Bishop and the Owens River Gorge

We've been in the Bishop CA area for the last week or so.   It's hot and sunny and full of climbing.  The Bishop area has more climbing both in terms of variety and volume than any other stop we have made.

Alabama Hills.  Lots of giant boulders piled on top of each-other.

The first day we stopped a bit south of Bishop at the Alabama Hills area.  This area is frequently used by the film industry, which brings a fair amount of money to the small town of Lone Pine situated next to it.  Because of this they have a couple of odd requests, including the need to pickup a flier from the forestry people on how to be a conscientious climber in the area.  I don't think that many people actually do this, as the ranger I talked with had no idea what I was asking for, until i explained it to him in detail.  He then handed me a poorly photocopied flier.  It contains the usual about not throwing trash around and carrying out your trash as well as a couple regulations I had never seen before, such as "park at least 3 inches from vegetation."  We didn't get our ruler out, but I think we did OK.  Although the flier's content is useless, we figured it was good to go through the effort to get one anyway.  It's good to show communities that climbers care about land owner's wishes and other users.  Of course the people who would leave piles of trash aren't the ones who will drive an extra 20 minutes to pick up a flier, so who knows if it does any good.  On the way in we saw a car commercial being filmed.  Some small gold SUV type car.

The climbing here is on monzonite granite, and is fairly rough on the hands.  Most of what we did was low angle slab type stuff in the Western Wall area.  The approach took about 30 seconds, so that was nice.

From the top of the highest point in the previous picture.

We did four climbs that morning before it got too hot, "Ankles Away," "Pangborn," "Alabama Hills Gang," and "Mon Cherie."  We headed up to Bishop that night, and slept in the Buttermilks.

The buttermilks is a well known bouldering area with a huge number of problems.  Many of these are of the highball and super highball variety, so I found it a bit frightening.  

Serious game face.

We stopped by the pollen grains area (also called the Lidija boulders) for a bit of morning climbing.  I wanted to take a look at 'Jedi Mind Tricks' and maybe give it a go.  Its a highball V4 that I'be been wanting to do for a couple years.  Turns out I'm weak right now, and the boulder is really tall.  It will have to wait for another trip.

The Lidija Boulder.  Enormous.

After drinking a failure beer, we headed to the Owens River George.  This area is a bit north of Bishop, and has a huge concentration of sport climbing.  We napped until the west face was in the shade, then headed down.

The gorge is hard to see from the road in most places, but is huge. 

Much of the land that you climb on in the ORG is owned by the LA Department of Water and Power.  They allow climbers to use it, and apparently have little care for what is done.  There a stone steps built, a shoddy pit toilet, and some other usual modifications to the land.  There are also numerous ad hoc wooded bridges, platforms drilled and attached to the rock faces, and other modifications that most areas would consider a bit too much.   In one place, there are metal rungs drilled into the rock in order to build a short ladder, and then a chain affixed horizontally above.  It looks like this might save climbers about 20 feet of unpleasant chossy climbing before they start their route.  In most places, you would just deal with this and climb over it.  In the ORW, you just add hardware to the rock until it's comfortable.  What a weird place.

A nice bridge.  Also some platforms attached to the face.  And a rock wall.  Leave no trace has no power here.

The climbing was fun. It reminded me of north table mountain outside of Golden Colorado. Just up the road from the climbing there is free camping, so we spent a couple days in the area.

We headed further north after the ORG, for some bouldering on the volcanic tuff.  The Catacombs area sits on the rim of the Owens River George just south of where it's been dammed. The rock here has been sculpted into curving towers and walls and caves about 15 feet high or so.  Many of the free standing rocks have large scoops in the top, which have filled with dirt and debris.  The end result is a castle like formation, where there are 1-2 foot wall rims and a nice flat space high off the ground.

What nice rocks.

The main attraction for me was a hard problem called "I am a beautiful man."  I worked it for most of the morning, but couldn't make it work.  It's a fun problem though, and worth a revisit on a colder day when I'm fresh.

Athena shaved my head between attempts.  We found that my clippers can only shave a small portion of one head on a single charge.  Thus we would charge them while I climbed, and every once in a while run back to the car to shave a little bit more of my head.  This took most of the day.

About 1/2 way through my haircut.

Our last stop in the area was Pine Creek Canyon.  Along with more free camping,  the area also boasts a number of sport, mixed, and pure trad lines.  Our first day was spent at the PSOM slabs where we did a couple trad and mixed climbs.  

Pine creek canyon, from the top of some climb.

Most of the climbs here involved long stretches of "friction slab."  This type of climbing involves no hands, and not really any feet.  You just sort of stand on nothing and... friction your way up.  It's a bit terrifying and lends new meaning to "just trust your feet."

Friction slab!  No hands, and everything is a terrible foot.

 At the end of the day I decided to try something a bit harder.  So... less feet than normal and a bit steeper.  Athena was skeptical because it looked "terrifying."  Her assessment was quite correct.  The dime edges that I was trying to smear on kept breaking,  and much of the climb involved just standing up on nothing and hoping that your foot would stay put.  It was a fun climb.  I spent a lot of time giggling on it; standing up and finding that I hadn't fallen, then realizing that I had no idea what to do next.

From the top of yet another climb!

This morning we stayed in Pine Creek Canyon to climb "Sheila," a highly regarded single pitch.  It's mostly a crack climb, which Athena was excited about.  If you like crack climbs, it's apparently awesome.  If you find crack climbing painful, then at least the canyon is sort of pretty and the approach isn't that long.

I found a sleeping lizard on the way down from the climb.  I have never found a sleeping lizard before.  Look at him just chilling out on the cliff.

I googled it, and lizards do sleep.  Which is good, because otherwise this would be a selfie with a dead lizard.

 Tonight we are headed up toward Mammoth Lakes area.   There's some more bouldering, and some more climbing up that way.   The temps should be a bit better as well.  I've been promised a hot-springs to soak in tonight, so that's really the only thing on my agenda at the moment.  Hot-springs, beer, and some rest.

My bro, the sleeping lizard.