Thanksgiving

 

I drove north on Wednesday to spend my Thanksgiving in Bishop. Thursday was a beautiful day in the buttermilks. I worked on a few things; finally managed to do Stained Glass which was exciting! All this time and I had been grabbing the last hold wrong! There is a little razor hiding on the left side of the hold which is the key to victory!

I worked on Scanner Darkly for a while but couldn’t do the second move. This climb is cool but I’m not too psyched to put much more effort into it. It’s thrutchy, sharp, and hard! Jesse, who has done the sit to Michael Caine, started working Twin Cracks. I didn’t think he was going to send because he was at max wingspan when sticking the big move out left! Jesse didn’t disappoint, he pulled through to finally stick the big move and he didn’t let go until he was at the top!

 

Thursday night I was invited to join Thanksgiving dinner at Tony and Olivia’s whom I hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting previously. Dinner was fantastic and included the usual turkey, mashed potatoes & gravy, stuffing, and lots of PIE! I love how easy it is to become instant friends with someone else within the climbing community. I think it says a lot about the activity we choose to expend all of our free time.

On Friday I spent a day in the life of a local. This involves waking up late, cracking the first beer before noon, and playing horseshoes & hacky sack all day. We talked about going to the buttermilks to spectate and heckle but we didn’t leave the house until 3:30 and that was to watch a campus board sesh at another house! Can you believe that, a campus board in Bishop! I don’t think I could ever get psyched to train on wood when the buttermilks are 10 minutes away! Hell I’m too lazy to train even when the rocks are two hours away!

Overnight on Friday a storm rolled in dumping snow on the mountains and dropping some rain in town. We thought the buttermilks might be snowed in so we went to the sads to work on Rorschach Test which is a pretty cool V11 on crimps next to Shazam and All About the Love. I had never tried the line before but I was able to work out the opening moves quickly. The real business is the last move which is a long reach out right to a pinch and then a big bump to the lip. It took a while to figure out how to stick the last move and my skin was wearing thin already! I had one really good burn where I nearly stuck the lip but I blew out a tip in the process! It wasn’t bleeding much yet so I figured I had one more go before I would have to give up. I pulled through the powerful opening moves to setup for the reach, put some trust into the small foot and stuck the lip! We got video of all the attempts except the send because somebody was more interested in tea than filming! Jesse was super close to sending…all day. I think he fell on the last move 20+ times! But I am confident he will send soon. I drank a victory beer and then managed to send Beefcake before the light vanished from the cave. I think I’m pretty much done with the Sads now!

On Sunday we were all feeling pretty worked so we went to the Happies for a moderate day. I took a tour of the classic V6s I hadn’t done yet, sending Atari (in the sun, ahh!), Every Color you Are, Mr Witty, and The Clapper. A rad day and I’ve almost checked off the Happies!