Tuesday, February 19, 2008

A Fine Weekend With Friends

Becky sending the fantastic Roadside Highball


Oh the weather was gloooorious in Bishop this weekend, and even better, I was there to enjoy it! It was a reunion of sorts. Turtle and I met up with our old roomies John and Shannon who are enjoying their weekend warrior status, and their new roles as genuine contributors to betterment of society. Alan joined us as well, he still climbs a lot and he doesn’t really contribute to the betterment of society, but we all love him just the same. He certainly has good style. To top it off, Peter swooped in on the scene after doing his very best to nurture young minds into tomorrows’ pillars of society.

The bouldering was great. We spent all of our time on granite and I finally got on a couple of things that I'd put off for far too long. Shannon really impressed us all with her flashes of several challenging problems, especially The Arch Druid. I wish I had a video of this because there's no way I'll be able to do it justice with words alone. Basically, Shannon managed to flash through the opening crux moves only to be stymied by the final, reachy, deadpoint to a perfect keyhole slot. She tried this move at least six times without dropping off and held on long after I would've given up. She finally managed the move and celebrated by quickly flashing the left start to the problem.

Peter was productive this weekend as well. He mustered up the strength and tenacity to finish two of his three projects in Bishop. I'm sure the third would have fallen as well but he never got around to trying it. Alan's big achievement of the weekend came when he found the one boulder problem that most resembles a route in the entire Bishop area. Some day I'll have to learn how to hang on as long as he does because it allows him to climb some cool stuff.

Personally, I was really psyched to finally get on a notable problem that I had wanted to try for a very long time but have always nervously avoided. Thankfully, after briefly trying it at the end of the weekend I'm excited to go back for more. Hopefully in the near future I'll have more to report.

As long as the weather holds up I'll be headed down there again next weekend. It’s a ruff life.

3 comments:

shannon said...

hey fugly,
oh, i guess that was someone else. skip this weekend and go to bishop the following weekend with john and i- i'll take a day off work. it's going to rain this weekend anyway. or go next weekend also. bring caitlin. i need someone to talk to when the conversation devolves into the raunchiest thing alan has ever said to his lady.

based on the length of time i was able to hold onto the arch drude i'm wondering if i can no longer blame my sucking at jailhouse on a lack of endurance.

Justin said...

I'm at a loss, what can I say? Here I thought I was having the most intellectually stimulating conversation since I've graduated from the Universtiy. Sheesh.

J V said...

Whatever it was, it turned me on.