Conrad Anker Completes Zion Climb Started 24 Years Ago
The Temple of Sinewava wall in Zion National Park rises over 300 metres and is a desert landmark with it’s sometimes free-falling waterfall.
Conrad Anker teamed up with David Lama to complete a project he first attempte with Doug Heinrich in the early 1990’s.
The route climbs up the towering wall left of the waterfall on the Temple of Sinewava. For those wondering, Sinewava means Coyote, the cultural hero in Ute and Chemehuevi mythology.
The Temple os Sinewava is known for its classic Monkey Finger 5.12a. For more routes on the wall, visit Mountain Project.
Anker wrote on his social media, “Twenty-four years ago, Doug Heinrich and me attempted a line left of the waterfall at the Temple of Sinewava in Zion National Park. We bailed cause we were weak.”
When Austrian climber David Lama visited Zion this May and Anker put him on the old project and within a week, they’d completed the climb.
“When Lama came to visit Zion we looked at the possibilities,” wrote Anker. “The roof required a bolt ladder. I toiled away, setting 10 solid bolts. While straining in my harness I thought of the late Layton Kor and his work on the south face of the Washington Column in Yosemite.
“As tribute to a visionary desert climber and a nod to route hiatus we came up with the name Latent Core.” The new Latent Core climbs 10 pitches up to 5.11, A1.
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Lama wrote on his social media during the first few days of attempting the line, “Great rock and steep climbing on the opening pitches of a climb first attempted back when I was just learning to walk. Cool to add a new chapter to this story.”
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