Mt. Moroni, Voice from the Dust. In November Garrett Kemper, Tommy Chandler, and I climbed a new route (IV 5.11c) on the far south end of the southeast face of Mt. Moroni. A 200' splitter hand-and-finger crack, starting 60' above the ground, had caught my eye. In the winter of 2000 Garrett and I tried to get to that crack from below, but a cam hook that I was standing on pried off a block, causing a short fall. Not wanting to use aid, we discovered a secret passage of a chimney 30' to the right. A ledge, hidden among huecos, led me to the start of the crack. Garrett led the steep one- to two-inch crack above, at 5.11. Two more 5.11 pitches took us to the top of a prominent pedestal, a great ledge. The climbing was so excellent that we decided to call it good, and descended.

As time passed, the lure of getting to the top of the wall proved strong, and we found ourselves back for another attempt. From the pedestal we followed the prominent crack and V-slot above for two 5.10a pitches. The next, loose section led to a steep, clean corner sporting a long offwidth. We avoided this by climbing a beautiful left-facing corner to the south. The last pitch followed an easy diagonal ramp up and right. On the summit we found a cairn, possibly left by the climbers doing the Southwest Face route in 1971. We descended by rappelling our route in fading light.

Brian Smoot