January 19, 2007

So here we are, John Dickey and I driving home from Bishop for the third time this Season. Since my day trip to Pinnacles, I have mostly been climbing in the gym and trying to get out surfing as much as I can, even though it's been really crappy conditions. I went to the Valley for a day of bouldering with John. I ended up climbing a couple climbs I had already done but also got on one new thing called Park Life (put up by Tim Clifford) that has not had a second ascent. The boulder is located on — not near, literally on — the Lower Yosemite falls trail and the problem overhangs a paved part of the trail so when you fall, you fall right on a paved path. I didn't send it, but definitely got some funny looks and comments from the groups of tourists that would pass by every other minute. "That's a mighty large backpack you got on there ... " and "Dang, howdya hang on that wall, Spiderman?" John managed to get a picture of me on the problem with some tourists watching in the background. Sweet. 

I got a message from Chris Sharma saying he was in Bishop and would be psyched if I made it out to Bishop to hang and climb, So Natasha "Badass" Barnes, Mark "The Big Meal" Heal, Gabbi "Gun Show" Masse, and I, "The Pile Driver," piled into the Liberty and were off to the east side. The afternoon we arrived in Bishop was frigid, even in the sun. But every day after that was perfect ... not a cloud in the sky. Mammoth had record low snow levels maybe due to global warming (excuse me, "climate change"?) However sad that may be, it was pretty hard to deny how awesome the weather was for rock grappling. 

I met up with Chris at the Happies and we worked on the Goldfish Trombone, a really powerful and pretty long roof problem that I had dismissed as impossible choss on previous trips, but after hearing of Daniel Woods' recent success and seeing some impressive pics of DW on it, I was interested to try it. At first Chris and I were getting totally spanked by the crux move and were almost ready to give up, but after the discovery of a janky but efficient toe-hook we were both able to stick the move without our feet cutting. Chris was trying another exit, which had not yet been done, that we dubbed the Golden Boner. After realizing that he could actually do the normal exit that he had originally thought blank, he started giving it back-to-back redpoint attempts without even taking his shoes off. He kept getting higher and higher, and eventually sent, at which point he declared the problem "a good training route" — good for him since he was "out of shape." I vowed to come back to the problem after a rest day when I would be more "out of shape."