Dirtbagistan

I’m back at the Bishop City Park once again. I bummed a ride into town with two guys that I have been hanging out with for the last couple days, John and Ryan. John has been out here for about as long as I have, although I never went and talked to him except for the other day. I didn’t feel the best in the morning and decided to get some things done around the “house” (clean up the mess that had accumulated over the last few days). He came over and we played some cribbage and shot the bull. He was taking a break from climbing because he popped a pulley in one of his fingers trying a V10. I could probably climb that hard if I looked like him too. He’s about 6’3” and built like a popsicle stick. He is from Craig Colorado, which he was surprised to find out that I actually knew where that was, and that he went to college in Durango, CO, where is pretty close to where I elk hunt. He has a masters in Chemistry and can’t find a job. He has the same debate going on within himself that I do, the weighing notion of trying to live this kind of lifestyle versus a “normal” job. We had a good long talk about the pros and cons of each, which pretty much wasted time due to the fact that we didn’t come up with a conclusion.

His buddy, Ryan, who is from Pagosa Springs, CO (where I elk hunt, what a small world!), came the other day and we spent a good amount of time on Fly Boy Arete (V5) up in the Buttermilks. Too bad there was a wind that could snatch away small children if they weren’t clinging to their parent. We literally got sandblasted when the wind would gust. My guess was somewhere in the 50mph range. Anyway, we made good progress on the problem and could do every move, but lacked the energy to link them all together for the send. I think we are going to go back on Sunday, which I hear is Easter. It’s amazing how living this lifestyle makes you so unaware of what is going in the outside world or even what day it is. We had a 5 minute discussion about if it was Wednesday or Thursday while Ryan drove his shockless Suburu over the washboard road to the Happies this morning at roughly half the speed of a toddler’s crawl. He likes to drive slow everywhere; and by slow, I mean roughly ten to twenty mph under the speed limit. Good thing most people in Bishop don’t have places to go in a hurry.

 (Ryan on Serengeti (V5) )

It has been pretty damn windy here the last couple of days and made a hellhole out of Dirtbagistan (I have officially renamed The Pit to this). If you are a resident of Dirtbagistan, you are either a cheap climber (except for The Mob, which are climbers that come from the weekend that are either from the Bay area or L.A.), or you are a drunken old fella who obviously has no other ties to society and likes to tell others how they should live their life. I plan on distributing a free paper of the happenings in the republic of Dirtbagistan. The headlines for the upcoming issue are; “Join The Navy! How giving a little time now will let you dirtbag forever!”, “Why you should be gone to climb on shit pumping mornings”, “Young woman screams at lover for half an hour” and “How to avoid the old drunks” I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a big hit, even if people just use it to wipe their ass at a local crag.

I’m also pretty sure Toyota has special sales just to climbers. You can only get a white Tacoma with a matching topper though. They must run one hell of a deal on this since every one and their unruly dog that runs around the crag rampant has one. I did see something cool vehicle wise the other day though. It was a Honda Element, which has four wheel drive and the seat fold and slide up to make a full 6 feet of sleeping space, with a pop up high top like a VW Westfalia. It seems like it would be a worthy thing to live out of if you are a dirtbagger. Of course, if you have enough money to have that, you probably aren’t a dirtbagger, or you are and just won the lottery!

Let’s talk about cooking and baking, specifically the hassles of not having a fridge that runs off of propane and a temperamental oven. Let’s start with the oven. I finally figured out how to bake somewhat properly in the blasted thing. First, you must give it an offering of a virgin. Ok, not really but it seemed like it would when I first started. It actually must be turned 25 degrees cooler than whatever it is your cooking calls for. Second, you must place what I call a “heat diversion device” underneath the baked item. This apparently makes the heat go around it and not burn the bottom. Also, it can warp time! Yes, instead of a pizza taking 22-26 minutes to be done, it will be done in an amazing 16-18 minutes. I’m going to try to videotape this phenomenon, but I’m guessing it has some sort of defence mechanism that will turn the tape into mush once I would try to play it back and show someone.

The second issue is the fridge. Keeping it cold was costing me $10.50 a week in ice… Not cool. I decided that I would go with refrigeration of any kind for the last two weeks and see how it went….Hell! Ok, not hell but not easy. I have no butter, I have no cheese, I have no meat, and thus PB&J’s have been slowly depressing me into a state of chaos. I have been frantically asking other’s about what they do for lunch since they are dirtbaggers, problem is, is that they all have coolers, SHIT! Since I’m going to be living out of this trailer until at least October, I have come to the conclusion of breaking down and spending the money on a gas operated fridge. I haven’t looked into all the options yet, but as of right now, its in the vicinity of 8 Benjamins. I don’t want to deal with going to get ice two times a week and burritos are just not as good without cheese.  

This hasn't been edited at all and probably is going to read like something a 3rd grader with ADHD would write. Running out of battery and we have to get to the hot springs. Peace out folks!