This was my first big-wall, and in fact Aaron's first as well. Though he had attempted the Nose more than a year earlier, and had to bail due to crowds, he had very little aid climbing experience. I had virtually none outside of a little practice at the rock wall. So we decided that, before jumping onto something huge like the Nose, we should start small. Zion would be the perfect place for this. There are several walls in Zion that are truly classic lines, require primarily aid climbing, and yet are short enough to do in a day, or two at most. We headed up to Zion with the hope of tackling one of these, and Prodigal Sun was our first choice. The other choices on our list were Touchstone, Space Shot, and Moonlight Buttress, but Prodigal sounded like the best of them for a first wall. It's only nine pitches (8 aid and one crappy free pitch at the end), and there's a lot of fixed gear, making some of the aid climbing quick and easy. I really wanted to do Moonlight Buttress, but that one might have to wait until we're ready... and we might do that one in two days, just to practice the true big-wall experience (hauling, setting up a portaledge, etc) on something relatively small.
When we arrived in Zion on Friday afternoon, we found that a soloist was slowly working his way up Prodigal Sun, and we knew that if we wanted to climb the route at all, we'd have to pass him. We decided to try to fix lines on a few pitches that night, and talk to him about passing. Aaron was able to make fairly short work of the first two pitches, linking them into one long one. This brought him up to where the soloist had just set up his portaledge. Aaron talked to him, learned that his name was Dave, and began negotiating a bit. Dave wasn't entirely happy about the idea, but he agreed to let us pass him, provided that we got by him really early the next morning, so that we would be well out of his way by the time he started. He fixed Aaron's line, and Aaron rapped back to the ground, cleaning the pitch on his way down. It was almost dark by this time, so we were done for the day anyway. We stashed most of our gear at the base, except for the rack, and took off back to our campsite.
The next morning, we awoke at 3:45 AM, arrived at the parking lot at about 4:15, and got to the base of Prodigal before 5. We racked up and got our gear together, and Aaron started jugging the fixed line. Before long, he called down that he was off the first part, and I started jugging. I must admit, it was more brutal than I had planned for. I definitely need to fine-tune my jugging techniques. When I arrived at Dave's portaledge, Aaron was already anchored in, a little bit above it. With much thrashing and flailing, I managed to jug under the portaledge. Dave had run the rope between the ledge and the wall (the only way that could have worked). For me to get by, he had to climb up in his aiders (or hang from a daisy) to unweight the ledge, then push it out from the wall as I jugged up. Of course it was still before 6 AM, and completely dark at that hour, so we were doing all this by headlamp. I felt bad for Dave, having been woken up so rudely so early in the morning. But I immediately began leading the next pitch, and before long we were out of his way for good.
So here I was, doing my very first aid lead, in complete darkness, three pitches off the ground. After my brief experience with aiding on sandstone the previous weekend at Stoney Point, I was a little worried about the security of my gear placements, but fortunately most of the placements on this pitch were quite easy. With my kick-ass Russian aiders, I was able to easily get into the top rings on every single placement, even though the climb was completely vertical and I was squeezed into a perfectly right-angled corner. But I began to discover very quickly that top-stepping is not always necessary, or even helpful. If the only placement for the next six feet is three feet above you, then there's no benefit to being able to reach four feet. In a few cases, however, I did manage to make placements at the very end of my reach, and I knew that in those cases, the Ruskies helped me out.
Our plan was for me to aid the next three pitches (3, 4, and 5 by the book), then for Aaron to take 6, 7, and 8. This would allow us to short-fix in a few cases, which might save some time. I wasn't too sure about the idea of solo aid leading on my second real aid pitch ever, but when I arrived at the top of pitch three, I discovered that the next pitch started with a bolt and rivet ladder. It was getting to be light now, and I could see that the bolts and pins went up for at least thirty feet. This didn't seem so scary, so after fixing the rope, I set up my grigri and kept right on going. It was actually a lot of fun. By the time I reached the end of the line of bolts, pitons, and rivets, Aaron had arrived at the anchor, so he could put me on belay again. He took the gear he had just cleaned and put it on the second line I was trailing, and I zipped it up. Then we changed my belay over from my grigri to his, although probably not in the most efficient manner. We'll have to figure out the best way to do that. It didn't matter too much, since I was just hanging on a solid piece, but I still didn't like the idea of having too much slack in my belay line.
