Zion partners 11/26 - 12/16

Hi I’m in St. George through December 17th and I’m looking for partners to do single and multipitch in zion.

I generally lead in the 5.9-5.10 range, so I’m looking to do objectives within that range. So routes at Cerberus, Kung fu theater, or multipitch routes like the headache, iron messiah, or even sport climbs up at namaste.

Text me at 9145487709 

Ian

Messaged you

Looks like you both got out and climbed the dark tower yesterday together. Awesome route…too bad that climb was totally saturated from the storm that came through on Saturday. The 24 hour rule is not really a rule, but more so a guideline and definitely does not apply to this area in the winter. Especially depending on the aspect, stuff like The Dark Tower or anything at Kung Fu could easily take a week in these conditions to dry out.

Please be more conscientious about where and when you climb after rain events. Even today, Tuesday, there is probably little to no dry rock in the park to climb. I only have this message forum to try get this message to you gentleman. I am not normally a keyboard warrior, nor a troll, and am just hoping to educate you guys and protect the resources in this park for as long as they will last because of course they will all be gone eventually.

I would be happy to meet up with y’all and show practices I implement to check if the rock is wet. But at the end of the day, if you are not positive that it is dry, then be patient and come back another day. If you wait to climb the Navajo sandstone until it is dry, it will probably be there for you. If you do not, it may not be there for the next person who has a similar desire to climb. 

Zacharya Fisher wrote:

Looks like you both got out and climbed the dark tower yesterday together. Awesome route…too bad that climb was totally saturated from the storm that came through on Saturday. The 24 hour rule is not really a rule, but more so a guideline and definitely does not apply to this area in the winter. Especially depending on the aspect, stuff like The Dark Tower or anything at Kung Fu could easily take a week in these conditions to dry out.

Please be more conscientious about where and when you climb after rain events. Even today, Tuesday, there is probably little to no dry rock in the park to climb. I only have this message forum to try get this message to you gentleman. I am not normally a keyboard warrior, nor a troll, and am just hoping to educate you guys and protect the resources in this park for as long as they will last because of course they will all be gone eventually.

I would be happy to meet up with y’all and show practices I implement to check if the rock is wet. But at the end of the day, if you are not positive that it is dry, then be patient and come back another day. If you wait to climb the Navajo sandstone until it is dry, it will probably be there for you. If you do not, it may not be there for the next person who has a similar desire to climb. 

Creeksgiving was loaded with tourists climbing just hours after fresh rain. It's frustrating for sure 

Excellently said Zacharya. You should post here what practices you implement to check if Zion rock is good to go. 

I am there the same week - looking for someone in the same grade range to climb with. I will have gear and a van.

Let's hook up.

Zacharya Fisher wrote:

Looks like you both got out and climbed the dark tower yesterday together. Awesome route…too bad that climb was totally saturated from the storm that came through on Saturday. The 24 hour rule is not really a rule, but more so a guideline and definitely does not apply to this area in the winter. Especially depending on the aspect, stuff like The Dark Tower or anything at Kung Fu could easily take a week in these conditions to dry out.

Please be more conscientious about where and when you climb after rain events. Even today, Tuesday, there is probably little to no dry rock in the park to climb. I only have this message forum to try get this message to you gentleman. I am not normally a keyboard warrior, nor a troll, and am just hoping to educate you guys and protect the resources in this park for as long as they will last because of course they will all be gone eventually.

I would be happy to meet up with y’all and show practices I implement to check if the rock is wet. But at the end of the day, if you are not positive that it is dry, then be patient and come back another day. If you wait to climb the Navajo sandstone until it is dry, it will probably be there for you. If you do not, it may not be there for the next person who has a similar desire to climb. 

Hey Zacharya,

Thanks for sharing. Clearly you care a lot about the park and the beautiful Navajo sandstone. I do as well and I want to do my best to preserve it and implement best practices. Here is what I observed the morning of our climb, and some past weather data that is available on NWS that went into my decision making. I’m still relatively new to climbing in zion, so please let me know if you think there is something I’m missing.

Unless I’m missing something, (which is totally possible) there was precip in the area on Friday afternoon and evening and then two days of clear cool weather. This is based on observations from the Kanab and St George weather stations. We climbed Monday starting at 1030 am and before we climbed I didn’t observe any wet sand where we climbed nor any indication that the sandstone was wet or had snow lingering on it. While we climbed, I also didn’t observe any sandstone breaking off or any abnormal exfoliation (on the first pitch there was some exfoliation in a sandy area just below the roof - this seemed normal given the softer rock below the roof and my experience in zion).

