Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Bishop.

For President's Day weekend, Stanley,
JB & Othello,
P,
and I went to one of the bestest places on the planet: Bishop.

The first night we stayed in a poisonous hotel:

The trip went like this:
Day 1:
Sent the Hulk at the Happy Boulders. I first copied what everybody else was doing (as always) and just worked the crux move a couple of times. It really is all about the toe hook. I was thinking about how to set a similar problem in the gym and concluded that the angles involved would make it quite difficult. Here's JB spotting me and adroitly helping me avoid a "dab".

After dinner, we get lost on the way to some god-forsaken hot spring and get the car stuck in a pond. 2 highway patrol officers, 2 hours standing in the cold, and a $225 tow truck bill later, we are back in the hotel getting wasted to forget the entire ordeal ever even happened.

Day 2:
Morning espressos at Black Sheep. Don't do it! Their "double" espresso was a more like a single droplet of sour tasting foulness. The bookstore in front is pretty cool though. Then speed over to the Buttermilks which was a zoo, albeit a nice, tame, quiet zoo. No boomboxes, crying babies, or worse, those portable speakers attached to them ipod doohickeys all the youngsters have playing trance or some other silly genre of popular music.
After sending the Bowling Pin, I get schooled on High Plains Drifter. The snow patch in the pix below was melting in the sun, and water was dripping down onto some of the holds. It didn't matter though. It just felt damn hard.
Reaching for sidepull.
Gaining the sloper... is this the "drifter" move? I can't figure it out.
Another attempt to grab the sloper.
Then proceed to Las Palmas for margaritas and beer, the same place that nearly killed P via dirty vegetable burrito bomb several years ago.

Day 3
Race back to the Buttermilks to bag High Plains Drifter before the hotel checkout. While there, I untethered Othello and he ran off, thereby making me "that guy", better known as the douchebag that lets his dog run amok at a climbing area. While Othello was gone, I got to the first jug at the top of HPD and floundered, popping off like a confused fish out of water. I ended up kicking my spotter JB in the face and possibly breaking his nose and lip. Othello then decides to show up, so I tie his ass up, meditate, and then send HPD. It's a beautiful problem on great holds.

Results:
Sends:
Hulk v6
Bowling pin v4
Buttermilk stem SDS v4
High Plains Drifter v7

Fail:
Soul slinger v9
Every color you are v6