Lake Tahoe straddles the border between California and Nevada in the northern Sierras. Lying at 6,225 ft above sea level, Lake Tahoe earns a few entries in the record books: the largest alpine lake in North America; it trails only the five Great Lakes as the largest by volume in the United States; and it’s depth of 1,645 ft makes it the second deepest in the US after Crater Lake. Thanks Wikipedia! It’s also home to a load of climbing!

The most famous area in the vicinity is Lover’s Leap, a 600ft mostly vertical sheet of granite, whose foreboding countenance is made much more friendly by endless strata of horizontal dikes. These unique features make for some spectacular but amenable climbing. The only drawback, for our visit at least, is that the crag is largely north facing, and at 7,000ft in late October that makes it a tad chilly. Nonetheless, we were drawn to visit, not least by the online cheerleading for Corrugation Corner, a 300ft, 4-pitch 5.7. Plenty of shouts of “Best route I’ve ever done” on Mountain Project, backed up by superlatives on UKC: “one of, if not THE BEST 5.7s anywhere” and to top it all: “The best VS in The World!”

We bumped into a local guide / guru, Brian, on our brief foray to Yosemite. He also recommended CC and added that we should do Surrealistic Pillar on the lower tier to roll in another 300ft of similarly graded fun.

The bonus for our late season visit was that the campground at the foot of Lover’s Leap was almost empty – this is “walk in” tent camping, meaning you park your car in a designated spot and then pitch your tent on a site away from the road, but the camp host was happy for us to park our huge RV. Great spot!

With a lateish start and chilly conditions we decided to do Surrealistic Pillar to get a feel for rock. This follows a steep flake at the start, then an obvious off-width (which you mostly avoid on superb dike holds on its walls) and then a wild arete to finish – a hundred feet or so of unprotected but straightforward climbing. Brilliant exposure, and it’d be nerve-wracking if you didn’t have a bit in hand! In the shots below, taken the following day, you can see teams on the crack and on the arete.

… with the main wall looming above.

You can traverse fairly straightforwardly between the top-out from SP to the start of CC, though it’s worth following the trail on the Mountain Project app as the path is indistinct in places. I went for a recce, though we’d made a mountaineering judgement to leave CC for the following day. Great late afternoon light on the more west-facing wall of the huge corner it takes.

Heading back down to the foot of the lower buttress I found a more direct cairned path which we used the following day.

The Main Wall routes, including CC, start from an unlikely looking ledge system that cuts right across the crag – you can just about make out Helen halfway along the path.

The view up the first pitch looks much more amenable from immediately below than from a distance, which proves to be the case.

Steep though…

The horrendous looking offwidth on pitch 2 is avoided by more fun dike hauling on the wall, though the final moves onto a ledge/cave are well-described as the beached whale manoeuvre. Undignified!

Pitch 3 features a short chimney, a mildly harrowing traverse and then a long juggy corner. Careful back-cleaning and an intermediate stance will protect the second better on the traverse.

This also makes for a fabulous, airy stance (especially now that the sun has arrived) beneath the final joyous jug-haul.

The track you can make out at the foot of the crag is the line of the original Pony Express!

It’s an easy and obvious, though winding walk-off, with plenty of time to admire the evening light on Lover’s Leap.

It genuinely is a brilliant route. Best 5.7 / VS is a big shout (and I guess most of the contender **** VSs I’ve done were a long time ago) but I’m struggling to recall a better one. Suggestions please!

Moving on to Lake Tahoe itself, it’s undeniably attractive (and that’s ignoring the fact that it’s one of few sizeable natural bodies of water in the western US).

We stayed at the only public Campground still open this late in the season – Sugar Pine Point. Gorgeous!

There’s a whole variety of climbing dispersed around the lake, but a couple of people had recommended we check out The Emeralds. This cluster of granite crags set in pretty woodland contains a couple of hundred mostly sport routes with a full range of grades and orientations. You need to be prepared to share the environment with others…

Keep an eye out for this tiny sign if you are heading up to the Benches (and if you find yourself bushwacking then you’ve probably missed the path)

We did a warm up on The Dollar Store, but moved on after that – we just couldn’t bear the noise from the team on the adjacent crag – every move and every clip was accompanied by a commentary, a whoop and a few expletives! Aaargh!

The Fortress, a couple of hundred metres away, was more tranquil but STEEPER! Charlie and the Stick Factory is a 4* 11a, with just 5 bolts in 70ft – spaced enough to have me calling down for the clip-stick! The adjacent Sunburn is 11b but has a couple more bolts in a few less feet. Much more relaxing!

Slide Wall, another few hundred metres further north, gets great evening sun and is a nice place to end the day. Here’s Helen on Name of the Wind, 5.7

… and Memento Vitae, 5.8.

Beer o’clock…