Once things were set up, I continued my lead. It turned out to be a very long pitch, and there were a few sketchy moves here and there. I did have to do one short hook move, but it wouldn't have been necessary if I could have free climbed a little bit. As it was, I was wearing my hiking boots, and didn't want to change into my free climbing shoes, so free climbing anything harder than fourth class seemed scary. When I finally reached the next anchor, I was pretty tired of leading, and my shoulders were really sore from wearing the huge rack for a few hours straight. So instead of short fixing again, I just waited on the crappy excuse for a ledge until Aaron arrived. Once he arrived and we had sorted out the rack and ropes, I started up again. This pitch started out with several interesting and slightly tricky moves to the left. The topo indicates a small pendulum or tension traverse here, but I managed to do it without a penji. Fortunately, the gear placements here were all pretty solid. Eventually, I came up around a small overlap, and got my first look at the wall above. “Oh my God!” was all I could muster. Aaron heard my exclamation, and asked what was wrong. I tried to describe what I was seeing. The complex system of corners that I had just come through (known as “The Wrinkles” according to the topo) was ending, and above it there stood a flat, vertical, blank face, which soared upwards for several hundred feet. There were a few ledges and corners here and there, but otherwise it looked blank and ominous. At first I thought I might have been off-route, but when I looked more closely at the lower part of the face, right in front of me, I could see a system of very thin, shallow cracks, going straight up from where I was. Before I got onto that face, I did have to do a few tricky moves, including my first real hook move. It turned out to not be too hard at all. I just kept my balance very carefully, and I even managed to top-step on it.
Once I was on the face, and in the really thin crack system, the placements were mostly pretty solid, though some were a bit tricky to find. Two or three times here, the yellow TCU was essential, fitting into a flared pocket (probably a pin scar) where nothing else would go. A few times, I also found Aaron's HB brass offset nuts (up until then virgin pieces) to be invaluable, as they made for bomber placements in flaring cracks where no other nut would have fit. This was the first time I had really found either of these types of pieces that useful. Of course, aliens continued to be miracle-workers as well, but I was surprised to find a few places where TCU's worked better.
The end of this pitch consisted of another bolt and piton ladder, which I made fairly quick work of. It felt amazing how fast I could move when I didn't have to stop and think about each placement. Of course, I was still moving at a snail's place, compared to how I'm used to climbing.
Aaron led the next three pitches, pitches 6, 7, and 8, as was our plan. Pitches 6 and 7 were a good bit shorter than the last two that I had led, but pitch 8 was almost as long. Pitches 6 and 7 also seemed to consist of mostly solid placements, although there were a few tricky spots here and there. Pitch 8, however, was undoubtably the crux pitch of the whole route, both in terms of leading and cleaning. It started with a mix of bolts and natural gear, in a corner that arched left until it was completely horizontal. This made for some pretty awkward moves both leading it and cleaning it. While cleaning it, I found myself re-aiding several moves, but a number of the placements popped out under the tension of the rope. There was also a short, fixed pendulum at the end of this arch, followed by another bolt ladder. The crux, probably the crux of the whole route, was a few moves that were required in between some of the bolts on this section. It took Aaron a while to get through this, but he eventually managed to get a red tricam to hold. It even held while I was cleaning the pitch. I have no idea how that thing didn't pop.
When I arrived at the top of pitch 8, I put on my free climbing shoes and took off on lead, determined to finish this notoriously crappy last pitch quickly. The topo indicated some bolts, but I didn't find them, nor did I find any other gear placements the whole way. Really, I was only climbing for about the first thirty or forty feet, and that was about 5.3. After that, I was just walking, or trying to walk, up a crappy, dirty gully. The most difficult part about this section was trying not to unleash a landslide onto my partner below. I found no anchor at the top, but rather steel pipes and a chain serving as a hand-rail for hikers and tourists who came up here via the Angel's Landing Trail. This was at the very end of my rope, so I took off the rack and pack and gave Aaron a butt-belay. He arrived at the top right at 7:00. Altogether, we'd been on the wall for fourteen hours.
We organized our gear as quickly as possible and hiked down. As we started, we were passed by a couple guys who had done another route to our left. We had seen them several times throughout the day. On the way down, we also met up with two guys who had just climbed Moonlight Buttress... FREE! These guys were hardcore. Trad climbing ten straight pitches of 5.12, with a little 5.13a mixed in here and there. We made our way back to our car, and went out to celebrate the completion of our first wall with a dinner of bad, overpriced Chinese food.
For future reference, this route requires virtually no gear larger than a #1 Camalot. I never placed a single piece larger than a 0.75, except for one #3 on pitch four, I think. We took way too much gear in general, but in particular, we could have done it with fewer cams overall, and especially fewer of the big ones. As noted above, the TCU's and aliens were invaluable, especially in the 0.5-inch range (i.e. yellow). I think I placed two yellow TCU's on pitch 4, and two on pitch 5. But we had triples of a lot of pieces, and doubles of most, and I think that might have been overkill. Also, as noted above, the offset nuts were quite useful, and I personally don't know what I would have done without a hook for that one move on pitch 5. Aaron also used a hook for one move on pitch 8, but it might have been avoidable by top-stepping. Maybe.