Topo of Moonlight Buttress. From Rock Climbing Utah by Stewart M. Green.

Some amazing and historic ascents have been made in Utah’s canyon country this April.

On April 1 Alex Honnold, a 22-year-old free-soloist, pulled one of American climbing’s best April Fool pranks by free-soloing, that is climbing without the safety of a rope and partner, the 9-pitch, 1,200-foot-high Moonlight Buttress in Zion National Park in an astounding 83 minutes. He had previously free-climbed the 5.12+ line two years earlier and then in late March rehearsed it four times attached to a fixed static rope. After a couple rest days Honnold went for it, after waiting for the sun to warm the east-facing wall.

He told Alpinist Magazine, "I was super excited to do it but kind of nervous. I had a hard time sleeping the night before, I was so psyched." He also said, “I turned on my iPod at the beginning, played my Top 25, rocked that to the top, and had a couple songs to spare." The sustained crack climb involves lots of finger jamming, one of Honnold’s strengths, as well as wild liebacking. Honnold noted, “I really love fingers—and Moonlight has really secure locker fingers—and you're in a really cool, exposed position.”

On April 6 Steph Davis did the first female ascent and the third overall ascent of Concepción, a 220-foot-long crack climb in Day Canyon southwest of Moab, Utah. The route, named in memory of the late Jose Pereya, was first climbed by Steph’s husband Dean Potter in 2003 and had its second ascent earlier this year by Alex Honnold. Davis describes the left-leaning crack, dissecting a vertical sandstone wall, as “one of the most striking splitter cracks I've seen." After some BASE jumping injuries last winter, Davis credited her success to extensive weight training and fingerboard workouts earlier this year.

The demanding crack climb involves a boulder problem start to a long finger crack which slowly widens to cupped hands and fists and finishes with an off-width section to the high anchors. Davis wrote about the ascent on her blog High Infatuation: “I had to try harder than I’ve ever tried before on Concepción…. The pump and the powerful ratchet locks are relentless. In the final crux section of the rattly splitter, I was actually falling out of the crack as I jabbed between ring locks. So I just started yelling, and somehow flew back into the rock, doing move after move at maximum exhaustion, almost in a warrior trance state.”