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Lower Blair III, II and I
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Community Norms 

5.10a/b

   

FA: Marcus Brown, 1994
Type: Trad
Consensus: 5.10a/b [details]
Length: 1 pitch, 80 feet
Views: 122 page views

Submitted By: Matt Richardson on Aug 4, 2008


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Description 

I once saw a comment on Osiris in which that route was described as 'a worm driving pile of crap'; I am not sure what that means, but I wonder what he would say about this route?

Anyway, this route starts at the far end of Blair I, shortly before you get to the jumble of boulders that marks the gateway toward Raised On Robbery. Start just right of a pine tree. There are two cracks here, the right-most marks the start of Social More's, a thin 10b that starts in a left facing dihedral. The left-most is a thin seam that marks the start of Community Norms. The seam itself is thin and a little mossy, and exiting to the ledge above after the seam craps out is the crux of the route. Follow a series of cracks to the top that are typically no wider than hands, but still require a little of the 'woo funk to get you up. Some places are trickier to protect, but the rest of the route is no harder than 8+ or 9.

Kelman has this route down at 10d, but I felt that this route was not sustained enough to maintain that grade. An aspiring 10 climber should have no problem getting up this. I found that the true difficulty of this route is not the first seam (which would be an excellent feature were it not so dirty), but making your way up the rest of the route which is grovelly and exfoliating and felt less than bomber when you were trying to move more delicately off of some of the thinner sections. This route would probably be more worthwhile were it to see more traffic, but I suspect the traffic is low due to the hard grade in the Kelman book.


Location 

The start of this route is located about 30 or 40 yards uphill of Gampher Chimney (the lichen covered, dirty looking chimney which goes at 7) and is marked by a thin seam to the right of a pine tree which will take small gear.

For the descent, you can walk off either to the northeast with some serious scrambling or to the southwest toward the anchors that mark the top of Nick's Loose Flake Variation.


Protection 

RPs (or C3s) to hand size pieces.