Bishop Peak

Bishop Peak 1,546′
Rock Climbing- Central Coast
Total Time: 4:30
Distance: 3.5 miles
Elevation Gain: 1050′
Crux: Class 5.6
Pitches: 1
Protection: 4 quickdraws and anchoring material
Trailhead: Bishop Peak TH from Highland Dr. No services
Companions: Holly

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Along the Central Coast of California outside of San Luis Obispo are a series of 9 small volcanic summits named the Nine Sisters or Nine Morros. The chain of small peaks stretches from Morro Rock in Morro Bay to Islay Hill on the east side of SLO. The highest in the chain is Bishop Peak, a small but craggy peak that is a popular hiking spot among the locals. While a number of trails lead to the top, reaching the true high point requires about 40′ of technical climbing, being one of the few technical summits along the California coast. With much of California buried in smoke from the heavy fires, SLO had some of the best air quality in the entire state. So we headed south for the weekend to climb to the high point of the Nine Morros. We chose the highest of the trailheads, parking along the road in a residential area and starting up the signed trail. We briefly entered a healthy oak forest, then passed a sport climbing wall popular for cragging among the local Cal Poly students.

The crag was empty this early, with heavy morning coastal fog discouraging climbers from getting too early of a start. The trail snaked around the southwest slopes, starting to switch back out of the shelter of the trees and through waist high brush. The trail merged here with a lower trailhead, and we began to pass more people. The trail was narrow making passing at a distance tough during COVID, and we were moving fairly slow thanks to our heavy packs laden with climbing gear. We reached a bench at the end of the hikers trail about an hour after starting out, the hikers summit requiring a scramble up and to the right. We had no interest in this lower summit, and continued past the bench to the left, utilizing a thin use trail to reach the highest rocks.

Unfortunately, this use trail brought us through multiple patches of poison oak, and it was nearly impossible to not brush against at least some as we pushed on. The summit block has several sport routes rated up to 5.11, with the standard easiest route rated 5.6 with four bolts. It was easy to spot from below with long chains connected to the rap bolts above to allow climbers to aid their way up to the highpoint. Unfortunately, someone had also tied a cheap rope to the chains above to extend the aid, and even took the time to knot in through every bolt on the sport route. I was very annoyed that the rope, which clearly wasn’t strong enough to hold a person let alone catch a fall, now would make climbing the sport route more dangerous as it was tough to clip the bolt with the thick rope running through it.

We geared up on the large ledge below the start of the route and I started up. The first two bolts weren’t too difficult to clip, but the third and the fourth were downright dangerous, the chain hanging from above also clipped in leaving almost no room for a quickdraw. The coastal fog almost completely cleared when I reached the highpoint, and I anchored into the bolts and quickly brought up Holly. We had garnered a bit of an audience from the nearby hikers’ summit, and took our time enjoying the views from the top.

Holly rappeled first and I followed, pausing at each bolt to cut the dangerous and useless rope as I descended. I left the chain, but did unclip it from the lower bolts to save room for those who want to actually climb.

Looking up from the base, it seemed a bit silly that someone would tie things through the bolts at all, as the right arete was clearly easier, maybe even class 4 and would be a better scrambler’s route anyways. I stuffed to cut rope into my pack and we started back down the trail, passing many more people on the descent with the sun finally out for the day. We debated stopping for a bit more sport climbing at the larger wall we passed on the way out, but found it to be fairly crowded by the time we reached it. Tri Tip from Firestone sounded better anyways.

So we continued past, back to the trailhead and headed to downtown SLO for one of the best steak sandwiches I’ve ever had.