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When the weather at our favorite destinations is bad (like now), or we’re between outdoor trips (gotta come home sometime), or recovering from injury (frequently), Carol and I spend a lot of time at our climbing gym working on our climbing skills and strength.

Our favorite climbing gym activity is called bouldering, a branch of rock climbing that dispenses with harnesses, ropes and protection gear and focuses on making a few (let’s say typically less than 15) very hard moves relatively close to the ground. Protection from falls is provided by a crash pad and / or spotters (other climbers whose job it is to guide a falling climber onto a fall-friendly surface).

Bouldering is very compelling for a number of reasons, but my favorites are 1) the climber doesn’t have to tie up another person’s time being a belayer and 2) bouldering tends to be a very social activity with a number of climbers working the same problem at a time and giving each other  encouragement, beta and tips on technique.

We had gone bouldering outdoors a couple times in the past, but had no crash pad, which severely limited what we were willing to try because of the risk of significant injury from a relatively short fall. Duh, huh? In October we went to a local bouldering hot spot called Castle Rock with our friends Eric and Brian; had a great time and decided to commit to getting a crash pad.

Since then we’ve been on a couple trips to the Eastern Sierra to try out the crash pad and are pretty much hooked. Our Bishop Bouldering guidebook lists 2,000+ climbs in the area, so we’ll not run out of things to do for a long, long time. The bouldering venues in the Bishop area are just unbelievable – the Sierra Nevada crest is to the west and the Inyos and White Mountains are to the east so the views from the top of each climb are just breathtaking.

There’s also a tremendous amount of variety in types of rock and in climbing skills required – from deeply pocketed gymnastic climbs on welded volcanic tuff to thin, technical slabby climbs on granite. We’re better at the former than at the latter ’cause it matches more with what we see in the gym – and it turns out you’re good at what you practice (how’s that for insight!).

We took a lot of video and I’ve spent some time editing them; I think I’ve come up with a couple fun ones.

1. Carol, at Pocketopia, working out the kinks on “Salty C”
2. Rick, at the Buttermilks, enjoying “Patina”
3. Carol, at the Happy Boulders, doing gymnastics on Jesus Chrysler Boulder and Zero Boulder
4. Rick and Carol, at the Catacombs, highballing on “Church of the Lost and Found, arete right”

I have to say I never thought we’d do something like number 4 on this trip, but we met some other boulderers that had done it before and we got some good beta and encouragement. It was so awesome we climbed it 7 times between us over 2 days.

I’ve included a scan from the inside cover of the Bishop Bouldering guidebook for the purposes of a little orienteering. The guidebook is really good – for instance, finding Pocketopia and the Catacombs involves driving around on the volcanic plateau on forest service roads, some of which are unmarked – but we drove right up to both these spots on the first try.

We’ll be off again as soon as we spot a break in the weather around Bishop – snow, rain and nighttime temperatures in the low 20’s don’t work for us.

Namaste, Rick

P.S.

We’re always looking for an excuse to head to the Eastern Sierra to do most anything. One of the best excuses is when friends or family want to go and explore, so help us out and propose a trip!

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