Owens River Gorge temperatures - too hot to climb in summer?

If it's 100+ in Bishop this weekend, is it worth going to the gorge?  I've never been but am guessing there's a bunch of routes that'll be in the shade at any given time of day - I'm just not sure how much cooler they'll be.

Thanks,

Anthony

If you get going at dawn, climb until 10, hang out in the river and take a looonnnggg siesta, then climb 4 until dark, it's awesome!

If you're not prepared to get hiking at dawn, don't go to Owens - head up high.

My experience has typically been than the temps in the Gorge are 10 degrees cooler than in town. I went in there for a day one summer when in was 95 in town ( because a visiting friend wanted to go), and it was climbable in the shade, but not that pleasant. If you do go, go in the North Gorge because the approach is the shortest. But personally, I wouldn’t go. 

And what Greg said...

Get into the high country, its July/August and prime season.

Get you some good tidings.

Save the sport wanking in the dust for winter :).

not to far up the road there's lots of fun sport climbing in the mammoth zone, as well as pine creek.  nothing as high quality as the org in my opinion, but still some fun stuff.  the 'mammoth area rock climbs' guide book has it covered.  

Appreciate the advice from everyone! I would love to do some trad stuff in the high country but my gear is stuck in my house in Idyllwild which I can't get to because of the wildfire.  Hopefully it'll still be there in a few days.  In the meantime I'm stuck doing sport for the weekend.  I've read that there are a bunch of good sport routes in the Whitney Portal area so I may head there ... sounds like it would be cooler than the gorge.

Anthony

There is loads of sport climbing in and around Mammoth. It's not as concentrated as the gorge, but there is plenty.

Transpire Wall at Lee Vining Canyon is excellent.

in addition to temperature you may also want to include smoke in your planning ;-)

The Gorge right now isn't very pleasant.  Best bet is doing the early/late gig as others have mentioned.  I tried to get a late afternoon in recently, still 90 degrees at 8pm when leaving. Little shade on the in/out hiking unless early/late.  Mega stinging nettles upper/central (sections of trail overgrowing due to off season).  Lots of greenery, seemed humid.

Although at higher elevation the Portal can be quite brutal during the summer (not uncommon to be in the 80s.)  Many of the better walls are somewhat south(ish) facing and go full sun quite early.  Mid day there is very little shade to be had - anywhere.  When going during the summer I used to plan to arrive at walls like the Beach/Candlelight/etc right around 4pm - when they finally went into shade. Too hot and sunny before then.  (Actually, the Chicken Ranch may have morning shade until around noon...)

If the definition of "sport" means anything with bolts - heads up in the Portal proper.  When in doubt people like Slate/Bartlett would run it out.  Similar to Idyllwild, although sometimes maybe a little more run - can be unpleasant in the heat.  Depends on the routes though, plenty of good standard bolted fare as well.

Thanks for all the comments - ended up skipping the gorge and went up to Whitney Portal and climbed at Candlelight Buttress instead.  As Darrell warned, there wasn't a lot of shade but the temperatures weren't unpleasant.  Some fun climbing on quality rock ... although my feet got tenderized by all the knobs. Need to toughen up, I can't imagine how the guys putting the bolts in ground up would have felt while drilling the bolts.