Bishop / Eastern Sierra
Bishop · near Bishop · Eastern Sierra
Rock Climbing
At a glance
- Skill level
- all-levels
- Grade range
- V0–V16 bouldering · 5.6–5.14 sport/trad
- Best season
- Bouldering: October–April (too hot in summer) · Owens Gorge sport: year-round · Pine Creek trad: late spring through fall
Permits and booking
- Permit
- Buttermilks: no permit. Happy/Sad Boulders: day use at the Bureau of Land Management parking area, no permit. Owens River Gorge: BLM land, no permit. Always follow Leave No Trace and be careful not to brush rare Buttermilks flora.
Worth knowing
- Good for a first timer
- No
Rock Climbing detail
- Nickname
- Buttermilks, Happy Boulders & Owens River Gorge
- Climb types
- bouldering · sport · trad
- Rock type
- Granite (Buttermilks) · Basalt (Owens River Gorge)
- Route count
- 2,200+ boulder problems (Buttermilks) · 300+ sport routes (Owens Gorge) · Hundreds more at Pine Creek
- Signature routes
- Mandala (V12) · High Plains Drifter (V0–V2) · China Wall, Owens River Gorge
- First timer note
- The Buttermilks are not ideal for absolute beginners — bouldering requires technique and some upper body strength, and there's no guide service infrastructure comparable to Yosemite or JTree. Happy Boulders has gentler beginner circuits. Owens River Gorge sport climbing with a guide is a good entry point for rope climbers.
- Intl tip
- The Alabama Hills below the Sierra escarpment (the filming location for over 400 movies including Gladiator and Iron Man) are 45 minutes south of Bishop in Lone Pine. Combine a Buttermilks bouldering day with an Alabama Hills sunset shoot — the Sierra Nevada rising behind the orange boulders in the last light is genuinely cinematic.
The guide
Bishop sits at the base of the Eastern Sierra, in the shadow of the White Mountains to the east and the Sierra Nevada to the we…
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Bishop / Eastern Sierra — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 37.3732, -118.4949