Once upon a time, in a public restroom far, far away, a man birthed a plan that just might change his life, as well as the lives of millions of others. The plan: a road trip to the Eastern Sierras. The man: me.

It began after a particularly bad but not totally unexpected run-in with the meatloaf and gravy at Peg's diner in San Bernardino. Thankfully, the stall was unoccupied, there was extra roll of toilet paper handy, and the container of ass gaskets screwed to the wall was fully stocked. I settled in for the long, unpleasant haul, the latest issue of TopRope Magazine on my lap for moral support. After a few awful minutes, I stumbled upon Jonathon Weed's horoscopes on page 7, and read mine.

Leo: Embark on an adventure with someone you can't stand-the relationship grows worse. Inspiration comes to you in the bathroom. You may learn a little something about meatloaf.

Coincidence? I think not. No, it was destiny of cosmic proportions. I had the inspiration down, thanks to my forsaken location and the diuretic equivalent of an epiphany on meatloaf; now all I needed was a road trip with an undesirable climbing partner, and the self fulfilling prophesy would fully fulfill itself.

For this trip I would need a truly obnoxious partner, one who I would hopefully never speak to again after it was all over. The answer came instantly, and was so repulsive that my bowels again opened violently in a valiant yet futile attempt to reverse the inevitable choice: Lanny Limberg, or as we like to call him behind his back, "The Mouth."

The best thing about The Mouth was that he was filthy rich, at least relatively speaking. He'd be happy to tag along, and in return for putting up with his incessant babble, I would make him pay for gas, brew, and Taco Bell.

Now The Mouth was loaded because somebody in his family knocked off and left a fortune behind. Vanity being the most significant of his many character flaws, he was always presenting his well-offness as a result of some fantastic investment scheme, while in reality his main skill set consisted entirely of belching the alphabet without taking a breath and driving his leased BMW to the bank to make withdrawals from the trust fund. Over the years, his stories got ever more elaborate and implausible, taking on an increasing air of desperation as the balance of the trust fund inched closer to $0.00.

I picked The Mouth up at 5:30 p.m., and we drove immediately to the ATM. A stop at the gas station to top off the tank, then across town to the liquor store with the specialty beers-hey he was going to pay in advanced for my mental anguish--and we were off to The Buttermilks.

The plan was to hit the dirt parking lot next to the Birthday Boulders by 11, drink a few beers, get to sleep, then wake up early for a 3 to 4 hour bouldering session, get some Taco Bell in Bishop, and drive home. While 10 hours of driving may seem extreme for only a few hours of bouldering, remember that the company was truly repulsive. And since my horoscope didn't specify exactly how much time I needed to spend with my mental nemesis in order to fulfill the prophesy, I could get out quickly and still complete my cosmic destiny. Plus, five minutes of bouldering at the Buttermilks is easily worth 10 hours of hell.

"Lanny, you're gonna love this beer we--uh, you--bought," I said. "Blackened Voodoo is from New Orleans, it's dark and it's lovely. Almost like maple syrup. It just may be the most perfect beer ever brewed on the planet."

"Hey, man," I retorted, "can you really put a price on perfection?"

"Two six packs, man, that was over twenty bucks for beer just for one night...we aren't really going to drink all of that, are we?"

"Uh, well, at The Buttermilks, you often hook up with other climbers squatting in the parking lot for the night, and you need to bring enough to share." Sensing his discomfort with the tab, I decided to prey on his vanity. "Besides, if anyone can afford the finer things in life, it's you, right my friend?"

Sheer genius. It immediately cut off all resistance at the knees. There would be no more talk of extravagant beverage expenditures that night; no, instead I had painted myself into a corner, and now had to listen to his latest faux investment ramblings.

"Speaking of which," he clumsily segued, "there's this new stock--well, it's not actually a stock yet, they're going to do an IPO soon--anyway, it's called KidKorp, some new e-commerce site where they don't actually inventory anything at all, they only broker the sales, simply passing the sale on to the supplier who delivers direct to the client, while KidKorp collects the standard 15% margin...think of it as the Amazon.com for diapers and baby formula..."

For a bullshit artist, The Mouth was pretty good. But I wasn't bad myself. I tuned out, hypnotized by the road, reliving the sequences of my favorite Buttermilk boulder problems like little movies in my head, all the while maintaining a pseudo-conversation with The Mouth by simply plucking single words from his monologue and parroting them back as questions. "IPO?" I mock asked. "15%, huh?" I pretended to verify. My body appeared to be engaged in the conversation, but my mind was pulling hard on Buttermilk granite.

