Type: Trad, 140 ft (42 m), 2 pitches
FA: Marcus Brown, 1993
Page Views: 877 total · 5/month
Shared By: Matt Richardson on Aug 3, 2009 · Updates
Admins: Leo Paik, John McNamee, Frances Fierst, Aeon Aki, Mike Snyder, Taylor Spiegelberg, Jake Dickerson

You & This Route


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Description Suggest change

Although this little route might be easily overlooked given the lack luster description in Skip's book, it is worthy of a quick run and an excellent warm up. Start in the double crack system just up the hill from Le Petit Arbre and left of the nasty little mossy gully. The double crack system is obvious as it terminates at a point about 20' up.

The first pitch, while mostly straightforward, contains your standard Vedauwoo funk. Follow the double cracks up for some mellow climbing to a bulge containing a wide section just above the point. Here you can bust out your chicken wings and arm bars or just lay back the crack on some nice face holds (what I ended up doing) to surmount this obstacle. Then continue up the hand size crack to a big ledge just above another grassy ledge to the right.

For the second pitch, move the belay down and over about 10' to the aforementioned grassy ledge (if you don't you will potentially put a lot of stress on your system if the leader were to fall). Take the leftmost crack of the two cracks up from the ledge using mostly hands. About 20' up, the wall bulges and the crack pinches down to almost perfect fingers - this is what you came for. Clip the old pin (and probably back it up - a nut will do) and step up and into the crack - this is the crux. The crack eases up considerably above the bulge. Belay atop Blair I.

Location Suggest change

This route is located uphill from Le Petit Arbre and just past the mossy gully. To get down, rap off the boulder at the south end from the chains to the top of P1 of Le Petit Arbre. A 70 m will not make it all the way down, so from here you will either have to walk off south or rap off of the bolts of P1 of Le Petit Arbre.

Protection Suggest change

Although from the bottom, this appears to be wide, I found that you could easily get away with a set of singles to a #3 Camalot C4 supplemented with a set of nuts. For the belay atop the first pitch, you could actually just wedge your body in to the crack behind the rocks if you had no gear available.

Belaying directly atop P2 needs large pieces (#3 and bigger), or wrapping one of the enormous boulders at the top.  Alternatively, place a directional (#3?) at the top and move 20' climbers-right to a bolted rap anchor.

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