Climbing in Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe sits in the Sierra Nevada at about 6,225 ft above sea level and is the largest alpine lake in North America, a setting that frames the short trad film Next Go For Sure with Alex Honnold. The film brings the camera close to a single, obscure splitter above Tahoe rather than to wide panoramas, and it makes the most of the lake region’s granite lines by showing placements, jammed hands, and the rhythm of a sustained crack.

Directed, shot and edited by Carlo Traversi, the piece follows Alex Honnold for a day of trad cragging alongside Carlo Traversi and Nik Berry. The footage emphasizes on-the-rock conversation about gear and sequence and presents climbing as a technical, domestic practice — the filmmakers explicitly frame the day around a change in Honnold’s personal life and a practical “trad dad” turn.

If you’re interested in close, handheld climbing cinema that prioritizes technique and sequence over spectacle, this short film is a compact study of modern trad cragging near Lake Tahoe: intimate movement on splitter rock, gear-focused angles, and quiet editing that leaves room for the small moments of placing protection and working a line.