Richard McCracken

Stumbling upon her father's hi8 tapes, a daughter discovers a world of delinquent oddballs and wino nomad-poets who dedicated their life to an absurdist art form: rock climbing.

Climbing in Utah is a documentary about rock climbing that takes place in Moonlight Buttress and El Capitan. It was directed by Scott Simper in 1999 and produced by Environmental Recreation Group. It is a part of the series Anyplace wild. It features Annie Getchell, Steph Davis and John Viehman.

The film follows three climbers as they do the 3000-feet (900 m) vertical ascent of The Nose, the classic first big-wall climb on El Capitan. A fourth climber follows the group and films their ascent but is never seen in the movie. The climbers need three days to reach the summit, which means they have to spend two nights sleeping on steep ledges, waking to magnificent views. Several minutes of the film is filmed in the pitch black when the climbers are caught by nightfall before reaching a ledge to spend the night. The screen is dark when one climber is heard trying to belay another when a bolt breaks loose and the climbers fall, luckily unharmed.