Sierra Trip Reports

Date: Sunday, July 15, 2012

Location: Lover’s Leap

Climbers: Andrew & Nick

Photos: Andrew & Nick (as noted)

Synopsis: Andrew and I headed up to Lover’s Leap in the South Lake Tahoe area to climb East Wall (5.7) and Haystack (5.8) (both on the actual East Wall face). We were able to get on the route East Wall in the morning, and afterwards we headed to Bear’s Reach (as Haystack had some other groups on it). I had been wanting to climb East Wall for a while, as it is a wandering route with an exposed second pitch that travels almost horizontally across the face of the East Wall. Andrew had never climbed Bear’s Reach – so seeing it was open, we decided to jump on it.

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Date: Saturday, May 5, 2012

Location: Lover’s Leap

Climbers: Jon & Nick

Photos: Jon & Nick (as noted)

Synopsis: Since climbing the Northwest Ridge of Four Gables with Jon in January, I have not posted any trip reports as it has been a non-eventful winter in Tahoe. That is not to say I did not get any skiing in – in fact, I got a handful of great powder days in. However, all of the days I did ski were entirely spent at Alpine Meadows or Squaw Valley. I just never seemed to time it properly for any backcountry touring as the snowpack was either (i) non-existent or (ii) dangerous due to the persistent weak layer we had all winter. Meanwhile, the weather in the Bay Area all “winter” was nothing short of spectacular, and I mostly hung around and did a TON of road biking in the Coast Mountains (and have generally been training for a couple of triathlons this upcoming summer and fall).

The great thing about the lack of snowpack this Spring will be the climbing access it affords. As of this writing, both Tioga Pass and Sonora Pass are open to the Eastside and many High Sierra climbs will have very quick approaches that are otherwise inaccessible without skis/snowshoes for much later in the season. Further, I suspect the alpine ice season this year is going to be nothing short of phenomenal.

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Date: Sunday, October 23, 2011

Location: Lover’s Leap

Climbers: Alex & Nick

Photos: Alex & Nick (as noted)

Synopsis: With the snow of the early October 6th storm long faded into memory and recent warming temps, I knew Sunday would make for a good day trip to the Leap. After many suggestions by myself and others, Alex has recently taken up climbing, with his first foray into outdoor climbing at Indian Springs and Donner Summit earlier in August.

With the stable weather and Alex fired out to get out of the climbing gym and back outdoors, I knew a Leap trip was in order. And with Corrugation Corner (5.7) and Bear’s Reach (5.7) on the agenda, I would dare to say that is about as good as it gets for a first trip to the leap for Alex! A nice welcoming to the world of exposure…

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