Sierra Nevada Section. The Sierra Nevada Section was pleased to welcome over 130 new members, bringing total membership to over 800. The annual “Climbmunity” gatherings continued to be popular and well attended. The first was our January ice climbing weekend in Cold Stream Canyon near Truckee. Because of the record late snowfall, the Sierra summer climbing season did not begin in earnest until late June with the Donner Summit Climb-munity, which was followed by the Tuolumne Meadows Climb-munity in August. Both these events afforded our members not only great rock climbing, but also fine camaraderie with group camping, barbeques, parties, and raffles.

The AAC's Craggin Classic made its first foray to California the last weekend of August at Donner Summit. The Section worked closely with the AAC in Golden in organizing and promoting the event, which included a day of cragging, free clinics, dinner, and a slideshow by Tommy Caldwell. Despite the unseasonably cold and windy weather, the event had a large and lively turnout of over 100 attendees for the dinner/slideshow.

In September the Section organized and hosted the Pinecrest Climbmunity after taking over these responsibilities from Royal and Liz Robbins and Tom Frost who had done so for many years. Members and friends enjoyed cragging at Gianelli Edges and a wonderful party at the Robbins’ cabin. In early November the Section held its inaugural Castle Rock Climbmunity at Castle Rock State Park in the hills above Saratoga, which consisted of a day of cragging and bouldering, followed by a fun party generously hosted by Sarah and Fred Glover at their nearby home.

The Section continued to sponsor the year-round free climber’s coffee, held every Sunday morning in Yosemite with the Climbing Rangers, where members interact with other climbers and spread the good word about the AAC. Further, Section member and AAC Yosemite Committee Chair Linda McMillan continued to lead the free Saturday evening slideshow series in Yosemite as part of the climber's interpretive program, which generates further goodwill and exposure for the AAC.

On the conservation front, in September our members again represented the AAC at the Yosemite Facelift clean-up week organized by the Yosemite Climbers Association. The Section underwrote commemorative AAC/Facelift bandanas that were given away to all the Facelift volunteers.

The year ended with our Holiday Dinner, highlighted by AAC past president Jim Donini, who presented an outstanding slideshow of his four-decade long career pioneering hard alpine climbing and first ascents in Patagonia, Alaska, and the Karakoram. We had a record turnout for the event, due in no small part to Jim’s prolific postings on Supertopo.

Tom Burch, Chair