So far, we’ve had 5 days of climbing here in Bishop.  We left Vancouver Friday afternoon just before the Olympic opening ceremonies started.  I thought it was going to be a couple of hours to get across the border but to our amazement, there was not a single car at the peace arch border and we drove straight through after a few awkward questions from the US Border Guard.  Our first day of climbing was on Sunday and we went to the Buttermilks.  Come to think of it, we’ve only been to the Buttermilks and surrounding areas for the past 5 days.  We haven’t even taken a true rest day, today is a “half” rest day because we’re going to drive up in half an hour.

I’ve managed to get on a lot of things I wanted to try including The Swarm, Spectre, The Buttermilker, and Stained Glass.  A couple other boulders I’ve looked at were completely wet including A Maze of Death and A Scanner Darkly.  I think I’m pretty close on the Buttermilker and I’ll try to go back to the Swarm to give it another few tries.  The hard part about trying the Swarm is that the holds are so sharp, you can only try it a handful of times before you’re afraid of your tips ripping off.  On my second day, I managed to send Stained Glass Sit Start which took me about 3 days to complete.  We have another 4 days of climbing and I think I’ll jump back on The Buttermilker today.

Jamie Chong has also been taking some photos and uploaded some good ones onto his site.

It’s been decided, I’m heading down to Bishop during my Spring break. As most of you probably know, the 2010 Olympics are going to be held in Vancouver in under two weeks now. They’ve already started shutting down roads for the Olympics as well as jack up parking fees. They’re trying to convince 33% of people who drive to work to either take public transit or stay at home. They’re afraid that with all the traffic, it’ll be grid locked for most of the day.

That aside, I’ve decided to go to Bishop. It took a bit of convincing but I’ll be going down with at least Jamie Chong. Our tentative plans are to leave after school on Feb 12th, and come back on the 23rd. I also managed to snag mens Olympic quarter-final hockey tickets on the 24th, so I’m aiming to get back for that.

I haven’t been to Bishop in 2 years. Two years ago, I went down with my family just after Christmas and stayed for the New Year plus a couple of weeks. Just after New Years, there was a huge snowstorm while we were in Reno dropping off my parents and when we got back, there was 3 feet of snow everywhere. After a few more days, the snow settled in and it was climbable. This was when I did Mandala SDS! I’ve put together a tentative list of boulders I’d like to get on and they are as follows:

• The Swarm 8B+ Secrets of the beehive
• Spectre 8B Pollen Grains
• The Buttermilker 8A+ Buttermilks
• A Maze of Death 8A+ Buttermilks
• A Scanner Darkly 8A+ Buttermilks
• Form Destroyer 8A+ Buttermilks
• Stained Glass 7C+ Buttermilks

Those are just a few boulders I’d like to look at and try.  If there’s any others that you recommend, I’m open to options.  I’ll only be in Bishop for 10 days, so most likely, I’m not going to get around to trying all these boulders.