Climbnskate: February 2015

This is Davita Gurian. Our first stop on this climbing adventure was Bishop, California. We were originally suppose to meet some friends in Bishop, but we left a few days late and were unable to climb with them. Never the less, we climbed in Bishop and started to hone in on some projects. As we climbed more and more those first days we quickly got reunited with the sharp and slippery rock that is the Buttermilks. It is surprising to me that rock can be sharp, painful, and slippery all at the same time. I began to work on Iron Man Traverse v4, which I personally think is very stiff for a v4 and I wouldn’t mind an upgrade of this line. Maybe it’s because I don’t have much endurance so I get really pumped by the end, but this line just felt so hard to me. I put about 4 days into it and still was unable to make a send before we left. The moves pulling the lip on Iron Man are truly heartbreaking.

Sent Cave Problem V4

One of the days working my proj was pretty exciting because Daniel and Courtney Woods showed up to climb on Iron Man. It would be weird being a pro climber having people just stand around you whispering while taking pictures of you climbing. I also did all the moves on a v6 called Milk the Milks, but I was also unable to put this one together before we left. We were kind of itching to leave because we were really not enjoying the Buttermilk texture. Roxana had been trying Solarium, which is a fun v4 in the Happy’s. She put a few days into this problem as well and got super close but was also unable to send before we left. I personally think the Happy’s are much more fun than the Buttermilks because the rock is so much friendlier. Roxana did put down a really sick v3 called King Tut in the Buttermilks.

Ben was able to put together some really cool lines.

The coolest looking out of the lines he did was Solitaire Sit v10, which has a wild first move leading into the v8 stand. Besides this quality line, Ben sent Maze of Death v12, which has extremely sharp little crimps and slippery feet. It is amazing in Bishop that foot chips can be so big but so useless because they are so slippery. Granite in Washington is nothing like this. You can have tiny feet with great texture that are more secure than some of the bigger foot holds in Bishop. Maze of Death took Ben about 3 days and he sent it the day before we left. It was a relief when he sent it because Roxana and I didn’t necessarily love the hike up to Maze of Death…and we were also super psyched for Ben for sending it. We stayed in Bishop for about 10 days in total, and by the end we had decided that next year we will skip the sharp and painful holds of Bishop and head straight to Red Rocks or Moe’s Valley in Utah for some fun sandstone climbing. Our next stop is Red Rocks. Bring on the hiking.