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After the ledgy traverse, the route reaches a sloping patch of forest clinging to the mountainside, and makes a sharp turn right and up. At the start of this "up" lies the third climbing problem on the route: a 15-foot high unexposed wall of sandstone. Although it doesn't appear all that hard, it is a bit tricky. The footholds that exist are shallow and downsloping. You have to trust sole-to-rock friction if you want to climb this.
Traversing along slickrock
The third climbing section
Up the third technical section
A short boost to Roland helped him get up this step, and then he set up a top-rope belay off a couple of bushes, and we all followed up.

According to all of my descriptions, this was the last of the truly technical stuff. We packed away the rope and continued our scramble upwards.

It was now 4pm. We now started up a long and steep ascent that led diagonally upwards, directly towards Lady Mountain's summit. This section, known as "The endless staircase", consists of long stretches of downwards-sloping Navajo Sandstone slickrock ledges. They look a bit sketchy to scramble on, but they turn out to be fairly easy to climb. Lung-busting stuff, though, especially when you are trying to race against the clock.
The endless staircase
Downward-sloping steps
Old Marks
courtesy JInnes
courtesy SDusablon
Nearing top of Staircase
View from 6000
Nearly in upper gully
After about twenty-five minutes and 500 feet of steep climbing, we reached the upper end of The Endless Staircase. Huffing and puffing, we needed to stop for a food break.

It was now nearly 4:30pm, and our eastern-facing mountain slope was far into the afternoon's shade. We were at about the 6100-foot level, still 850 feet below the summit - probably about thirty-five minutes' more worth of climbing. That would bring us to a summit time of after 5pm, leaving us with about two hours of pre-sunset time for the technical portions of our descent.

Arn and Kyle had been floating the idea of a turnaround time between 4:00 and 4:30pm, and that time had now arrived. Sentiment was mixed: Arn and Kyle were more on the side of turning around; Roland, the master of nighttime adventures, was on the side of forging onwards. I myself was slightly inclined to Roland's view, that we could probably still do this with a reasonable amount of safety. Jenn and Stephanie seemed neutral in the matter.

The tie-breaker seemed to be the fact that Kyle had not brought his headlamp. Not wanting any of us to be without one on steep technical terrain in the dark, us "summit pushers" reluctantly agreed with the wishes of those who wanted a turnaround: We would abort our attempt on Lady Mountain's summit, and turn around and head back down.
courtesy RHanel
courtesy RHanel
Turn-around break
Snack break at turnaround point
Final shot before turning around
Before turning around, I had a quick look at the route ahead: it led into a narrow but steep gully that led upwards, complete with several old paint markings. With a final wistful glance at the unexplored terrain above, I turned back and rejoined with the others.

The descent down The Endless Staircase went quickly. Despite the somewhat exposed situations and downward sloping steps, we made good time. At the third climbing problem, we quickly formed a rappel line. Then, back across the traverse to the top of the second-crux chimney, and with remarkable quickness, we rappelled down that as well.
Heading back down
Heading back down
Rappelling the third step
courtesy JInnes
courtesy JInnes
Back across the traverse
Nearing the chimney
Down the chimney
Below the second chimney, we scrambled down steep terrain to another steep little step that, although we could have probably done solo, we also rappelled. After that, easy downclimbing and herdpath-following brought us to the stop of the first climbing bit - the Moqui Steps.
Last look at the crack
Rappelling a small step
A broader view
In a clear illustration of how one becomes acclimatized to steep terrain: I was slightly ahead of the others on the final hike down to the Moqui steps (I believe I had gone ahead for a bathroom break). Alone at the top of the steps, I looked down them. They didn't seem nearly as intimidating as they had when we encountered them on the way up, just a few hours before. The others were still a ways back, and I thought to myself that there really isn't any need for a rope or a rappel down this. And so, rather than waiting for the others (and a formal rope setup), I turned around into the slope and carefully but very easily downclimbed the steps solo. I recalled thinking back to earlier in the afternoon, when I watched with admiration the sure-footed bravery of the other climbing group when they had free-downclimbed the steps. Perhaps they'd gone through the very same process.

When the others arrived at the top of the steps, sure enough, one-by-one, everyone downclimbed the Moqui steps, sans-rope. So, a message to anyone reading this who might get a bit queasy looking at the pictures of this route: a little bit of safe and cautious experience on steep terrain can go a long way to dispelling that fear of heights!
Zion Canyon in the shade
After finishing the final bit of scrambling, we started down the access herdpath. We followed it the entire way down to where it intersected with the upper Emerald Pools trail, which turned out to be a hundred or so yards east of where we'd gone up. For anyone looking for the definitive herdpath approach to this climb, please look at my interactive trackmap for details.
Final look up
All-in-all, the trip down from our turnaround point had been very fast and efficient: two hours and twenty minutes from turnaround back down to the Zion Canyon bus stop. We finished all of the climbing bits well before sundown, in fact. Oh, well.... I officially vow to come back and finish Lady Mountain in the near future!
Back on Emerald Pools Trail
Now on the upper Emerald Pools trail, we quickly made our way back (this time we chose the section of the trail that had been closed due to a slide, and as I suspected, the slide was easily bypassed on terrain that was five times less tricky than anything we had encountered up on the slopes of Lady Mountain!).
courtesy RHanel
 Lady Mtn Route, Annotated
We hopped onto the next shuttle bus and made our way back to our campsite. Feeling a bit thirsty, we drove into nearby Springdale to the local grocery store (which, surprisingly for Utah, is open until at least 9 or 10pm), where we bought some tasty cold drinks and a load of firewood (Arn needs firewood like one needs oxygen, sunlight and water).
Interactive trackmap with photo points - Lady Mtn aborted climb - click map to view
Interactive trackmap with photo points - Lady Mtn aborted climb - click to view
Lady Mtn Climb (Aborted)
Start Time: 12:27p.m.
End Time: 6:54p.m.
Duration: 6h26m
Distance: 5.61 km (3.49 mi)
Average Speed: 0.9 km/hr (0.5 mph)
Start Elevation: 4217ft (1285m) *
Max Elevation: 6107ft (1861m) *
Min Elevation: 4178ft (1273m) *
End Elevation: 4291ft (1308m) *
* : +/- 75 feet
Total Elevation Gain: 1889ft (576m) *
Total Elevation Loss: 1819ft (554m) *
 
 
* : +/- 75 feet
Elevation Graph
Post-climb fire
Once back near Springdale, I checked my e-mail to see whether or not we had won a spot in the last-minute drawing for a Subway permit for the next day. As it turned out, the answer was unfortunately no. I immediately applied for the drawing for the the day after, and began thinking about what activity we would partake in for tomorrow.
Back at camp, we fired up the stove to heat water for our dinners, and Arn got about to getting a roaring, warming fire going. Even though we had not fully achieved our objective today, it had nevertheless been fun and fulfilling.
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