Bishop Day 1: A Hard Day's Night

I’m sitting in the parking lot of a coffee shop waiting for them to open at 6:00AM. What the hell am I doing here? So it turns out that I forgot my sleeping bag, but luckily had brought a spare. Unluckily, that spare is no match for a cold November night in the Tablelands… and to think I was going to camp at the milks!!

First day in Bishop was relatively uneventful. I hit the road Friday morning at about 4:30, and with no cars on the road was able to have a breathtaking drive over the Sierra and down 395. Sunrise hit me around the 88/89 junction, by Sorenson’s lodge and the Welcome to the Future boulder. What a change from last Friday, in a week over 2 feet of snow has fallen in that area.

As I drove by the 395 boulder my hopes of an early morning send of the Crystal Arete (V7) were dashed, as the base was completely covered in snow. Perhaps by the end of the trip it will melt out a bit, and I will have a chance on that stellar looking line.

I made it into Bishop around 9:30, less than 5 hours from when I left Davis. First stop the Pleasant Vally Campground, aka The Pit, looking for Steve and Steve (Patton and Schwortz) who are up here this weekend and came in a day ahead of me. With no sign of them or any familiar faces, I headed up chalk bluff road to the Happies. Gearing up took a while with all of the preparations and such, but eventually found my way hiking up the front off the volcanic flow.

I dropped my pad at the Hulk, and after a quick send of Big Chicken (V2 – on right arête from The Hulk. I took my scratch pad, a chalk bag and shoes and headed off to a warmup circuit. The totty boulder was the first stop, traversed a bit, but nothing too exciting I headed up to Heavenly Path to finish the warmup circuit, climbing all of the climbs on that boulder, and downclimbing Chocolate Slab. The two warmups on the left side of that boulder are really excellent highballs. The one on the right is tricky, a little less secure, and requires some moves on monos, so that may be one to skip, depending on your preferences.

With warmup settled, I headed back up to The Hulk, where a boogie with the Disco Diva awaited. The crowd had already started amassing, with a group over at Solarium (V4) and a pile of pads beginning to form under the Happy Boulder. My first goes at Disco Diva were very unsuccessful, with most of the difficulty being figuring out the beta (AGAIN). I was spanked a few times, Got dejected, took a break, and kept at it. I’m now at the point where I can set up for the dyno relatively consistently, which is excellent. Very excited to see progress, but I am going to have to put in some more serious work to finish it.

From there I headed over to Acid Was Left. Couldn’t do the first move of the sit, which in my mind is the hardest singular move I have ever done, when I did the right variation. Starting one move in to the problem, however, I was getting pretty far, with my left hand in the dish up high, right below the jug, and my right hand bumped in from the sloping rail to the weird undercling crimp at the edge of the roof. So in other words, as with Disco Diva, good progress, but not quick there yet, and with some more hard work required to finish it off.

I headed back to the pit to try and find a campsite. What do you know, its packed solid Thanksgiving weekend forecasted for good weather… Remember how I was at the pit at 9:30 that morning. You may ask yourself if there was any spaces available then. I couldn’t tell you, I didn’t even look.

OK OK OK, so you are saying, who cares, theres BLM land everywhere, it’s free camping, and you stay out of the zoo, whats the big deal? The big deal is that it gets dark and cold by 6:00PM, and without a campfire theres not much to do at that point but go to bed. So that’s how I found myself in some random undeveloped campsite on top of the tablelands, going to bed at 6:30.

I lost track of how often I woke up in the middle of the night. I'm not sure that bag did anything, but mentally it was comforting. Eventually, I decided that my miserable conditions couldn't be much worse, so I might as well get going, get the car heated up, and start the day.

Well, I know that seemed like a long post, with mostly a bunch of stupid information, and no pictures or anything. But get used to it. Don’t read it, I don’t care. I own the camaro and the motor home, so where the f**k you gonna go?

Until the next time,

Go easy, and if you can’t go easy, go as easy as you can…

-B

Welcome to the Future. AKA Project dot dot dot.

Sorry no pictures or video yet, but a quick little trip report from Tahoe.

Last Friday, Keenan, Danielle and I headed up to Welcome to the Future. With an incoming winter storm, and wind gusts expected to reach 50mph, we knew that time was not on our side. Heading out from Davis around 8:45, we made excellent time to the boulder, taking around 2 hours to the parking lot.

Me: Should we head over to the warmup boulders first?
Keenan: No way, we are going to need all of our strength to do this thing.

His logic was sound, so we headed straight to Welcome to the Future.
First of all, if you haven't checked this thing out yet, you should. It is a beautiful line, with a good balance of technique, balance, power, and thuggery.

Here's a link to a video by Ian Cotter-Brown which features it:
Tahoe Sending - by Ian Cotter-Brown

We started chalking up the holds, trying to remember the tricky beta of the opening moves on the sit-start. It took us a few burns, but finally had it dialed to where we were throwing the right heel-hook to prepare for the last hard move.

