China Loving Blues

This independent line can be used as an approach to P3 of

Marlin Alley

or P2 of

Bat Crack

. The climbing is primarily excellent, if run out, knobby slabbing.

Start between the easy and hard starts to

Bat Crack

P1, to the left of the bulk of the lower half of

Bat Crack

P1. Climb straight up on easy knobs for about 5m to a horizontal crack. Load the crack up w/ gear (red TriCam, opposed small nuts) and head up ~6m of knobishness to the right side of a long horizontal roof; the first crux of this pitch is about halfway between the gear and the roof where a fall would be neither good nor fatal. The last few moves getting to the roof are dangerously run out but pretty easy. At the roof, make up for lost time and place solid gear. Traverse left, underclinging and jamming the crack at the base of the roof for about 5m with good gear throughout. Somewhere before the roof makes a sharp upward jog, break through to more knobs; depending on exactly where you break through this may be the crux of the pitch. Continue up for about 4m to a shallow left facing corner with small gear. Follow the corner for about 3m as it becomes a small roof until a decent stance is reached below the point where the roof turns up and becomes a corner again. Belay at this point on a variety of gear from RP to red Alien.

For the second pitch, you can either follow the corner up to slab knobs, eventually reaching the roof of Bat Crack, or diagonal up left about 13m to the

Marlin Alley

P3 roof.

This was named after a famous Dylan song.

RPs to gold Camalot with the concentration from thin fingers to thin hands.