Back in Bishop

The drive from Joshua Tree to Bishop was highlighted by an unexpected supper in the small town of Ridgecrest.  As we were driving through, looking for some acceptable form of fast food, Kristal spied a Vietnamese restaurant out of the corner of her eye.  Glorious Pho!  It didn't compare to back home, but we gave it a solid 3 stars, which seemed perfectly acceptable for being in the middle of nowhere in the desert.

Upon arriving in Bishop it was awesome to see our friends from Ottawa who were already down here.  In many ways it feels a lot like we are just going out for local bouldering sessions back home, but we are in California!  Pretty cool.  In addition to providing a welcome increase in the social aspect of our sessions, the additional pads and spotters makes jumping on many problems much more comfortable.  Here is Karl, JM and Phil chilling out and enjoying the sun with Kristal.

Here is JM sending Molly, V5.

And Karl working through the low pockets of the same problem.

Here is Phil working the moves of Pow Pow, V8, which he made short work of during his next session on it.

A few days ago Kelly also flew in, to join in the fun for a couple of weeks.

The surrounding mountains are much more snow covered than they were during our visit last June.  Here is Kristal standing atop the Golden boulder after climbing an unnamed V1.

One big difference we noticed since our last visit is that many of the highball problems don't actually seem that high to us anymore.  On our last day in the Buttermilks last year we looked at The Hunk, V2, but didn't have the nerve to try it.  Here is Kristal making short work of the 20+ foot problem, despite the not so attentive spotting techniques of JM.

The weather has been awesome, up until yesterday at least, when a storm blew through and dumped a bunch of rain.  The forecast for the next few days isn't looking much better, as another storm system is on its way.  Hopefully will we be able to get a decent session in tomorrow before the next round of precipitation.