Last weekend Josh and I went to Bishop. The waves were gonna be small so I didn't want to end up sitting around in the city being bitter I was there. So Friday night I left work a little early, went to my house, packed, and then we took off to Bishop. Halfway up the 395, we recognized the car in front of us and gave our friend (who was driving it) a call. Turns out he was driving up to Mt. Whitney to do a solo ascent of the mountaineers route, which we found out over coffee at the next rest stop. It was a nice break to a long drive. Since I left work so late, we didn't end up driving into the Buttermilks until around midnight. Josh and I set up camp super fast in the cold and went to bed. We ended up pretty far down the road since all the actual campsites were full. It was a good chance to test out my new mountain hardwear lamina 0 degree sleeping bag. It did an amazing job...I was warm even though it was 15 degrees out that night! When we woke up, we had returned to the beautiful views of the Sierras that we hadn't seen since last winter.
Looking the other direction:
Yay for camping in the mountains! Since the Buttermilks main area was crowded and we were already pretty far out, we decided to go to Maze of Death. On the way up, we found a fun warmup boulder. Josh sent it before I even realized he was on it.
Then I worked on it but was too scared to top out. I did the big dynamic move though so I was happy (well, its easy to be happy out in the mountains).
Josh worked on Maze of Death for awhile and made a lot of progress. It looks like he will be able to send it if he works on it this winter. Or maybe just works on it next time. We'll see!
The rest of the day was spent exploring the Bardhini Boulders. I found some fun problems for me and Josh found more well known hard problems that he wants to return to.
Unfortunately, our stove fuel froze overnight and was definitely not working, even if we put it in our jackets and sleeping bags in the morning once we realized we had left them out. Oops. Sooo for lunch we had to go into Bishop. While we were there, Josh decided his sleeping bag wasn't good enough for an even colder night (its not) so we found a new place to stay, El Rancho Motel. Next time hopefully Josh will have a warmer sleeping bag but they get expensive in the zero degree range (especially for tall people who have to get long sleeping bags, not short ones like me). Once we found a hotel, we went back out to the Buttermilks and did a little climbing since the crowds had given up with the cold. We were pretty disappointed to see people leaving beer bottles, other drink bottles, and other kinds of trash around the boulders. C'mon people, clean up after yourselves! After some quick attempts at a few problems, we decided to call it a day and go back to the motel.
Sunday morning we climbed at the Buttermilks main area before anyone got out there which was nice (even though we stopped at Schat's Bakkery before...yaaay!). Josh had a few tries at the Mandala but started splitting his fingers pretty quick...first Bishop trip is like that I guess. I sent Green Wall Essential (v2) after freaking out at the top a couple of times. For whatever reason, the top is harder for me than the bottom by a lot. I'm glad I did it though, its a cool problem. Josh sent La Ballete with some big moves beta that was pretty cool. At least we both got some sends in before leaving just after noon. We split the long drive home while listening to John Denver's Greatest Hits. I even managed to get back in time for church and laundry!
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