Bishop

We left Red Rocks in mid-March to meet up with our friends Deyo (who had joined us in Hueco, see post!) and Cassidy from Seattle, who were heading down for their spring bouldering trip. We were also able to connect with Sydney and Kyle (our awesome New Hampshire hosts, see post), who were in the middle of their own multi-month winter climbing trip. Sydney and Kyle were doing the reverse of our trip – heading from Bishop to Red Rocks right around the time we were leaving for Bishop – but we planned to hang out in Bishop before they left town.

Beautiful Sunset on our first day in the Buttermilks.

 

After putting camp together with Deyo and Cassidy at the Pit on our first day, we headed up to the Buttermilks, the higher-elevation field of glacially deposited granite boulders that Bishop is so famous for. Syd and Kyle were camped up there in the Blueberry, Kyle’s blue short-bus home-on-the-road. After catching up and getting some warm-ups in, we ran into Jeremy and Aleks, another couple on a long-term road trip. We’d met them briefly in the Red, and Jeremy and Kyle knew each other from routesetting gigs. We joined groups, and we wound up camping and climbing with Jeremy and Aleks for the rest of our time in Bishop, even as other friends came and left. That first day, we were all inspired by Sydney’s many successful sends!

In addition to climbing in the Buttermilks with Sydney/Kyle/Deyo/Cassidy/Aleks/Jeremy, we spent a day exploring Dale’s Camp, a less developed sector in the Buttermilk Country with a few hard, classic problems. The road in was a little precarious, and though a number of the boulders were pretty gritty Kyle in particular kept stoke high. Dale’s highlights include stacking pads on the Element during the drive to the area and playing on Xavier’s Roof, one of the hard classics with some crazy movement.

 

 Safety!

We also took advantage of our huge group during a day at the Sads, which along with the Happy Boulders is a lower-elevation area with volcanic tuff boulders. Deyo casually cleaned up her long-standing projects in the area (as well as everywhere else during her trip - again, nice work!), and we put together an awesome landing at Strength in Numbers, the classic highball V5.

Aleks on Morning Dove White (V7), Happy Boulders.

 

 

Seth topping out Son of Claudius Rufus (V5).



After a few days of climbing together, Syd and Kyle continued onto the next stage of their road trip. It was great to spend time with them, and thanks again you guys for being such great hosts last fall! We spent the rest of the week with Aleks/Jeremy/Deyo/Cassidy, during which Deyo proved again that she is one of the most good-natured and positive people ever. She woke up with pink-eye about halfway through our trip, and instead of getting bummed or even complaining about how much it hurt (it looked like her eye must have been pretty painful), she stayed cheerful and relatively upbeat. After a trip to the Bishop clinic for meds, Deyo even carried pads pretty far up into the Sads to support Cassidy as she finished her project when everyone else stayed in town for a rest day – definitely worthy of the best-friend award! Overall, our week with Deyo and Cassidy was super fun.

Shannon and Matt, more friends from Seattle, joined us for a few days the following week. Both Shannon and Matt are super strong, and this was their first trip to Bishop. We had a great time climbing with them in the Buttermilks and dragging them to the Happys/Sads, which they’d been told to avoid. They pulled some inspiringly quick sends of the classic problems, and we wish you guys could have stayed longer! Aleks and Jeremy also had friends roll through during our time in Bishop – special thanks to Andy for all the Stumptown! Good coffee is critical J.

 

 

Andy on Norwegian (V4).

 

Seth’s friend Cici later drove in from LA for a weekend, just in time for the onset of bad weather aka WINDPOCALYPSE. After getting knocked over by pads, pushed off the rocks, and almost literally blown down from the Buttermilks, we spend a calm half-day in town and a fun evening at the Banff mountain film festival. When we got back to camp later than night, we were blown away (...but actually) by the destruction. The picnic table where we kept our cookwear was completely empty, to the point that we were afraid that we’d been robbed. Then we slowly started recovering our things, which we found strewn all the way across the Pit. Aleks and Jeremy’s French press, our camp stoves (which we found ~30ft from the table), and our chairs (found all the way across the Pit) sustained the worst damage, but everything was pretty torn up and dusty. We put together some MacGyver fixes for the stoves, laid the French Press and other glasswear to rest, and cleaned up in the morning, before getting back to climbing.

 

 

Chelsea and Aleks doing their best to cook as the wind blows the fire flat.

 

As with the other areas we’ve stayed at for a while, we developed a routine for our rest days in Bishop. Our highlights included touring the gear shop and trying on all the shoes a couple times, fighting for plugs and with the internet at Black Sheep coffee, wandering around the Galen Rowell photo gallery for about a million years, stopping by the Great Basin Bakery for cookies, lunch at the “best lunch in Bishop” sandwich place and spending a few hours watching Ridiculousness on MTV there, doing laundry and taking a shower AT THE SAME PLACE, and the hot springs (we liked the natural ones a lot, but Keough was also ok). We tried a lot of the restaurants in town but kept coming back to Amigos, which has fantastic veggie burritos that are big enough for dinner and lunch the next day, Mango Jarritos (mind-blown), and enough chips and salsa that everyone in our sizeable dinner groups could get enough. We DON’T recommend driving up to Mammoth for rest days – we’d hoped for a ski town, but all we found were condos. The Black Velvet coffeeshop on Main St was a decent consolation discovery, though.

We loved the varied and technical climbing in Bishop. We both enjoyed the granite boulders in the Buttermilks the most, but we had a lot of fun in the Happys and Sads, and a couple memorably awesome days at the Druid Stones and Rock Creek. This has also been Chelsea’s most successful bouldering trip yet, with favorite/proudest climbs including Soul Slinger (1^st official V9), Junior’s Achievement (V7/8), another lesser-traveled V8-ish in the Checkerboard area, Rave (V7), flash of Bowling Pin Sit (V6), Seven Spanish Angels (V6), Milk the Milks (V6), Rio’s Crack (V6), Strength in Numbers (V5), and many repeats of China Doll, which she thinks is the best warm-up ever! Seth enjoyed measured success with Bowling Pin (V4), Son of Claudius Rufus (V5), The Fang (V4), Solarium (V4), a flash of Norwegian (V4) and was painfully close at least a dozen times to climbing Go Granny Go (V5) and Bowling Pin Sit (V6, figured out the moves then didn't have enough skin, next year).



 

Aleks on Soul Slinger (V9).

Seth on Bowling Pin Sit (V6).

Crossing the river at Rock Creek.

V4 on Campground Boulder, Rock Creek.

 



We had a great time with everyone as well, and even as the weather gets hotter we’re bummed to leave. Luckily we have plans to climb with Aleks and Jeremy at Joe’s Valley… Coming soon!