Climber	Suggested Grade	Date of Ascent	Notes
Jeff Lowe, Mike Weiss	5.8 (aid)	1971	Jeff and Mike made the first ascent of Moonlight Buttress
Peter Croft, Johnny Woodward	5.13b	1992	First Free Ascent
Alex Honnold	5.12c	1st Apr 2008	First Free Solo Ascent. Alpinist Article
Ethan Pringle, Tiffany Hensley	5.12c	24th Apr 2018	Ethan climbed the route on his flash attempt. Instagram Post and Video

The Route

Zion National Park is one of the most awe-inspiring climbing areas of America’s Southwest Desert. Seemingly endless routes scatter the park’s enormous sandstone walls. Moonlight Buttress is perhaps the most classic of all these routes and is up there with one of the most iconic climbs, alongside The Nose.

The route is best climbed as a free route which clocks in at 5.12c. Many climbers also choose to ascend the crack using aid techniques (5.8), however, this has resulted in the fragile crack gradually widening over the years. In its original state, the crack only permitted the fingertips of most climbers.

Now many can find better jams, fitting their knuckles into the crack, which has softened the difficulty quite a bit. In order to preserve the challenging experience of the route for future generations, it is best to avoid repeatedly weighting cams, as is done with aid climbing.

The line follows a perfect finger crack all the way to the top of its namesake wall. Of the route’s ten pitches, six of them are 5.12 making for an incredibly sustained and difficult climb. Most of this difficulty arises from the need to stay composed through the pumpy and insecure thin sections, which require a plethora of small cams for protection.

Although the route can be reasonably climbed in a single day, most parties will take two or three to complete it due to its sustained nature.

The Ascents

Jeff Lowe is notorious for having put up a number of difficult walls throughout Zion in the 1970s. In 1971 he and Mike Weis made the first ascent of Moonlight Buttress. It wasn’t until slightly over 20 years later in 1992 that Peter Croft and Johnny Woodward made the historic first free ascent. Croft and Woodward’s ascent was groundbreaking and would be considered the most sustained and hardest free climb in the world at the time of their ascent.

The route was originally graded at 5.13b since the crack was much thinner. Since then the route has seen countless ascents, both aid and free. The next historic milestone came on April 1st, 2008 by a young Alex Honnold who made the first and, to this day, only free solo ascent of the buttress. Honnold rehearsed the route between March 28th and 29th, climbing it twice a day two days in a row – an impressive feat of its own!

Honnold felt secure throughout the climb as most of the finger locks were very solid for his hand size, and it mostly just came down to endurance; something that has never been a problem for him. He climbed the route in an astounding 1 hour and 23 minutes. Speaking of this Honnold said the following:

“What gets me really psyched is that this is surely the speed record [of Moonlight Buttress], I don’t know if anyone can beat it, either. I turned on my iPod at the beginning, played my Top 25, rocked that to the top, and had a couple of songs to spare.”

What many do not know is that Honnold later returned to Zion and linked up a second free solo ascent of Moonlight Buttress with Monkey Finger 5.12 and Shunes Buttress 5.11+ in a single day, in the snow! This barely got any media attention, despite being one of the most impressive free solo link-ups in climbing history.

More recently, Ethan Pringle flashed Moonlight Buttress back in April 2018.