La Femme Takeda

This is an overhanging finger-to-flared, thin hand crack with a cool, but unprotected boulder problem start on a lone boulder/tower. If you send this without tape and don't gobie, find me and I'll buy you a bear and a high-five.

Pete Takeda who has climbed in the Woo for years, turned me on to this challenging little rig, and this is one of the legendary Takeda's many nicknames. He had tried this thing on a few occasions but never managed to lead it clean. He generously turned the line over to me, and I managed to barely scrap up it second go.

This is the sort of climb that seems to pack an eighty-foot climbing experience into only forty feet of burly crack. The start is 11+ and unprotected for about ten feet, so have your belayer spot til then, and then make sure every piece counts, because you are close to the ground.

This route is located in the Lower Blair III area before you reach the main cliff on your left as you approach. About two hundred yards or so before you reach routes like

Five Finger Discount

, venture 90 degrees left of the trail, about forty yards or so uphill towards a tower-like formation. The short, overhanging crack faces east and gets shade after noon.

Thin to a #1 Camalot.