The Vigil 

My advice would be to not even consider hiking off this route. The raps are very straightforward with no rope snag problems and great ledges/stances at each station.

But Roxy...

What if climbers want the FULL VALUE Zion experience??? If so, hike off the back.

Found this to be an excellent, adventurous route. Classic in a different way then say Shunes or Monkeyfinger. Some comments to add to the supertopos rather vague description.

Rack Used. Double set of cams from tiny to #4 BD, one #5 and #6 BD, full set of wires including a couple RP's. I really could have used one extra .75 and 4 BD.

Pitch 1. 5.10a, The only pitch I used the 6" cam (it was nice to have)

Pitch 2. 5.9

Pitch 3. 5.10c

Pitch 4&5. 5.10c R, tricky route finding. Climb crack off belay for 20', step right into face crack, climb until bushes then step right and slightly down to well camoflauged bolt, straight up with some runout but straightforward climbing, protects with large cams. I linked into the base of pitch 6 in 60 meters.

Pitch 6&7. 5.11b, Inadvertantly linked these two in a 59.5 meter rope stretcher, the intermediate belay is inobvious and would be cramped and akward. This link made for one of the best 5.11 crack pitches I've done in the desert. 3 .75 and 3 #4 camalots (save at least one #4 for the end)

Pitch 8&9. 5.9, Easily linked. Less intimidating than it first appears.

Pitch 10. 5.11c R, It ain't over till it's over. Bolted slab, climbing stays hard well above the 2nd bolt, hard to say if you'd clip a ledge falling off the final, tenuous moves.

Rappel descent is relatively straight forward if you make it to the top, rappelling down the climb from anywhere above the 5th pitch would be tricky.

It might be good to watch your ropes a bit on the raps, we had a few snags especially up top. chimney pitch is crazy!

Mark Austin and I got up to two pitches from the top (base of chimney pitch) on a first attempt, ultimately descending and drilling rap anchors by a rapidly dying headlamp -- we were laughing the whole way up and the whole way down. Returning with Conrad, I found the sketchy run-out free variation (Mark and I having partially aided a corner pitch to the left) and, bivying on 'Violation Ledge', we casually pushed the route to the top.

so roxclamantis...did you or conrad take the "chimney" pitch? after you exit the easy initial part? in hindsight, i started up the right way, but backed down cause i was thinking this cant be the right way?!?!?! instead, i ended up climbing some of the most rotten rock i've encountered in zion to the climber's right against the main wall in the corner. after a couple moves, i was committed and backing down was not an option even though i knew i was off route by this time... i do not recommend this variation...but it's likely only zion 5.9+.

The chimney pitch was Conrad's lead as I had just led the prior pitch.

One of those classic 'much easier than it looks' chimney's that, I agree, looks terrifying from the bottom.