Thanksgiving In The Milks

Despite the thin skin on my fingers and a looming cold, I could hardly resist returning to Bishop. On Tuesday afternoon, Cody, Joe and I set out on the now very familiar drive to the Buttermilks. We found a beautiful camping spot close to a river and pitched a tent before falling asleep. We awoke to a beautiful sunrise and spent the first of our days in the Buttermilks’ main area.

The next day we decided to hike to Secrets of the Beehive, an area that I had never been to before. I had wanted to try The Swarm for some time and was very eager to finally give it a shot. We warmed up on some fun nearby climbs and jumped on The Swarm. I gave it four goes before splitting my tip. I had stuck the first move and hit the next hold though, so I felt content with the day.

On Friday we hiked to the outlying Bardini Boulders in hopes of escaping the weekend crowd. Joe and I threw ourselves at Maze of Death (V12) with no success. We returned to the Milks later that day and Cody sent a bunch of new climbs.

The next day was rather warm but we ventured out to the hot Tablelands anyway. I taped up my finger and managed to snag a quick send of He Got Game (V11) and spent the rest of the day climbing fun new moderates. Our last day had come too quickly, and it was time to end our amazing Thanksgiving trip. It’s always so hard to say goodbye to Bishop.

- Itai