Climbing at Sugarloaf and River Rock

Climbing at Sugarloaf and River Rock -

The last couple of weekends I've discovered new climbing spots here in the Reno/Tahoe area. The first was Sugarloaf, which lies just west of Lover's Leap along Highway 50. Sugarloaf is an old school crag climbed by the likes of Warren Harding in the 1950s. It features an incredible variety of chimneys, cracks, and off-widths and has a surprisingly Yosemite-like feel. The area is southfacing and is great for early season climbing.

The second locale is River Rock. River Rock is located just outside of Verdi about 2 miles past the California border. Although it is a relatively small area it has great routes, quality rock, and is located in a nice spot near the Truckee River. More information about River Rock can be found at the following website:
http://harter-climbing.aci.net/riv.html

Illuminated by science -

Those of you in Reno should check out my letter to the editor in this weeks Reno News and Review in response to the column Right Hook. Right Hook's author, Mike Lafferty, wrote a piece on global warming. In that article he cited the advance of the Hubbard Glacier as an apparent contradiction to global warming. (Must all glaciers be receeding simulataneously at the same rate to support the idea of global warming?) He also compared glacial melting to ice in a soft drink glass. Apparently he doesn't realize that there is land underneath Antarctica and most other places covered by glaciers.

About Myself -

I'm a graduate student here at the University of Nevada Reno in the Department of Geography studying landscape ecology and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). I've been living here in Reno for nearly a year now and thoroughly enjoying it, particularly the climbing and mountaineering opportunities that exist in the Sierra Nevada. This blog is intended as an online journal of my climbing and outdoor adventures. Also, I'm holding out some hope that it will encourage me to take more photographs of my adventures.

So, you may ask, what brought me to Reno. I had been living in Fairbanks, Alaska with my girlfriend, Holly Hemming, and working for the Bureau of Land Management as a contract employee doing GIS. I enjoyed my job, but at the same time we both had decided that it was time to further our careers and build our skills. In other words, we decided to go to graduate school. In looking for graduate programs we both decided to only consider universities that had both geography and speech pathology (Holly's career of choice) departments, and we only considered western states within the U.S. (minus California). After phoning several potential advisors and weighing my options Reno stood out above the rest. In addition to the good academic environment, and the good weather, the outdoor opportunities were a big attraction. So, here I am.

As you'll see soon my outdoor pursuits are varied, as are my interests. However, I one unifying theme stands out; the mountains are where my heart is. I enjoy all forms of climbing: big mountains, traditional rock climbing, sport climbing, ice climbing, backpacking, river rafting, trail running, etc. For starters, I'll point to a few websites of three of my closest friends: Sean Bemis, Nate Pamperin, and Andy Mahoney. Sean, in particular, has been photographing and documenting our adventures for a number of years. He has pictures of two trips to the Ruth Gorge in Denali National Park, Alaska, as well as the Black Rapids Glacier and Mt. Hayes, Alaska. He even has some good ice climbing pics from Valdez.

Sean Bemis - http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~sbemis/
Nate Pamperin - http://mercury.bio.uaf.edu/~nate_pamperin/index2.htm
Andy Mahoney - http://www.gi.alaska.edu/~mahoney/Research/Research.html

So without further ado I'm going to sign off. Expect to see journals from a trip last year to Mount Marcus Baker in the Chugach Range in Alaska as well as Mount Whitney from this past January and Mount Shasta this past May.

-Tom