Broken Blade Ridge 5.8 PG13
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| Type: | Trad, Alpine, 4 pitches, 1000 feet, Grade II |
| Consensus: | 5.8 [details] |
| FA: | 2012 july |
| New Route: | Yes |
| Season: | summer, fall |
| Submitted By: | franciscov on Jul 31, 2012 |
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Description Pitch 1. Start at base of ridge on the right edge. Climb up and the left into broken area and then once past the 5.7 crux climb on easy ground to good belay. Pitch two easy lower 5th class to base of Broken blade. Pitch 3. Climb Broken Blade and the rap back to ridge. Move belay to base of last pitch on easy 4th class rock. Pitch 4, Climb up and left into twin cracks with a small knife edge internal ridge, the crux, then up toward a small overhang, ,and then into a nice hand crack to summit and a great belay.
Location can walk off down mostly east and a bit south.
Protection Standard pro
| Comments on Broken Blade Ridge |
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By Jay Carroll Aug 4, 2012 rating: 5.8 PG13
| Bring helmets on this one. There's a few loose rocks. Hopefully, we cleaned most of them off. A standard rack is fine. Pitch 1: Belay from the furthest point out on the ridge to avoid rockfall from the leader. After the initial hump, we went a bit leftward to steeper terrain. Lichen in some places adds to the difficulty (maybe a 5.8+ if you count the lichen). Pitch 2: Easy climbing, but you do need to place protection when solid rock is available. This gets you to the ridge. Broken blade is about halfway across the ridge. Pitch 3: After a 5th class scramble along the ridge (we stayed roped up), you can reach the bottom of broken blade. If you're up there, you should do it since it is the most fun. After rappelling back to the ridge, you can hike to the bottom of pitch 4. Pitch 4: There are two obvious cracks in the upper part of the ridge. We took the one on the left with a bit of an overhang and less rock lettuce. The crux is actually before the overhang and the lichen adds a grade of difficulty. I'd consider this 5.9 if you count the lichen. After the overhang, there's a fun crack to move up. There's a flat spot at the top of pitch 4 to belay from. A short class 4/5 scramble would probably get you to the true summit, but this is a good point to follow a bit of a ridge diagonally down southeast to walk back to the bottom. The first part of the walkoff is class 4 and it's not a bad idea to stay on rope. The hike back to the bottom isn't bad and I'd recommend leaving your bags at the start. |
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