High Times

I have spent the last two days now climbing in the buttermilks.  I find that each spot here in Bishop requires some getting used to.  Each sector is unique in its style, rock, and overall aesthetic and mental approach. 

The Happy's for instance are comfortable, smooth, relaxing, and a place that you can visit over and over again and still discover beautiful new spots you never knew existed. 

The Sads are very similar to the Happy's in all of thehtings I mentioned earlier but the Sads have a slightly different feel.  They are a little more intense, slightly contrived, highball, sharp, jumbled, and concentrated. 

Finally the Buttermilks (and yes I know there are many more sectors than just the big three) are wide open.  The Milks are grainy, sharp, comitting, high, scary in a good way, beautiful, majestic, classic, old and new school.

I haven't climbed a lot in the Milks since I moved here just because they are further away and most of the problems require an entire squad of spotters and pads.  So the last few days spent there has been, for lack of a better phrase, a warming up period.  I haven't really focused on anything specific, and my sessions haven't been very long, a couple of hours every afternoon.  Today I focused on a few new problems on a boulder I had never climbed on called the Ranger boulder.  I got shut down pretty hard on everythig above V.1.  So I decided to check out Fly Boy.  I fired Fly Boy Arete first go which I was very pleased with and then watched as some people tried Fly Boy Sit.  I was able to stick the first big move but then dropped off before the big throw to the lip.  I am excited to return tomorrow and finish it off.  Afterwards I hung out with Steven and the B-ham crew and ran laps on High Plains Drifter with a handful of other people (there is constantly a handful of people trying HPD, for a reason!).  This is easily my favorite roblem in the Milks.