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Manatee trad traverse
Description
An awesome warmup, and a good intro to bouldering for your trad friends who continually whine about how short and crimpy and stupid bouldering problems are. Start underclinging the manatee's upper lip, traverse right across it, and then work your way up diagonally to the right on flakes and hand jams until you reach the flared hand/fingers crack that goes straight up to the top of the boulder. Amazingly friendly-textured rock for jams. Don't use the boulder behind you for feet (though you can step off onto it at any time). There's a great fist jam-to-flared-hand-jam sequence at the transition from traverse to straight-up exit. Make up your own sequences (eg, cut out flake "jugs" and do more jams) - can make the problem harder and more fun.
Location
Right under the manatee's nose, then continuing up and right around the side of its head.
Protection
Couple pads and a spotter can be helpful while working out the sequence. After you've got it dialed, you'll probably prefer to do it without - falls could be ugly in the corner where the ground drops away over jumbled boulders, but it's pretty secure once you've figured it out.
Routes in Upper Mound (main upper cluster of boulders)
- 1Manatee trad traverseV0+Bouldering