There was some accumulated snow lingering that morning on the higher elevation northern sides of the compass, but again we didn’t witness any on or above the formation we climbed, and the snow we did see up high in other areas didn’t appear to be melting (my guess is some of that accumulation will sublimate because of the dry air and cool temps).

to confirm some of what I experienced, the St. George airport weather station observed .02 inches of precipitation Friday the 24th and none since then. While that is very likely not going to be the same amount of precipitation as what fell in the park, I would hazard a guess that the park received at the high end .4 inches of precip, and at the low end .1 inches of precip - again on Friday. At the aspect and elevation of the dark tower, I’m guessing it was a rain/snow mix.

Then we had Saturday and Sunday which were clear and cool. at this time of year the dark tower receives little to no sunlight because of its aspect, which you observed.

after thinking about all of the above, everything looked good to go to get on the dark tower.

I will say there was hoar frost on grassy surfaces from the cool clear conditions sunday night, but none on the rock. If you got out and observed that day in the area of Kung fu, perhaps that’s what you were seeing?

I hear that you are saying we should wait a week after any precip to get on a climb like the dark tower due to its northern aspect. But given everything I observed that went into making the decision, I’d say I have to disagree. There just didn’t seem to be any indication of wetness, and the minimal precip you can see in the weather data i looked at supports my observation that the rock wouldn’t have gotten so soaked as to need to wait a week.

What are your thoughts? Do you still disagree?

thanks,

Ian

Ian F wrote:

What are your thoughts? Do you still disagree?

thanks,

Ian

Ian,

I greatly appreciate your thorough response, and I do apologize for turning this post into a discussion about climbing on wet rock. In hindsight, it would have been a more appropriate action to message you directly as I did not mean to try to publicly shame anyone, especially before they even have the opportunity to defend their decision. That being said, here we are and hopefully it is a situation we can all learn from.

First and foremost, I was able to corroborate some of the data you referenced from the NWS about that Friday, November 24th. Although you are accurate about what the reports say, the reports themselves did not lend clarity to what happened here in Zion. I would argue that the storm that hit Zion was indeed significant, as I spent a solid 15 minutes watching hail build up on my sidewalk by my house that day at a certain point, an always delightful experience to watch it storm in the desert.

Hard to say exactly what the accumulation would have been for such an event, but the USGS keeps a gauge near the river at the natural history museum, so they have a quantitative value. Their records show .16in of accumulation that built throughout the day on the 24th (roughly 0530-1730 that day). That may not sound like much, but in this area anything over one tenth is a pretty decent weather event. That is also coming from one gauge in an isolated area. My first hand experience would have me believe many other areas got a decent bit more as it rained multiple times on the day in discussion.

Between the rain event, subsequent conditions of the days following (cool and overcast weather), as well as the aspect of the climb in question, I do not think I would need to go to Kung Fu to confirm that the area was too wet to climb less than three days after this weather event (it rained well into the evening Friday). That being said, I was in the area on the day I wrote out to you (not to climb as it were), 24 plus hours after you were there, and from my point of view things were still full on saturated.

Again, I very much appreciate your thoughtful response. I greatly appreciate you utilizing the resources available to you to check if it is appropriate to climb in the desert on the day you are considering, and observing what you can physically to confirm or reject your decision. As I said, I was not there the day you gentlemen climbed the dark tower. I was right near there the day after your climb, with no rain event in between, looking at a very saturated area not in conditions to be climbed safely, but that was my perspective.

I think the important thing to get out of this is to take all the data you can get into consideration when deciding to go out and inspect the rock. If you are going out on a day where there is a chance you might not like what you see, have a back up plan and have the humility to accept that if you see wet rock, you are comfortable to turn back and not climb just because you already committed yourself to climbing. Seek routes that have favorable aspects for drying after rain events, considerations being areas with lots of sun or wind exposure. Recognize that not all 24 hour periods dry rock the same, and not all rain events saturate the rock to the same extent. And of course, we are lucky to be present in an area with so many different mediums for climbing. There is bomber basalt cracks down in Veyo that have no qualms about being climbed on after rain, and enough limestone to keep one busy for a lifetime  

 Ian, you seem like a reasonable guy with a desire to stay within the ethics of an area. I’m grateful for your approach to your response, your attempt to respect the resource, and your willingness to hear different perspectives. I would gladly share a rope with you while you are in the area if still in need of partners given your approach to this conversation. Let me know. Also apologies for the delayed, but also long-winded, response.

Hey man- I'm looking for a partner for Cerberus gendarme single pitch cragging tmw.  Give me a shout at 360 483-6883 if you're interested!