Lover's Leap
Kyburz (near South Lake Tahoe) · near Kyburz / South Lake Tahoe · Sierra Nevada / Yosemite
Rock Climbing
At a glance
- Skill level
- intermediate
- Grade range
- 5.6 (Traveler's Buttress) to 5.11 (hard free routes)
- Best season
- May–October · Shaded in the morning, sunny afternoon · Can be crowded on summer weekends
Permits and booking
- Permit
- No climbing permit. Small day use fee for the South Fork of the American River parking area.
Worth knowing
- Good for a first timer
- No
Rock Climbing detail
- Climb types
- trad · multi-pitch
- Rock type
- Granite — large, featured faces with excellent crack systems
- Route count
- 100+ routes on the main wall
- Signature routes
- Traveler's Buttress (5.6) · Bear's Reach (5.7) · Line of Credit (5.10b)
- First timer note
- Lover's Leap is not the right place for absolute beginners — the multi-pitch character and exposure require prior single-pitch trad experience. With a guide, intermediate climbers who have done outdoor trad before will thrive here.
- Intl tip
- Lover's Leap is on Highway 50 between Sacramento and South Lake Tahoe. The American River canyon on the drive up from Sacramento is itself spectacular. Combine climbing at Lover's Leap with whitewater rafting on the South Fork of the American River (one of the most popular river runs in California) — both sports use the same canyon.
The guide
Thirty minutes west of South Lake Tahoe, Lover's Leap is one of those Sierra Nevada climbing areas that seems to exist outside …
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Lover's Leap — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 38.7536, -120.1758