The brutal cold, however, meant that we could only give it a few goes before huddling back into jackets and regular shoes.

With clouds moving in, and small drifts of snow starting, time was nearly up.

We started working the problem from the stand start, trying to remember the nuances of that thuggy right hand move off of the heelhook, but just couldn't make it happen. Almost to the point of wondering how we had both done it from the stand-start before.

With hopes diminished we packed up, leaving the project for another day.

Lunatic Bouldering, at the Loonies!

Ok, time for a "Serious" post....First off, my intentions. I hope to be able to put here words, thoughts, photographs, ramblings, etc, about what I'm up to. Focusing on climbing, but really anything I feel like writing about. If you find enjoyment with that, great... if no one reads it, fantastic... If you dont want to hear about my whining and complaining about hard calculus tests... just skip ahead until you see pretty pictures of big boulders.

So last Saturday (6/1), I had the pleasure of heading out to a bouldering area by Loon Lake with Wick, Kristen, and Dave Nunley. The plan was to meet up somewhere and cram into a car with people, pads, and a dog, and hit the road.We all met up in Loomis, where I was stuffing my face with a Almond Croissant and a coffee. (Are we seeing a trend here with pastries and coffee? oh well.) After pouring over the meat and cheese selection that the best Raley's in Loomis has to offer, we had lunch sorted out and were on our way. The drive out there goes by quick, although its unneccesarily windey, but after less then 2ish hours in the car, we were parked and ready to get moving. It's a quick walk to the boulders, and with the living, breathing, guidebook, Dave, leading us on, we were standing amidst big bold granite boulders in no time.

I must say, the first climb of the day did not inspite much confidence in me. It was the only V0 warmup in the immediate vicinity, called "Good Question". Wick hiked it in his Evolv approach shoes, quickly followed by Dave. I, on the otherhand, shod up in my climbing shoes and proceded to get on the problem. I was all over the place, my hands were sweaty, I was sketched out off of jugs, my feet wouldn't smear on anything... Let's just say it was probably the hardest V0 of my life. Ok, that was a little melodramatic, but I was definitely not in the zone up that thing. Only thing going through my head was... "Jesus, came all the way out here and Im going to sketch out on a V0 warmup and be done for the day..."

After Good Question, we all ran up Stealth, a V3 up a few good moves on nice friendly crimps (the only ones of the day, friendly that is). A good line, and a great must do 'warm up' for the area.

Needless to say, round 3 came along, The Gatekeeper! Pete had described this problem, and from his desciption I was terrified from the getgo. In person however, although you do start with a jump start while standing 4 feet off the ground on one boulder onto the problem, the fall was pretty safe (from experience), and it was an amazing line. Short, sweet, but full value. Here's a video that you can enjoy:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJILrAA_5cM[Still working on the whole embedding you-tube videos, if its even possible, sorry for the inconvenience, but its a good vid, so check it out].

I guess we decided to ramp it up a bit after Gatekeeper and set the pads down at the base of 10 Gauge. Originally a V6, a key foothold broke off, and is now considered an 8. It starts with this heinous right hand crimp pinch razor of death, and a left hand undercling. Youve got a piss right foot you need to jack your foot up way high onto, and then throw for a decent but small left hand crimp. From that, there is a right hand sidepull that is good, and then another big throw left hand for the top out. I spent a bunch of time trying to do it static, and it was feeling impossible. Eventually I got it by going with a more dynamic approach, to the first left hand crimp. Vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gd5SdogySYI think this is a fantastic line and another must do. It makes its way up a big vertical face on a very nice sized boulder. Big Bold Beautiful.

The rest of the day was spent running around the small sector and knocking out some other great problems, and getting smacked down on some others.
All in all, it was a fantastic day for climbing, and I was able to get up a lot of great lines.
Drop the Hammer - V9
10 Gauge - V8
Get Shorty - V7 FANTASTICLY FUN!!!! But, also a bit of a reach for us shorties!!!
Colt .45 - V6/7? Hand heel match with a big move to a jug. I did it static-ish, but can also be a big throw.
House of Pain - V6 Not too painful if you dont really use the finger lock beta, but great!
Gatekeeper - V4
Stealth - V3
Good Question - V0

Lots of climbs for one day, and my fingers were definitely on the thin side after it all, but it was a blast. Gorgeous rocks, that were big, well featured, and just fantastic. Not much could take away from my psyche that day, not even the bugs. On a downer note, however, Kristen did end up hurting her ankle on a fall off of Good Question, so I hope she is feeling better.

Im really looking forward to getting up there again, armed with brushes to clean off some more fantastic lines!

Ham and Cheese Croissant

I started today with a large coffee and a ham and cheese croissant from the coffee shack over by the Geology building. As good as that was, it wasn't enough to motivate me to attend calculus, so I spent an hour on facebook. .... (sigh) ...... I need help.