for the last several weeks we’ve been exploring the rock walls surrounding some of the off the beaten path lakes in the kirkwood area. among these are kirkwood lake, margaret lake, shealor lakes and old camp bluff near silver lake.
we started off with a day trip to margaret lake. i had been there before just after i started climbing so i knew there was potential but wasn’t aware of any development.
last time i was there (august 2012) it looked like this
fast forward 2 years and we came back armed with a rope and a full rack. turns out the rack was just extra weight since walking to the top there were several sets of bolts lining the ridge. that worked out well since the hike in took longer than expected and work was looming on the horizon. once the top rope was up we started climbing.
jasmyn went first
followed by skylyn working her way up the corner
ashley just past the crux approaches the top of the wall
and finally they let me climb. this would have been an uncomfortable lead since there was no pro between the top of the corner until the top except for an uncomfortably flexy pinnacle that could be slung
then it was the dogs turn for fun as they showed us their new synchronized swimming routine
the following week we took a camping trip to kirkwood lake. in addition to excellent rock, kirkwood lake has a rope swing.
jazzy takes off innocently enough. nacho is behind stoke
but nacho jumps in early and she lands on him (you can see him just under her kneee).
do not like do not like!
i didn’t land on anybody. but still, do not like!
we chose a site that allowed the pups to have their fun and do what doggies do
the next day we headed to shealor lakes. i’ve lived in tahoe for 20 years now and had never heard of shealor lakes. but recently on the way to work we stopped into sports ltd and dan k. mentioned some climbing in the area. we were late for work and missed some details but we figured we could find it.
after a wrong turn or two we did find it. but naturally there was some ‘nature’ involved.
after a little more ‘do not like’ the pups were excited to be on the ledge.
obviously, jasmyn was excited too
ashley says “i’ll take the sharp end”
clipping
belaggles view
the 4th bolt was where we all got stymied
so we top roped from there
here’s a view of the zone. the red represents our route and there are a couple bolted lines to the right as well. i tried soloing up the yellow line to go around and set up a top rope but the rock got super slick and i’m a giant wuss. down climbing with my pack was super fun though (do not like)
i did a little exploring a couple hundred yards below and found some bolts atop this steep granite. a route for another day (and a better climber)
then we hit shealor lake where the doggies played careers. stoke was so excited to finally become assistant branch manager we didn’t have the heart to explain he was assistant to thebranch manager.
lots of reasons to come back
that afternoon we made our way over to the wall behind our camp site at kirkwood lake. we found this last year but i wasn’t leading much at the time so i wanted to get back
jasmyn follows. this has one of the coziest belay stations around
line #2 on top rope
#3 also on top rope. i ended up going around to the chimney
jazzy looks up the chimney
on the arete after the chimney
this tr is brought to by speakeasy’s double daddy (do like)
#hashtag
the next day it was off to old camp bluff. the water tower marks the start of the short approach
me on a route
look mom, no hands
jazzy making it look easy
ashley too
our final route of the trip
thanks for looking
