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Joe's Valley Bouldering by Ray Phung

Several months ago, my friend Chris approached me at the climbing gym, psyche-level at an all-time high. "Dude, we need to recreate the Bishop magic, and I need you there!"  Of course, I give a verbal, purposely half-committed, "Sure, that sounds fun! I could get down."  I mean, Bishop was a lot of fun.  And I love climbing.  But October was several months away, and I am a chronic non-planner.  "How about Joe's Valley?" Chris continues, confirming that, with my half-ass commitment, there would be at least three of us going.  Little did I know this was just the start of amassing an entire crew of Portlanders to head out to the Utah desert.  I am not sure how a random group of 15 people all got off of work the same random week in October.  With different jobs and life activities, I thought it would be impossible to reunite everyone.   I believe this shows how the sense of adventure ties all of us together.

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Bishop Bouldering Excursion - 3/22 - 3/29/2014 by Ray Phung

Winter has been long.  Though my heart will always belong in the Northwest, the seemingly relentless gray skies and rain starts to wear both on my sense of adventure and my photographic inspiration.  Many months ago, I began tossing around the idea of a spring climbing trip in Bishop, CA.  It had been at least a year and a half since I last made the journey to Bishop - that was just unacceptable.  After consulting with the Erik's, we finally marked some dates on the calendar.  And through several long weeks, it finally arrived - an 8 day vacation of sun, climbing, photography, camping, and friends.

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