© Verhoeven coll. (Video still)
Here are a couple of Bishop highballing videos from Jorg Verhoeven (NED) and Katharina Saurwain (AUT), who are currently road tripping in the US.
The videos features problems like Ambrosia, This side of paradise, Flight of the bumblebee, Golden shower, The big easy and more, all very tall lines.
So tall that watching them makes me wonder what the difference between highballing and soloing is. Especially so as they are only using two crashpads...
About the ascent of Ambrosia, Jorg writes on his blog that After doing 'Evilution direct' (8A) last year in 3 ground up attempts, I felt hesitant about its neighbour 'Ambrosia' (8A). It's even higher and a fall from the last half of the boulder is not an option without wheelchairs involved, for me this didn't sound like a lot of fun.
This year it hadn't shrunk, but somehow I felt ready for it. The question remained: rope check out like the previous ascents or a clean ground up style?
Alex Honnold, a well experienced solo climber [who made the 2nd ascent] helped me on this question by telling me the top isn't hard, but loose and not so obvious without a rope inspection.
So my conscience (Katha standing underneath shuffling two little pads) won from the principles (I strongly dislike rope inspections on boulders) and after trying the moves twice I ran up Ambrosia. Feels good to be done with it...
Jorg Verhoeven is sponsored by: Marmot, La Sportiva and Petzl
Katharina Saurwain is sponsored by: adidas, La Sportiva and Staudinger-Schuh
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