Happy Boulders

Climb Review

The boulders are made of volcanic rock (Bishop Tuff) that isn’t too slippery or too sharp. Pretty fine rock, actually.
From the parking lot, it’s a quarter mile (maybe a little more) hike up a bit of elevation until you find yourself in a canyon with dozens of boulders as far as your eyes can see.
I didn’t see any trash, which I was surprised by.
At the parking lot, there is pit toilet, which was a nice surprise.

Celestial Trail (V0-; Heavenly Path Boulder)—I found myself climbing up this boulder although I had told myself that I would not boulder due to my injured foot. Instead, I went up this high ball and while it took full concentration, I didn’t have much issues and the rock felt so good.

Path (V-easy; Heavenly Path Boulder)—I had felt so good with the Celestial Trail that I went up the even easier route to the right of it. I love the name of this route as it’s just perfect. The moves are ridiculously easy—I would guess 5.5 range?
All The Way Down (V0; More Water, Less Power Boulder)—While hanging out with Louie, I was tempted into climbing again and climbed up this fun V0. It has lots of jugs as I felt even more glued onto this route than the easier routes I had done earlier. Also probably helps that this one wasn’t a high ball.
Which Road (V-easy; Heavenly Path Boulder)—Being the last organizer around, I decided to hangout at Heavenly Path Boulder by myself and being bored, climbed this one. Everything was going swimmingly until I made a move with my left hand and came up short. It was super scary as I was already 10 ft up, there was no way my ankle would handle the fall, and there were no spotters. I stuck on though and finished the route when my heart rate dropped down to something normal.

What I Learned

I learned that the volcanic rock at Bishop is amazing. It’s volcanic, but grippy, which was a first for me.

Friends

I helped organize this event with Marina, Leif, and Hunter. Shari and Louie attended, so I ended up talking to them the most, but I made a new friend as well—Megan! She is a bay area climber who gave birth less than 3 months ago (which means no core strength), but she still crushed Heavenly Path like nothin’. Oh man, how can I forget, I made another friend—Jessica. She’s actually friends with Karen and was a super cool person. I mean, she was the only person who brought more than one bouldering pad (3 total) just so that there would be enough for everyone else. Also, she’s super funny and it was fun talking to her.

What Happened?

This event was the actual reason why Marina invited me to Bishop (little did she know that I’d help out with booth duties since I want Coalition Crag to do well) and it was interesting to be involved in scheduling and creating an event with others. I mean, usually, I choose the location based on what my friends or I want to climb, figure out the logistics, and basically figure out almost everything without consulting anyone. With this one, I felt like I didn’t do very much as Leif and Hunter were the experienced ones who had attended this event the previous year (and had climbing experience in Bishop).

On the day of, we met up near the Osprey booth and gave everyone a day pack that Osprey donated to us. We then carpooled (Jessica and Louie rode with me) to the Happys. We talked for a bit at the parking lot as we labeled our crash pads with our names and waited for everyone to join us. We then hiked up to the Heavenly Path Boulder, introduced ourselves, and started climbing.

I hung out mostly with Louie who ended up climbing up Heavenly Path, flashing a V3, and coming oh-so-close on a V4 (Solarium). I thought I’d be doing more organizing or what not, but ended up just trying to be a positive and welcoming presence around the boulders. I did take lots of pictures, so that was fun.

At lunch time, the group came together where we shared food (I think I had a bite of some dried mangos that Jessica shared) and talked about inclusivity in climbing spaces.

At the end of the day, I believe I was either the last or one of the last people from our group the leave the crag. Actually, we had walked half way back to the car, but Jessica realized that she didn’t account for one of the pads, so she and I headed back and after a bit of searching and asking people, we found it right next to Heavenly Path Boulder.

The drive back into Bishop was pretty uneventful, except for a small faux pas, but for that, you’ll have to ask me about it—it was just a tiny bit embarrassing moment with some strangers that I thought was stranded in a car.

For readers who are interested in climbing with non-judgmental people and having a great time, please take a look at the Coalition Crag Discord!