Trip to Bishop

Friday

Took Friday off and drove out to Bishop. Met some great people and managed to get a lot of good looking video of some hard climbs.

I showed up Friday and met up with Brian Hedrick and Mark Heal. Mark worked on “Stained Glass” (v10) for awhile before the rock tore up his fingertips. Nearby, Giovanni “G” Traversi made an incredible send of “Haroun and the Sea of Stories” (v12). Got that one on video. Daniel Woods, Ethan Pringle and Doug Munsch showed up just before the send. Afterwards, the whole group was led by Charlie Barrett across the valley to “Xavier’s Roof” (v12).

The whole group took shots at it, but the sends went to Daniel and Brian. After that, we cruised down to “Zen Flutes” — a v10 face with a long dyno finish. I worked on a v7 around the corner. (when I find my guidebook, I’ll have a name for the thing, but since I didn’t complete it, no rush.)

The crew finished the day on “Solitaire” (v8). The problem starts on a low sloping rail on a angled wall, followed by a long move to another sloping rail, then a full dyno to a sharp edge over the top. Once again, the send train rolled in and everyone who tried it, made it up.

Brian and Mark went off to Vons for camp food while G, myself, Daniel, Ethan, and Doug grabbed burgers at Whiskey Creek. G got his own hotel room (lame) and the other 4 of us split a room at a local motel.

Saturday

Woke up long before everyone else, and laid in bed rifling through work emails and catching up on Twitter and my RSS feeds. We got out to the Milks around 10am, met up with Emanuel Moosburger and his pal David from Austria. The 8-man crew tromped out to Secrets of the Beehive — a ~30ft tall v7 with a crux finish. Ethan made the first send and made it look easy. Mark came up second, followed by Brian, then Daniel. I took a few go’s at it, but couldn’t make it past a v5/v6 move at the bottom. Doug made it up “Queen Sweet Nectar” (v9) from the 2nd move on — he swears he’ll get it from the start next time.

Ethan and Brian made a attempts on The Swarm (v14). Doug and I did a little v6 around to the right that was fun. Brian said he felt good on The Swarm and thinks he can get it this year.

The session was capped off by Ethan’s ascent of “Flight of the Bumblebee” — v8/v9, maybe 35ft+ with a bad landing. His first go, he got up the left-to-right flake, but downclimbed before moving over the bulge. He sent on his second go — great footage to come.

We loaded up the cars and headed back towards Grandpa Peabody where we ran into Matt Birch, Wills Young, and Lisa Rands. Matt was working on “Indirection” — a cool line that starts at “Go Granny Go” and moves left to join “Thunderbird” (need to double-check my facts on that finish). Daniel climbed up the backside of Grandpa so he could throw a rope on the “Rasta Man” project.

I played around a bit on “Go Granny Go”, then ran up to “Mandala” where Ethan was working on the v14 sit and Brian was working the v12 stand. I got two good angles of Brian — his second go, he sent. As the sun went down, the pads got stacked below Evilution. Canadian Jeremy Smith made two very excellent attempts at pulling over the lip, but couldn’t hang on. Next to this show, Matt and Daniel worked on “Rasta Man” together. Just before the headlamps turned off, Daniel made a final go — sticking the long throw to the terrible pinch, but unable to stick the next move.

Saturday night was pizza, then back to the motel for some lame telvision and a few beers.

Sunday

We didn’t have a full day, so we decided we’d get up early and push out. But when Doug’s alarm went off, the room stayed quiet. We got out there around 10am. Daniel took a few more go’s at “Rasta Man”, Doug worked on “Stained Glass”, and I got totally shut down on two easy climbs I’d planned to do… my body just refused to hang on to anything.

I finished my trip shooting video of Lisa Rands attempting “Haroun…”. Wills found a knob to hang some pads off the boulder opposing the climb — without them you’d fly right into the boulder if you’re feet popped. Lisa made three good go’s while I was there. She made it through the middle crux, but could not hang on to the finish.

I left around 12:45p and managed to drive straight through to Oakland — 6 hours. Not bad.

Video to come…