Guided rock climbing near Idyllwild

I'm going to hire a guide to do a Tahquitz climb (near Idyllwild & Mt San Jacinto). This is multipitch trad and 5.4-ish. The date is open but it looks like the weather will be OK in mid-Oct.

To be clear, this is a roped climb, like that shown in the photo. And, it's multipitch trad, which is a different beast than toprope climbs. While you don't really need experience, it'd really help since both likely routes have exposure in parts. As in, if you look down there's nothing below you for a few hundred feet. You probably won't have to clean or belay, but it'd be a good idea to practice a figure 8. It'd be an even better idea to go to a climbing gym, buy a day pass, and tell them what you hope to do.

The routes I'm looking at are The Trough and White Maiden's Walkway. The exposure on the latter is apparently greater. I'll leave it up to the guide to choose which is most appropriate for the group.

The guiding service will probably be Vertical Adventures and the cost for just me is $495. If I can find one other person it's $295 each and two others makes it $245 each. Guess which option I prefer.

Whichever service we go with it will be with an AMGA-certified guide; they'll be the ones placing the protection, not me. I'll probably clean and belay the guide. You'll probably be belayed by the guide.

You'll need a helmet, a harness, and probably climbing shoes. The service can rent all of those to you.

If you don't already know what multipitch trad is (yes, I said it again), please watch a video of what that means. Like I said, it's a good bit more involved than toprope.

Anyone who signs up has to join the waitlist and to get off it you have to leave a comment (or send me a DM) detailing your climbing experience or, if you have none of that, why you think you won't freak out with exposure.

Note also that I'm slowly getting over a lower back nerve issue caused by bulging disks. It might cause pain for this event but I should be able to do it unless that suddenly gets worse. There's apparently a steep approach hike so prep for that.

However, going to JTree instead is an option either if the weather turns bad or my disks explode.