From the weather, to the cell service, to camping, and climbing, Bishop has not made it easy for us in any way. When we arrived in Bishop, our first two days were spent experiencing some actual winter weather. I won't complain too much about this seeing as how we basically haven't felt much more than a windchill since about mid-January. I guess we were due right? We spent 48 hours huddled in the van around the computer screen watching movies while wrapped up in puffy jackets and down sleeping bags, parked across the street from an RV camp spot a few blocks east of Main street.
On Saturday, April 9th, bored and suffering from a little cabin fever, we felt the sun was shining bright enough and the weather had improved enough for us to venture out to Owens River Gorge and see if there was any climbing to be done. Much to our surprise we found that it had mostly only snowed on the east end of town and hardly any snow had fallen on the west end. The parking lot in the central gorge had a little more than a handful of cars and we added our van to the lot, grabbed our gear and began the slow descent down the half-trail-half-scree pile that led into the central part of the Gorge.
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| Owens River Gorge (Central Gorge) |
Once at the bottom, we made our way to the Pub Wall which had some nice long routes with some sun still shining on them. Full of moderate routes, we thought this would be a good place to introduce ourselves to Owens River climbing. My first impression of the Gorge was rock that looked like Broughton's, felt like Smith, and climbed like Ozone. What looked like grey basalt turned out was actually volcanic tuff and the walls were sprayed down in length with chalked flat-edged holds and irregular slightly sloped crimps. Though the holds felt slightly greased and polished, shoes and fingers stuck nicely enough to polished crimps and foot chips. The Pub Wall, however, was on the west side of the river and since we got a bit of a late start, quickly went into the shade which made the climbing difficult as it made our hands go numb within a few feet of climbing. No problem, we just packed up and crossed a footbridge to the east side which had plenty of sun to finish out our day. We continued climbing to the day's end on long, friendly routes with great movement and we left feeling like we couldn't wait and come back the next day to crank on some new projects. And that is where things went a little pear-shaped.
Sunday, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, with breakfast filled bellies we again descended on the Gorge early enough to warm up on nice long routes at the Pub Wall. Much to Marie's delight, the crag was filled with dogs of every type and their owners were scattered about the gorge climbing this route and that. Several warm-ups and games of fetch later, we packed our gear and headed over to the Social Platform on the east side of the river to try a couple of routes that came highly recommended. First up was Marie, on her on-sight attempt of Expressway 11b. The climb was still in the shade and two clips later Marie was shouting over the river for a take because even though she could see her hands pulling down on the crux crimps, she could not feel them. Not the ideal start but no worries, there was plenty of daylight left. I decided I would brave the cold and finish putting the draws up and though my hands weren't as numb, two clips later, I was also calling for a take stumped by the crux. I paid it no attention, solved the problem a minute later, and lowered off with the draws in place so we could both redpoint a little later. Marie, still resting and waiting for more sun to hit the wall, offered up a belay on the next route, a little 12a called Darshan aka Ripoff. Feeling warmed up and recovered, I gave the route a quick preview and set off for the onsight. Two clips later, only about 15 feet off the ground, I was already pumped and had fallen twice on some small technical crimps. Hmm, well, I figured it was probably just an early crux I didn't read well, worked out the moves and continued climbing, half sure the hard part was probably over and the rest would be mostly a cruise. After about 5 or 6 more falls I reached the anchors more pumped than a Jersey Shore fist and I began to sense that something was terribly wrong here. We spent the rest of that day working on just those two routes, Marie and I both redpointing the 11 after our second try, and I left Owens with a 12a project, something that hasn't happened to me in quite a while.
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| Marie on the aborted onsight attempt of Expressway (11b) |
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| Our new campsite outside city limits. |
Scott and Mike had just drove in after a four day sending spree and were in need of a rest day. Scott, not being one to sit around and collect dust on a vacation, offered to show Marie and I around the Happy Boulders. When we got to the boulder-filled gorge, we were greeted with house-sized, volcanic tuff boulders that caused more intimidation than inspiration. Our warmups consisted of V0's and V1's and V2's that came very close to feeling more like little free solos than boulder problems. At first, everything seemed normal enough. The boulder problems were heady to say the least, meaning they required a good amount of nerve control, but they didn't seem uncharacteristically hard, yet those were the first and last boulder problems that we successfully completed. We wandered over to a recommended boulder problem called the Hulk V6, and added to the small mound of pads already amassed under the classic line. Try as we might, defeated and out of breath, after about 5 or 6 goes each, we moved on in search of something a little easier. Scott brought us over to a very long traverse problem he identified as the 60 Ft.Woman Traverse V2. Think moving from left to right picking your way between pockets on a boulder that resembles something between Swiss cheese and coral. We both got about 4 moves into the thing and both of us found it really hard to admit to the other that we could in fact, not finish a V2. Our spirits were sinking faster than a man with cement boots in a river as we packed up our pads and headed to yet another boulder problem. This time, a V7 called Morning Dove White. Why Scott thought we could do this after our last performance, was a mystery to me, but Marie gave it one halfhearted try and I actually was able to do quite a few moves before de-gloving the skin on my pinky due to sharp-edged pockets.
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| Marie, doing the only thing we consistently excelled at. |
Marie, I think, was still a in disbelief over the unfinished V2 and buried herself in the guidebook furiously looking for the answer, and after much page flipping and map-reading, Marie discovered that we were actually on the wrong problem. What we thought was a V2 was actually a V8, and we were trying to climb it backwards on top of it all. Feeling a crumb of encouragement, Marie located and guided us to the true 60 Ft. Woman Traverse and set about reading the sea of holes while I unfolded the crashpads and readied the camera. Prior to reaching this problem, we stopped by the Solarium Boulder to tick a supposedly easy V3. Marie kept falling near the finish holds, I could barely get off the ground. I had thrown in the towel for the day. What happened at the 60 Ft. Woman Traverse can only be described as "hitting the wall". Marie did not complete the traverse, and proclaimed that she hated bouldering. A few sips of water later she recanted her statement and we packed up the pads one last time, swearing we would be back to put a sad face on the Happy Boulders.
-Juan
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