Blind Side

The Blind Side variation is a moderate mashup of

Blind Faith

and West Side. It avoids the cruxes of

Blind Faith

and the broken ramp and runout offwidth of

West Side

. The variations here are described elsewhere, in comments on the

Blind Faith

and

West Side

route pages. The attempt here is to put these variations in one place and piece together a coherent route with a lot of moderate hand crack climbing.

First pitch: follow the

Blind Faith

hand crack, past the West Side turnoff, past the short

Blind Faith

offwidth, to the base of the crux crack. Place pro under a flake, step right, and climb up to a right-angling ramp. Climb up to a left-angling ramp, watching for loose rock, to the

Blind Faith

gear belay. The left-angling ramp has the only loose rock on the route, and the gear options aren't great. This is the only section with a PG-13 rating. Thankfully the climbing is very easy at this stage. Moderate rope drag is hard to avoid.

Second pitch: leave the belay ledge heading climber's left up the gash, and cross over to

West Side

. Climb the hand crack on left side, along the right-facing corner. When

West Side

traverses right, stay with the harder left variation, and continue up the hand crack in the right-facing corner. When climbing eases, step over to

Blind Faith

, to the hand crack in the left-facing corner. Stop at the top of

Blind Faith

, or continue up the slab on the right to Ivy's cables in the descent gash.

Walk off the top along the 4th Class descent trail.

See

Blind Faith

or

West Side

route pages for approach information.

A standard rack with a double set of cams in the 0.5 to 2 inch range.