Bouldering in Bishop.
I first visited Bishop in December 2000 as a result of one of the wettest autumns I could remember in the UK, it had rained for fifty continuous days and wintering in California seemed a good idea. Cheap flights to Los Angeles (Ł245 from the UK) provided the means and a gang of poor Armenians provided interest on the long flight. Transatlantic etiquette had not reached Armenia and the notion that we were all allocated seats and could not just sit where we pleased had not registered. They also felt that smoking in the toilet was acceptable and it wasn't until we arrived at LA that their luck ran out when they tried to get past the toughest immigration in the world.

Four hours after leaving LA, Bishop is reached, if New York is the town that never sleeps then Bishop has never woken up. With a population of 4000, a cinema, coffee shops, supermarkets and hot springs there is enough here to sustain life when not climbing. It is famous for Owens River Gorge and more recently its bouldering. This takes place on two main rock types, the sharp pockety volcanic stuff and the sharp granite stuff. The Happy and Sad Boulders typifies the former and the Peabody Boulders and Lydia Boulders the latter.

Before travelling to Bishop from the UK climb every boulder problem at least three times and you will be getting somewhere close to the length of the average Bishop problem. Many of them are high and the high balls would have been filmed for Hard Grit had they been on this side of the pond.