We pulled in to the lot about 11:20, and I opened the ice chest. "Tradition, man," I improvised. "The first night out at the Buttermilks, you just throw back a few while you watch the stars. Enjoy the silence, brother." I thought my use of the term brother particularly clever here; if he protested, he separated himself from the brotherhood, alienating himself from all climbing kind. It would be road trip suicide, a serious breach of protocol, and there was no way he could do it. .

Much beer was consumed and few words were spoken. For a lightweight not used to mass quantities of dark beer, he downed his fair share of the Voodoo. I have no idea who passed out first.

6:10 a.m., the sun was just breaking over the top of the Whites to the East, casting that otherworldly translucent orange glow over the Sierra Crest to our west. "Get up, man, it's time to climb!" I yelled into Lanny's left ear. His eyes opened, connecting with mine, then he rolled on to his right side and puked on his sleeping bag. Shit. Blackened Voodoo had cast its ugly spell on The Mouth. Oh well, I had my crash pad and could handle it myself.

Surprisingly, there were two Blackened Voodoos left in the ice chest-breakfast of champions! I downed one quickly, and stowed the other in my pack to drink under the Iron Man Traverse as I put on my shoes and performed my elaborate pre-bouldering taping ritual.

I decided to concentrate on the area around Grandma and Grandpa Peabody, the two largest boulders. I warmed up on the 5.9 on Baby Peabody, then moved over to the short, near holdless (and--cringe--sort of slabby!) 5.10a on the boulder between Baby Peabody and Grandpa Peabody. After a momentary cool down on one of the 5.8 (easy, but fairly exposed) routes on the left side of the main face of Sunshine Boulder, I then worked the 5.10a/b route on the far right of the same face--and made it very high, with the last move clearly in reach, but just couldn't commit to such an off-the-deck problem so early in the trip, even with the Voodoo power and the strategically-placed crash pad. I ended up downclimbing it. Next time, toprope, just like the magazine says! (Yes, there is a nice shiny bolt on top right above the problem). Moving on, I planted myself at the base of what must be my favorite rock at The Buttermilks--the Green Wall Boulder. After attempting it on two other trips and painfully stretching my finger tendons to the point of snapping, this time I finally had the finger strength to crank the sandbag 5.10b on the left side. With that old monkey off my back, I followed with an onsight of the 5.10b route just right of the arete. Then, for the next half-hour, I put in 12 to 15 tries on the 5.10c route left of center. A lone lizard watched me through most of these attempts, laughing in that way only small reptiles can, while I fell from very high on my last try, my arms totally pumped from the many repeats. I knew how now, just lacked the strength. Oh, well, with the newfound beta and fresh arms, I'd nail it next time on my first try. Something to look forward to--or obsess about--for the next trip.

It was 10:30. It was getting a bit toasty, my forearms felt like hams, and an unbelievable stench rose from my climbing shoes. Funny, after a few Blackened Voodoos, the shoes smelled vaguely of meatloaf. My lower intestine rumbled violently in protest. Don't worry, baby, I reassured my bowels; it's not a flashback of the Thursday Blue Plate Special at Peg's, just an unfortunate coincidence.

I headed back to the car to check Lanny for a pulse, storing my rancid shoes safely n my pack before I got within range of his nostrils. Hey, watching guys puke is damn funny, but I was looking at a 5-hour car ride through the desert with this guy.

The Mouth was doing better, just weak in the knees and wanting badly to bail. I obliged, and we skipped the Taco Bell stop on the way down. We stopped only for gas at Giggle Springs in Bishop, where The Mouth bought a bottle of water and some soda crackers, while I picked up a bag of spicy pork rinds, a large Diet Coke, and a small box of Ho Ho's.

The ride back was fairly uneventful, Lanny gasping for air with his head hanging out the window as I headbanged to Metallica's Kill 'em All and KISS Destroyer. I dropped The Mouth off around 4:30 p.m., and never saw him again. I don't think it was a conscious decision by either party to avoid each other, it's just the way it worked out.

Or maybe it was destiny.

About the Author: The former editor of mOthEr rOck, the now infamous Southern California climbing magazine, Matt Artz is currently working on a musical adaptation of Joe Simpson's Touching the Void while serving out the remaining 6 months of a prison sentence for copyright infringement at the Chino Hills Men's Prison. He can be reached at motherrock@aol.com.

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