Once More, With Feeling

About two weeks ago and after not much planning, Jamie and I reassembled the van-bed and made our way south to visit our friends, Marco and Daiyi, in Mammoth Lakes, California. Mammoth is a ski town located about an hour north of Bishop, and after the truly oppressive amount of rain we have had this winter, stoke was at an all time high to get to those desert boulders. 

Cue "On the Road Again"

So high was our stoke, in fact, that we neglected to look at the weather for any place but Bishop (sunny and 80℉) when we were packing. We were surprised, then, to find ourselves caught in a snow storm as we passed through southern Oregon on our first night on the road. 

Parked at a Pilot with snow steadily piling up on the hood, we weighed our options. Jamie only brought his summer shoes, I’m riding on four season tires with no chains (we don't even own one of those broom/window scraper things), and the forecast said heavy snow for the next day or more (classic).

So cozy.

After a very chilly night, we woke up to a winter wonderland with reasonably plowed roads and generally clear skies ahead. The Pilot clerk gave me a free cup of tea (#blessed) and some encouraging driving advice (“do not, I repeat, do not hit the brakes”), and with that, we were off. The rest of the way to Mammoth runs through several mountain passes, so we alternated between fair to blizzard conditions, and we eventually arrived safe and sound. 

The rest of the trip was relatively smooth sailing (aside from me peeing in some bushes and getting the top of my head caught in some barbed wire; and ripping a bloody hole in my finger on a sharp jug; and sunburning my scalp (who knew that was possible?); and finding out several days in that I left a light on in the van and nearly killed the battery). 

I previously hadn’t had the chance to spend more than a day or two in Bishop at once, so I’d never been able to get used to the rock or toughen up my skin enough to really enjoy the climbing very much (and last time, Morgan and I were flying basically blind trying to navigate the boulders with only photo-less Mountain Project descriptions, so you can guess how that went).

This time, however, I had more days to calibrate and two human-guidebooks to lead the way, so I take back every negative thing I have ever said about Bishop. I’m a little late to the party, but Bishop is actually amazing! Beautiful blue skies and snow-capped mountains in the distance; many lifetimes’ worth of super fun and varied climbing at your (hard and calloused) fingertips. I sent/made progress on some old projects and found some new ones, and I honestly can’t wait to go back. 

As for non-climbing activities, highlights include knife-sharpening, relaxing at a natural hot spring (keep hands out of the water to maintain sendy skin), eating ice cream every night, and spending much needed time in the company of good people. 

And now, after 16 months and 20,000 miles, my dear old van has finally crossed that Rainbow Bridge. Turns out, Canadian residents can’t own cars that are registered in the United States (duh). There’s a long and boring story about the hoops I need to jump through to import a vehicle, but suffice it to say that it’s expensive and fiddly and as much as it pains me to say so (read: I’m literally sobbing), I decided that it made the most sense to sell the van in Seattle on the way back home.

I know that it’s just a car and letting her go really is for the best, but I feel like a lot of my identity was wrapped up in the van and it’s like I gave away a piece of myself to some scrap yard that's not going to appreciate her for everything that she meant to me. I still have all the beautiful memories of course, yet I’m sitting here weeping over the van-shaped hole she left behind, wondering how long it will be before I stop looking out the window expecting to see her parked across the street. 

As Jamie says, the van isn’t really real, but the advantures and the friends I shared them with are, and I’m still the same smelly dirtbag I was two weeks ago. Real or not, I hope our last big trip across the Sierras was the best way we could’ve said thank you to my good old girl, and goodbye.