Rock Climbing at Owen's River Gorge

Rock Climbing at Owen's River Gorge -

This past Friday I found myself traveling down to Owen's River Gorge outside of Bishop, California to do a little bit of sport climbing. The weather turned out to be perfect. Sunny skies with cool morning, warm daytime temps, and cool evenings. We opted to camp at the free campground up the road. This trip was the first significant outdoor climbing trip of the season for me.

We arrived after about a four hour drive from Reno in time to catch a few 5.9s on the left side of the Great Wall of China. After the sun caught up with us we switched over to the Warm Up Wall to finish the day. The following day we caught some great climbing on a climb named Paradise (5.9) followed by a nearby 10c arete and a 5.7. We moved over to the more crowded Pub Wall and did several climbs there before moving on to the Negress Wall and back to the Warm Up Wall. Our final day finished with a 10a, 10b, and three 9s all on the left hand side of the Great Wall of China. In total 21 climbs ranging from 5.6 to 5.10c, all excellent quality.

Owen's River Gorge is reputed to be the best sport climbing in California. With over 700 routes to choose from, winter climbing a possibility, and shade or sun available depending upon where you choose to climb, I can see why it is so appealing. In fact, we met several people from Colorado and Utah who had come just to climb the gorge. Newton and I were impressed that the place was not overbolted or grid bolted, and that the crowds seemed very reasonable. We'll certainly be returning!

Climbing at the Leap -

Since moving to Reno I've adopted Lover's Leap as my new home crag. After years of climbing at places such as Grapefruit Rocks and Angel Rocks in Fairbanks, Alaska I'm relieved and excited to have such high quality trad climbing around me.

For those of you not familiar with Lover's Leap it is one of the great traditional climbing areas of California. It is virtually a miniature Yosemite, apart from the fact that there are numerous granitic dikes that add features to the rock and make hard routes much more reasonable.

Newton DeBardeleben and I have been coming back here for three weekends in a row. This past weekend we were back to climb Travelers Buttress, a 4 pitch 5.9 crack climb on the Main Wall. The offwidth 5.9 pitch shut us down so we opted for the much more moderate classic next door, Corrugation Corner. Corrugation Corner is perhaps the most amazing 5.7 climb I've ever done. Newton believes it to be the steepest 5.7 he has done. We still aim to come back and finish Travelers Buttress, but perhaps with a little bit of offwidth training first.

-Tom