Blackstone-Exit 32

[Rick]

Last week during the balmy weather I went to Exit 32 and rope soloed at British Isles. I did a few of the routes on Blackstone and others in that area. My question is: The routes on the far left of Blackstone are reported to be from left to right, 5.7 and 5.8 with Stepping Stone .10a being the third route from the left. I usually can do routes up to .9 rope solo and seemed to struggle on .7 and .8. Do I really suck or are these routes graded stiff for the area? The info I got was from deceptioncrags.com. These routes are not in the latest guidebook. I climb in that area fairly often but hadn't been on these before since they are usually wet.

[ilookeddown]

I don't think they are .7 and .8 either unless I did not see some holds.

[assmonkey]

You may not have been over left far enough.

 

As I remember it, from the far left of the belay platform area, you look straight up at a line of bolts that is 10a. To the right of the 10a are two more routes, graded 10b and 10c if memory serves.

 

The two easier routes you mention are accessed by scrambling to the top of a 15' pedestal on the left and then moving left again to access the two bolted lines.

 

The routes on Blackstone are all consistently graded for the area.

 

Blackstone wall has interesting face climbing on solid rock. I wish it were 100' taller and 100' wider.

 

- a s s m n k e y