1979: Climbing the North Face of Moses at Canyonlands National Park

April 1979. Ed Webster and Buck Norden repeated the North Face of Moses, a route established from October 21 to 25, 1972 by Fred Beckey, Eric Bjornstad, Jim Galvin, Tom Nephew, and Greg Markov. They rated it V 5.8 A3 and did it in 6 pitches. It was later free climbed by Charlie Fowler and Chip Chace in 1981. They renamed it Pale Fire. It's a stellar climb up a crack system on the unrelenting vertical face. Here's a photograph I shot of Ed and Buck silhouetted on the route on the right side of Moses. I took them out to the rimrock above Taylor Canyon on a now-closed dirt track and we rappelled into the canyon on a fixed rope. On the trip, I pointed out a series of steep striking corners on the South Face that Jimmie Dunn and I had scouted in 1973. I told Ed he should do it...and he did. A couple weeks later Ed soloed the first ascent of Primrose Dihedrals, which turned out to be one of Utah's best tower routes.