Moonlight Buttress, East Face, Whiteys on the Moon. The natural line of our route, Whiteys on the Moon (V 5.10 A3, 9 pitches, 12 holes), named after a Gill Scott Heron song, climbs a thin crack system 50 feet right of the Moonlight Buttress route. Whiteys, which was established in April by Boulos Ayad, Bryan Bird, and I, begins in a left-facing corner, ten to 20 feet right of the fixing anchors below the “Rocker Block” on Moonlight. We free climbed four pitches to a stance on an arête at the base of the black tower. Eric freed to the top of the black tower, drilled a bolt, and pendulumed into a thin crack at about the height of the large roof on Moonlight. The next three pitches consisted of continuous, thin crack climbing, a bypass of the “Kill Whitey Flake,” and mostly natural hooking. We bivied on a killer sandy ledge two pitches from the top. The next pitch was another good free pitch that gained the base of a large, obvious chimney with double cracks in the back, on the north side of the formation. Future parties will not need a bolt kit. Chances are good that we may have offended several parties on Moonlight with our loud music, plastic swords, dumb questions, and the carnivallike atmosphere we promoted while en route.

Eric Draper, unaffiliated