Bishop Bouldering

Bishop - the best bouldering in the world? Quite possibly! It's certainly the best stuff I've ever come across. What an amazing place. Boulders that look like honeycomb, but are as hard as iron and covered in positive holds. 

First off, there were a few housekeeping tasks to do in the funky little town of Bishop. And it was here that we got our first decent 'proper' coffee at 'The Looney Bean' - definatly the best cafe in the California so far. We also managed to get online and sort out some of the logistics for the next few days. The rest of the day was spent climbing and exploring around the world famous boulders.

The Happy Boulders Valley is one of the most popular spots and our first port of call. It was a really bumpy, dusty gravel road, to get there. It was only a couple of miles, but felt like forever. The van is now coated in a layer of white dust and a cloud gets sent up every time you shut the door!  A short walk up an escarpment led to the hidden valley and a tucked away bouldering paradise. The skies were overcast and the views were so far reaching that way off in the distance we could see it raining from a big cloud. It was plenty warm and dry enough where we were to be in t-shirts though.

There were a few other folk bouldering, but otherwise we had the place to ourselves. Once again, it was eerily quite at times. 

After a good look around the Happy Boulders, we drove a mile down the road to the next spot, known (I don't know why) as the Sad Boulders! The boulders here were a bit more compact and not all had such good landings, but the climbing was simply excellent. Really positive holds, (and massive!) on the problems I tried. What more do you need?

One route I did was rather 'high ball' but you couldn't have asked for better handholds!

A brilliant place and although I'm not usually particularly in to bouldering, with a little more time, (and tougher finger tips!) you could really have a good time getting stuck in here. Although, we did come across this guy on the path as we were leaving, which makes the place a little less attractive!