Hi,

My first post to gunks.com. the last time I climbed Beginner's was about 8 years ago, and my partner lead P2. this time I lead all 3 pitches, and somehow on P2 ended up traversing too far left, belayed from a tree with rap slings, and ended up on P3 of Blueberry ledges, missing the awesome P3 of Beginner's. So.... my question is, when doing the traverse of P2 on Beginner's, where do you end the traverse and set up your belay? I noticed above me, about halfway through my traverse, that the right-facing flakes and the left-facing corner form sort of an arch above you, with a "notch" in the middle. Do you go through that?

I went past these flakes, up to a small pine, and clambered up to a large ledge with a long horizontal block. Above this ledge are two left-facing corners: the Blueberry ledges corner (which has a fixed pink tri-cam) and a cleaner looking corner above the horizontal block, which looked harder than 5.3. Any help/comments welcome. Thanks and sorry for the long post!!

More specifically:

- the right-facing flakes and the left-facing corner of P1 form sort of an arch above you, with a "notch" in the middle

- on the ledge below the Blueberry ledges corner,there are two left-facing corners: the Blueberry ledges corner (which has a fixed pink tri-cam) which is to the left of the long horizontal block, and a cleaner looking corner directly above the horizontal block, ie. to the right of Blueberry Ledges, which looked harder than 5.3.

Traverse on P2 is only about 20 left then up slab / face to left facing corning / broken blocks, and then continue up from there to huge ledge on left under the final roofs setting you up for p3. Much better option is to stay in the right facing corner and continue straight up (5.5) and move left 15 near some roofs then up face (easy 5.3) and flop onto the ledge on left.

So next time you can do the first 2 pitches of Blueberry Ledges and finish on P3 of Beginner's Delight.

It's a lot better than P3 of Blueberry Ledges (no loose rock) and not as hard as it looks.

TS

Here is the belay for the top of pitch 2:

when you top out on that long horizontal block, look above you and there is a roof with a piton sticking out of it. if i remember correctly, don't you head up and traverse around to the face and then head up? it does look harder than 5.3, i'll give you that, but it's not too bad. the traverse always screws me up and feels a bit harder than a three.