Flashback Friday: Beginning Climbing at LTCC
Back in March I took Beginning Climbing as a PE Class at Lake Tahoe Community College. The class consisted of two Wednesday lectures where we learned about climbing history, technique, safety, etc., and two Fridays & Saturdays out climbing in the field.
I’d done a little climbing (mostly indoor at the gym) in college, and was interested in trying it again, but nervous to get started. The Beginning Climbing class at LTCC was the perfect introduction!
The first two days, we climbed at 90 Foot Wall just outside of South Lake Tahoe. We practiced rappelling, learned to belay and put the climbing techniques we discussed in class into action.
Nice view!
Tiny green instructor at the top of 90 Foot Wall for scale.
For our second Friday of climbing, we headed to tackle some more difficult climbs at the Cosumnes River Gorge near Placerville. We did another, much more nerve wracking rappel with all our gear and then beat up our hands with our first crack climbs and squeezed into some interesting chimneys.
Setting up the scary rappel while our awesome instructor Damien checks my set up.
Cosumnes River Gorge. Can you spot the slackliner?
Two of my classmates try to figure out a weird section.
For our last day of class, we headed back to the South Lake Tahoe area and went to Pie Shop. This day definitely had the hardest routes, including a multi pitch that our instructor set up. While he was doing that, we watched the instructional assistants do a trad climbing demonstration on a 5.10 crack that I eventually climbed when they had the top rope set up. That route was by far one of the hardest things I’ve ever done!
A classmate on the difficult crack.
A view of the multi-pitch climb.
Great hand and foot holds on this section of the multi-pitch.
LTCC Beginning Climbing class.
The other really cool thing about our last day of class was that we were way up high and had a great view of the “Golden Celebration” parade that went from Meyers to Sierra-at-Tahoe Resort to celebrate the three women from South Lake Tahoe who won medals at this year’s Olympics.