Posts Tagged: Rock-Climbing

I spent the summer of 2011 working for the U.S. National Park Service in Yosemite. It was one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. I was doing legal work—public land use and government contracts. My job was usually a 9-5 day during the week, but my schedule was flexible and the days were long, so I had plenty of time to explore the park. The Park Service set me up a two-bedroom house in the employee village below Yosemite Falls.

As a full-time student, most of my climbing these days is done in gyms. So I was excited for an opportunity to spend a weekend climbing on real rock at Phantom Spires, an area south of Lake Tahoe off of Highway 50 with excellent climbing on granite spires. Phantom spires is a neat place to climb because it has routes of varying difficulties, opportunities for trad leading, sport climbing, and top-roping, and it’s a beautiful area but only a ten minute walk from the parking lot.

During World War I, the northeastern Italian city of Cortina occupied a strategic region in the Dolomite Alps. A string of forts was built high in the mountains among extremely rugged terrain. To assist soldiers in reaching their posts, the army installed miles of iron cables and ladders through the rocky mountains above Cortina. Since then, the via ferrata (iron road) has been extended and opened to the public. I visited Cortina with my parents in September of 2006, when we spent three days exploring the via ferrata.