Idle Hands 

This is a great first route for beginners. A little bit of face at the bottom, a lot of crack work.It can be topped, but need some long slings, a 60m rope, and a willingness to lay into the belay a little since the friction on the rope is pretty strong.

The Boulderado is a good crag for working on easy leads. The line left of Idle Hands, marked 2 on the above picture is called Ho Hum, 5.4 in the guidebook. I didn't figure it was worth a separate write up, but it's as good as Idle Hands and the short diheadral above and left of the tree offers an opportunity to practice jams.

I think this would be a good lead for a beginner or for someone looking to build back confidence with trad (me in both cases!). Be sure that your belayer is anchored - we used a sling around a big boulder at the base - since any falls before the first piece about 10 feet up would send you and your partner to the highway. It's very consistent climbing, with no real crux except for the top, which we went to the right of making for an easier finish (the same as for Mons, the crack to the right).

A nice obvious line on solid rock. A nice practice route for the beginner leader, though I found it a little tricky to protect up at the final more vertical crux, but a couple of small nuts seemed to do the trick. And yes, rope drag can be a bit of an issue.

Very fun route! Leave all the mid- and large-sized gear behind, though. I led this with a half-set of wallnuts, smaller aliens, and one #1 camalot. And that was sewing it up.

You do not need the long runner anymore. There are great bolted anchors at the top. Lead it, don't TR. It's more fun.

Richard Rossiter placed four bolt anchors at the Boulderado in March 2007 at the request of The Spot gym. See my comment and Photo. Richard has the first known ascents of these routes on the Boulderado; see Richard's comment.

One of the bolts at the top of Idle Hands is missing its hanger and rap ring - as of July 2, 2007.

Good line - Protection not always obvious, used a #1 BD out to the right with a 4' runner to protect the final moves to hangers.

Fun route. Protection can be a little non-obvious and I ended up using a number of horizontal small-cam and tricam placements. Probably would have held, but I wouldn't have wanted to try them. Anchors in good condition.