For Sport: Lovers Leap

Legend has it that two Native American lovers leapt to their death off a tall summit near Strawberry. The name from then has been Lovers Leap...Jared claims they were free soloing on their way up, but whose to know.

There are a couple reasons that we love climbing at Lovers Leap. 1) My parents live close and there's only an hour-or-so drive to reach the comforts of a home cooked meal, Oreos, and a hot shower. 2) It's almost, always sunny and warm...even in late October! On this particular occasion, Jared and I reached the base around 10am (hooray for sleeping in!) and started up The Line (drug reference, naturally - ah, 70's climbers). This route was pretty awesome and had really good feet placement on these little lips that jutted out of the wall. The route took us all over the wall and finally up and over a nice looking roof with some pretty good jugs in the hidden cracks. I was pretty stoked to get through it, roofs were never my area of expertise.



The second route was Hospital Corner. This was a more standard crack with hand and foot jams, maybe  a 5.10, I can't remember. Jared made it all the way up, but it was getting too late for me to finish. So, naturally, I took some pictures of the scenery and the cool, orange moss growing in and all over this one crack in the wall - it's seriously beautiful. We had a bit of trouble with the rope in the end, but made it down just as the final glow of the sun was gently falling back westward.


To another great day on the wall.

October 19, 2013