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Bishop Winter 2006/2007 Sometimes home feels like a road trip. Our hometown is Bishop, California. Winters here make us feel like we're on a road trip, but in reverse, where the people on the road arrive at our house! We get the impression we're traveling even when we're not going anywhere but our own back yard. Our back yard couldn't be much more beautiful than it is, so why would we want to go anywhere else at this time of year! Lisa worked The Mandala and did it in two sections. She was certain she would climb it before the spring heat set in, but strange warm spells, split fingers, sore muscles, and visiting videographers all conspired to frustrate her. Maybe next season ..?
Lisa on the first huge move of The Mandala, an incredibly burly move for someone 5' 4". Photo: Wills Young. Lisa added a bunch of sweet lines to her local tick-list, even going so far as to say she hadn't realized how many good problems there were left for her to do. What a nerve! Of course, after writing the guidebook I had a few suggestions. She quickly dispatched many of these, including such esoteric beauties as Soul Window (v8), Days of Blunder (v9), Denton's Remorse (v10), The Hueco Wall (v9 highball), and Gastonia (v8) to name some of the better ones.
Lisa climbing Soul Window (v8), Druid Stones. Here, Lisa uses her right heel to make the crux move -- a hard pull to grab the good hold with her right hand. Photo: Wills Young At the Pollen Grains, Lisa was super-inspired by the very pretty line, Golden Shower (v10). This is a striking piece of immaculate rock on the south side of the Beekeeper Boulder. It had gained a reputation for being a horror with a desperate long move that only the tall could manage. Ethan Pringle added to the temporary hysteria of the moment by insisting it was harder than the notoriously sustained modern test-piece Haroun and the Sea of Stories (v12). The fact that Ethan can run laps on Haroun and barely break a sweat really only means he's a freak of nature. Anyway, as it turns out there's an easier sequence to Golden Shower and it was left to 'yours truly' to figure that out. I say easier, but you still have to stick some hard deadpoints up the overhanging arete, pimp like a devil on a two-finger micro edge, and keep a steady head as you perch up over a scary stepped landing zone on a tiny foothold and stab for glory: good stuff! You can watch Lisa climb this problem in the piece made by Peter Mortimer/Josh Lowell for an NBC TV show, a link to which you can find in the News section of this site. This problem was filmed by Mike Call.
Lisa climbs Golden Shower a highball v10 at The Pollen Grains. Photo: Tim Kemple, (www.kemplemedia.com).
Lisa also made a flash ascent of Mesothelioma (highball v7). She had a bunch of pads for that ascent, but she repeated it later without the pads for Tim's picture here. Photo: Tim Kemple. Chris Sharma came to stay for a few nights along with Josh Lowell. Chris was "out of shape" after chilling for a few weeks on returning from Spain where he'd made the third ascent of one of the hardest sport routes in the world -- La Rambla (the originally envisioned version at 5.15a). He'd been waiting for inspiration and thinking over new destinations to check out for the upcoming "King Lines" film in the works at the time. Weather was a little iffy, a bit of rain and flurries of snow when he got to Bishop, and both Lisa and Chris needed somewhere to get some movement in. That's when it really sucked that we live in an awkwardly out of the way place with no gym to loosen our muscles at. We headed over to a friend's place where the wall is eight feet high and Chris, Lisa and I had as good a session as we could in the cramped confines. It must have done some good as Chris took about 3 hours to climb Goldfish Trombone (v14) a few days later, despite his supposed lack of condition: no doubt one of the fastest ascents of a problem that grade ever!
Chris Sharma working for a living on the South Face of Grandpa Peabody, Buttermilks! How's that for camera in your face? Photo: Wills Young Lisa also benefited from the micro-gym training, which she needed to get some power endurance for her personal super-project The Bardini Arete, a.k.a. This Side of Paradise (v10 extra-highball). This line is truly huge and is incredibly intimidating because you have to make a sick and improbable-feeling move very high off the ground. Chris came out to spot and Ethan Pringle came too, bent on repeating Kevin Jorgeson amazing line The Beautiful and the Damned (v12/13 ultra-highball) on the other side of the boulder. Ethan threw himself at the latter line and screamed his way through the terrifying upper headwall, no doubt to Chris's horror, as Chris was the only one spotting at the time! Next up was Lisa. She made great progress, pulling the desperate high crux of Paradise and gaining the good edge above the lip. Taller climbers will feel the problem is in the bag at this point. Unfortunately, her fingers went numb: this was a cold day and a bit breezy. She had to drop from the lip, which is a huge distance to fall.
Lisa climbing This Side of Paradise (v10 HIGHball) at the Bardini Boulders, Bishop. Photo: John Dickey. Lisa returned a couple of times for the right weather and the stars to align for her ascent, only the fourth ever of the line, and she was super-super proud to have pulled it off. Another image of this is in the News section.-- Wills Young |
