St George / Prophecy Wall

On our trip up to Salt Lake City, we made a quick stop in St. George to check out the climbing at Prophecy Wall.  What we found was rock that made the stuff at Red Rock Canyon feel bullet hard. I'm not sure if it was wet (the ground was muddy at the parking area), but both routes we got on felt very fragile.  High risk/low reward climbing.  The view from the cliff made it worth the trouble, though!



The online guide felt a little incomplete.  I *think* we started on Whatever Happens...Happens (5.9 sport).  Sam took the first lead and sent it with no problem.  When my turn came, I immediately pulled a small hold off and spent the rest of the climb moving very...very...slowly.  Looking down at a long runout between bolts, I couldn't shake the feeling I was going to take a 20 or 30 foot whip down on blocky ledges if another hold broke.  Easy send, but not my cup of tea.




We got on an unnamed 5.10 after this and it was even sketchier.  I was scared the whole way up. Still, I really enjoyed enjoyed how it climbed.  The lower slab section had a couple of 2-3 inch wide ledges without good hands that required some weird balance-y mantling and felt like a very different type of movement.   Ana took a run on top rope after me and pulled a bible sized block off,  managing to hang on to it rather than dropping it on my head.

After that, we decided the rockfall potential wasn't worth the risk with the kids around and called it a day.