Climb a Rock at Yosemite National Park

My husband and I took the group beginners class with Drew and it was so much fun!!! Booking was easy at Curry Village in-person or via email, the staff was very responsive and kind. On the day of, the staff had all the gear ready for us. We met at curry village at 8:30am to meet the instructor and other class mates (we were a group of 4), then drove separately to Yosemite Valley Lodge to climb the rocks near there. Drew was an awesome instructor and helped us all feel safe. We learned how to rappel, baley, and climb with the smear technique. Drew adjusted the climbs based on our abilities and gave us a novelty course at the very end, which was awesome! I will definitely be back to take the next level course (if I remember everything we learned in the first one). Definitely recommend!!

James, I want to thank you for allowing me to experience the Big Wall, and not just any wall, but the Nose. I believe no one could do a better job than you! Don't change; you were perfect! I will always stand by my idea that my guide is a climbing god. During our time on the route, we met many amazing people; some descended, some succeeded, but none took a beginner to the top while keeping him 100% safe like you did. You truly impressed me, and I hope our paths cross again one day!

The guides were great. Unfortunately, the coordinator, Giselle, managed to make what should have been an exciting climbing trip unnecessarily frustrating. We booked a private climb months in advance, yet somehow nobody contacted us before the trip. Two days before our climb, we had to dig through months-old emails ourselves just to figure out when and where we were supposed to meet. Apparently, proactively communicating with clients isn’t part of the coordination process. That’s when we discovered we’d been assigned to meet in Tuolumne Meadows, about two hours from where we were staying, even though we had booked a Yosemite climbing experience and expected to climb in the Valley. We politely asked if the meeting location could be changed, and Giselle told us that meeting locations couldn’t be changed within one week of the trip. Interesting policy… considering we weren’t even informed where we were meeting until we figured it out ourselves two days beforehand. It’s hard to request a change in advance when the coordinator never bothers to coordinate. The best part? When we finally met our guides, they told us they had driven an hour from Yosemite Valley to meet us and that they actually would have preferred climbing in the Valley as well. They also said that, based on our experience, the Valley has routes that would have been a much better fit for us. So everyone involved—the guides and us—ended up wasting extra driving time because of a decision made by someone who apparently never read the information we provided. We spent considerable time describing our climbing background when booking, yet we were placed on what felt like a beginner route. Even the guides seemed surprised and agreed that different routes in the Valley would have matched our experience much better. The guides did an excellent job making the best of the situation, and they deserve credit for that. But the coordinator contributed absolutely nothing positive to this experience. Communication was nonexistent, planning was careless, and the entire trip felt like it had been organized by someone who neither read our booking information nor spoke to the guides. If this company wants to keep its excellent guides, it should seriously reconsider who is coordinating trips. Right now, Giselle is the weakest link in an otherwise solid operation.

I did a crack climbing course with YMS and they tried very hard to make up for a bad situation thet happened when phone lines were knocked out across the park during the reservation process. I had a wonderful time learning to climb this style in the park coming from sport climbing out east. We went over trad climbing as well and building anchors. My guide was constantly making sure I was getting what I wanted from the course over the day. Overall a great experience in the park while Im hiking the pacific crest trail.

We were blessed with Phoebe S as our guide for the day. She was so informative! We were given a botanical, horticultural, geological, and history lesson as we walked. We did the Mirror Lake walk in the morning and to the base of El Capitan in the afternoon!! Highly recommend this company and Phoebe, especially.