Route:

various

Pine Creek Canyon (Bishop Area) lies in a stunningly scenic granite canyon nestled between Mount Tom & the Wheeler Crest. This once backwater area has now grown into a truly world class destination. Pine Creek now features over 630 routes including long multi-pitch affairs, plentiful traditional climbs, and one of the largest collections of sport climbs in the state.

Patricia Bowl (Mammoth Area) is an awesome, newly re-developed area for steep clean "sport" cracks (bolted face and tricky pro sections, and good bolted anchors). As close as you get to Indian Creek on eastern Sierra granite. High, north-facing, and cold - but great for hot summer days.

Alabama Hills (Lone Pine Area) are a vast expanse of coarse orange and brown high desert granite or quartz monzonite towers and outcrops reminiscent of those in Joshua Tree to the south. Rock character ranges from quality brown patina to chossy. The Alabama Hills has been described as the ultimate lazy man's crag with routes found just feet from the car to ten minute scrambles. There is a great deal of rock in the area and 500+ routes have been documented, the majority being bolted sport climbs.

The first time I climbed at all three of these areas was on a climbing roadtrip in July/August 2015, on marginal-weather half-days between bigger objectives in the Sierra. Pine Creek Canyon and Patricia Bowl are 5-star cragging. I returned to Pine Creek Canyon (again to Pratt's Crack Gully area) in 2024, on a two-week climbing road trip. It was just as good as I remembered. I'd like to explore more cragging in this canyon.

On this page, I have random photos from cragging at Pine Creek Canyon, Patricia Bowl, and Alabama Hills. At the bottom of the page, I keep a list of the climbs I've done in these three areas.