Petroglyphs, Happy Boulders

The hotel, despite being fairly inexpensive, leaves a lot of things to be desired. For some reason, there are *no* unoccupied electrical outlets, except the two in the bathroom. This meant unplugging a light to charge the phones or the powerbook (one at a time of course). The HVAC unit had been misinstalled, so a cold draft whistled through the room. Similar gaps in the front door allowed for a nice crosswind, which I was only able to restrict by cramming our giant crash pad up against the door. I also stuffed tissues around the sides of the HVAC unit, and discovered that someone else had had the same problem -- there was an ancient washcloth wedged into the left side of the unit. Legionaires disease, anyone? The HVAC unit itself looked like it had been rescued from the third world and would loudly turn on and off as it approached the temperature set point. It was about as loud as a hairdryer, and made it hard to fall or stay asleep. I should mention that this is actually supposed to be one of the better hotels in Bishop, but was a lot worse than the dives we've been to on previous trips. The final offense was unforgivable though. Icy cold wind? fine. No power outlets? hmmm. Jet engine heater turning on and off every five minutes? Not ideal. "Free Internet Wireless" working a maximum of 80% of the time? No.


ANYWAY, in order to balance the various interests (baby, climbing, preserving skin, baby and baby) we have decided upon a schedule which involves slow morning starts followed by sightseeing and climbing in the afternoon. This gives the baby a chance to eat and befoul as many outfits as she likes, and gives the bouldering areas a chance to warm up so she doesn't turn into a babysickle.

I had seen pictures of the native american petroglyphs in many different places, but had always been to busy climbing to check them out. We started the day with a visit to the excellent Bureau of Land Management office in Bishop, where they gave us directions and descriptions of the various petroglyph sites. It was still pretty cold when we got to the first site, so we limited Zoe's time outside. We were pretty surprised when she started glowing, levitating and summoning the wind:




Here are a few more shots of the petroglyphs



After stopping by the room and town for gas (the window wipers were frozen!)



we headed out to the Happy Boulders. The normally easy non-hike felt... painful with the baby and baby accessories. We hit the Girlfriend Boulder

Savannah, and a few other boulders, but the word of the day was "shutdown". We finished up on the sixty foot woman traverse:

beautiful pockets for miles (or sixty feet i guess). As I was getting the pad ready, someones Husky came out of nowhere, and before I could do anything had stuffed his snout into Zoes face. I didnt see tongue, but it looked like the dog might have licked Zoe. Zoe's response was a sour little pucker, followed by wincing and head shaking.

Here we are back at the parking area with Mt. Tom behind us