rack from excruciating stances.

P4 went up a very technical fingers roof that was rated 5.11b back in the 80's. After flubbing the cryptic stem beta and falling on a black Totem, I took consolation that the late, great Brad Gobright hadn't onsighted the pitch either.

The route continued with excellent, sustained thin hands and thumbstacks, plus a couple wide moves that it would've been nice to have socks for.

However, the namesake Monkeyfinger Crack pitch was no place for superfluous trad-dad apparel. A slightly heady face traverse right off the belay on microcams led into a reachy V5-ish crack boulder problem with somewhat wonky gear. After one fall, I swung back to the ledge to try again and remarked "I don't know how that black Totem on two lobes is still holding." Just as I said it, the piece popped (out of spite?) and I went for a little ride. The rest of the pitch was straightforward but still hard: splitter 0.3's and 0.4's with occasional feet, culminating in offset 0.5's just as the pump level hit eleven.

With all that said, the Monkeyfinger Crack was perhaps the best pitch of sandstone I've ever had the pleasure of struggling on. Excellent stone plenty of air under the feet!

I was very stoked to be on this route and look forward to repeating it.

The next day, crowds delayed us from getting into the inner canyon, so we went for a hike above the Mt. Carmel tunnel. There I saw one of the funniest sights of the trip: a righteously indignant and grumpy old crow dive-bombing a loud group of tourists at the overlook. A globular white payload may or may not have been dropped on them at terminal velocity.

Once we got into the canyon later that afternoon, we fixed the first pitch of Touchstone. I have done very little proper aid climbing, and so had quite an exciting time stepping up on fiddly placements, including a rattly old piton that I removed and replaced by hand.

We returned the next morning, but riding the shuttle on a Saturday during spring break week turned out to be quite cruxy. It took an hour and a half just to get through the line and board the bus.

2.5 hours behind schedule, we jugged up our fixed line as quickly as possible. Alex led the C1+ roof pitch, which had some creative placements in old pin scars, and got us to the base of the 5.12 thin splitter.

The crux pitch ended feeling harder than either 5.12 on Monkeyfinger. Hard moves right off the belay over baby grey and purple Mastercams led to sustained 0.3's and 0.4's with some features for feet. This was an excellent pitch, but it was brutal trying to hop out of aiders and start cranking hard right away with no warmup except 200' of jugging.

Alex let me take the next pitch since he had already been on it. It was a welcome reprieve getting into purple and green Camalot territory with better footholds. At this point, we decided to bail in order to catch the last bus back and not have to walk eight miles back to the

car. The other party on the route had ridden their bikes in, and were most likely able to finish the route.

Lesson learned: don't rely on the bus for longer routes. The only consolation we got (aside from climbing some incredible Navajo sandstone) was feeling like bamf's striding onto the shuttle with our colossal packs and authentic "climber chic" distressed attire. Of course, our unique olfactory emanations undoubtedly preceded us and heavily attenuated whatever awe we inspired amongst the passengers. ;-)

Next: more brown on blue!