Hanging Gardens Left

Aesthetic cracks, fun moves, solid protection, lack of ledges, and a convenient anchor with lower-off hooks make these short little routes (or variations) the best easy / beginner trad climbs at Broughton Bluff.

From left to right, there are five options, the leftmost of which is probably only worthwhile if accessing harder climbs above and left. Otherwise you have four wide cracks, two outside (left) and two inside (right). The easiest and most immediately appealing is the outside left crack, which goes at 5.6. Jams and cams to 4" between low-angle columns with features for feet get you up to a wide slot. Smaller cams work to protect upward progress as you shimmy your way up and back out right. A final sequence of thoughtful moves puts you at the strangely-high anchor (grab the hooks). With an anchor setup you can top-rope the other three variations of 5.7-5.8. For the right, inside variations, there is a lower anchor out right. This is the historical location of the first "pitch" belay for the full Hanging Gardens route, and should be ignored if you're not doing the "2nd pitch" traverse.

I'm listing these as an independent entry because they can be so easily overlooked as variation starts to a three-pitch 10a route, when in fact they are easily done as their own separate pitches that can be top-roped from the same anchor.

Middle of Hanging Gardens area, right of Loose Block Overhang inside corner, and left of the Hobbit Hole and wide direct start to HG Route.

Gear to 4", anchor with mussy hooks