Good Times: Last call!

For the Bishop season! It's over with. Over and done with, done and over with.Technically the climbing season for Bishop bouldering ends around mid to late April, with May beginning to be to hot to boulder in the day time. The snakes start to come out of their dens and hiding among problems.

Are you high to buy?

Last weekend was a freak weekend. Friday and Saturday were both in the 60's and Sunday's high was 71. Scott Cory and I made one last final trip out there to see if we could get somethings done with. So we left Friday morning and arrived to the Buttermilks around 3:30 in the afternoon. Scott talked about his long term project The Sharma Traverse and expressing interest in finally putting it to rest. The climb is sloppy and requires shade so we had to wait till the sun went down around 7pm. That gave me enough time to go try Center Direct. It's one of those problems I have in two parts: the beginning three moves and the ending three moves. I was able to do the crux move one time this trip. I wasn't really focused on it as I had another project I really wanted to do. After doing the 5.9 arete, the sun finally went behind Mt. Tom. Perfect for Scott's project. We hiked past Mandala and set up. I had never really looked at the climb until now. It's pretty straight foreward. Scott ran me through the beta and encouraged me to give a go. I honestly thought I wasn't going to get far on it but somehow made to to the crux through from the bottom. It's almost full span for myself, but you're throwing off a good right hand to a decent incut left. I decided not to wreck my self first day on it and would opt for a return to it next season. Scott however was close. After falling off the top move once from the start, he got back on and sent. So rad!

Dinner at Amigos

The next day, we woke up and went to the Happy Boulders. We didn't want to stay for too long as we had other plans for the day. I really wanted to put Acid Wash down for the count. After working for two hours on my last trip, I knew I had it in me to climb it. The start took me more tries than I would have liked that day, but I can't complain. I moved quickly and precisely through the holds and held on to the finish. V10 was always a goal and to see myself complete this climb let me see that I can climb "harder" problems. After packing up, we headed to the Bardini Boulders to go to A Maze of Death. The hike makes the problem worth it. It's a rad looking problem in a beautiful setting. Even though we didn't do much up tehre, it was a new area for myself. After a couple hours up there, Scott wanted to go into Dale's Camp to try Zen Flute. Walking over to it, he put in a solid session on it before realizing it was a little warm and needed to cool down. Xaiver's Roof was the next stop. I had heard many things about this climb. And I didn't know if I had it in me. Doubts aside, the climbing to the lip is pretty cool and getting over the lip will be the hard part. After a couple of tries Scott wanted to go back and do Zen Flute. We walked back down, set up and 30 minutes later, he held the dyno. He said he was never so psyched to do V10 then on this climb. I think the motivation of me betting him a dinner helped as well.

Third day. Final day. Our skin was holding up. Scott wanted to check the Druid Stones out. And since I had never been, I was down. The book said the hike was "anywhere to 20-45 minutes depending on your fitness level". Our goal was 20 minutes. How naive we were. It took us about 20 minutes to get 1/4 of the way there. It took us about 52 minutes from the start to the boulders, up hill, thank god not in the snow and both ways. The rock is superb up there. The Golden Child is on impeccable rock. I've only seen the problem in the old Tim Steele and Steve Montesanto classic, "West Coast Pimp". The only climbing movie I'll ever really enjoy watching. After trying it we moved on to the Thunder Boulder. There's a V7 on the boulder called Denton's Diversion. And while I wasn't able to do this hard problem, Scott was able to do the sit, Denton's Remorse, after a hour or so. Can you frustratingly hard? It's around the time I started to get a headache. The hike dehydrated me a bit so I started to pound back water. It didn't take immediate affect and the headache lasted till we got back to the car.

The heat has returned to Bishop and the season is finally over. Until next time, projects await!