Red River Gorge

Quilt pattern on the side of a barn.  A tourism ploy to attract peolpe to the area.

Every year I experiment with how I train.  Some years I boulder more, or do more hangboard workouts, etc.  This year I have been trying to travel more.  This gives me a specific style of climbing to train for, and provides me with an injection of motivation.

Candle light dinner.

Leah looking for eggs on Easter Sunday.

She found some!

Last week, Leah and I went to The Red River Gorge for a 10 day sport climbing vacation.  It was a great trip filled with lots of ups and downs, critters, driving, and old friends.  We climbed 6 out of 8 days and went home with extremely sore muscles and torn up skin.

Just another overgrown machine.

It had been 9 years since my last trip to the Red, and things have changed a lot since then.  To start, there are a lot more people.  We struggled to deal with the crowds and spent most of the trip trying to avoid the crowds.  Another nice change is the acquisition of the Pendergrass-Murray Recreationl Preserve, which houses some of the most impressive walls at the Red.  To the land owners, thank you for allowing us to visit your beautiful land and climb on your amazing cliffs.  If you visit these areas, please be sure to respect the land, be courteous to everyone, and donate to help keep the areas open.

Dharma enjoying some milk.

Kitties in the refrigerator!

Being from Colorado, we both really enjoyed the lush, hardwood forest, and endless rolling fields of Kentucky bluegrass.  However, this abundance of life didn't stop at the cabin door.  We spent the majority of our stay at Lago Linda's dealing with mice, ants, ticks, black widows and cockroaches.  So although our cabin was very cozy, we never really felt relax.

Joe Young Cabin.

We killed the mouse because he was chewing on our luggage to reach food, and felt extremely guilty about it the entire week.  This led to more ants and screeching starving baby mice in the walls, and we quickly realized that the cabin contained a very delicate ecosystem.  Ultimately, we gave up trying to keep the cabin pest free and just let them creep and crawl around- as long as they stayed out of our bed! 
   

A mouse chewed through this plastic egg to reach a chocolate bunny.

Sorry!

We found this guy on Leah's back.

The climbing is really fun!  I love the steep walls peppered with sculpted pockets and features.  The routes are really beautiful and inspiring to look at and climb on.  I had lofty goals for this trip, which were quickly lowered.  This also happened on my first trip to the Red.  For some reason, I really struggle with the style and movement at this area. Despite my issues with the climbing, I still managed to try almost every route on my list and came away with some great sends and some heart breaking failures.  I guess that's climbing...  Sorry there arent' very many climbing pictures.

Leah possuming on Check Your Grip- 12a.

Me below Dirty Smelly Hippie- 13b.

Besides climbing we thoroughly enjoyed seeing all the strange and beautiful things that the Red contains.  Like an outdoor living room, abandoned machinery, and the stunning flowers.

Outdoor living room complete with a broom beneath a cave.

Wall lined with bourbon bottles.

Small oil pumps are everywhere in the Red

An abandoned tank with a pig face on it.

Dwarf Iris.

When we arrive in Kentucky we went to the Buffalo Trace whiskey distillery, and did the Ghost Tour.  Basically, they take you around the grounds and tell you about how people have heard voices, had their pants pulled down, and caught strange shadows and figures in pictures.

Leah with a buffalo.

Some really old bourbon.

Inside the storage warehouse.  Angels' share abounds.

More barrels in the warehouse.

Our tour guide offering us a complimentary shot.

 On our first rest day, we hike up to the Natural Bridge Arch.

Leah below the arch.

Leah looking out at the arch.

Me in Devil's Gulch. 

We also went to Keeneland Race Track to see some horse races and the countryside.

Not Thoroughbreds but still nice.

So Southern.

The winner!

Lucky number 5!  Got to go with your gut.  Now let's go collect $14.60!

The only thing we wish we had done was visit the Mammoth Caves.  Oh well, I guess we will just have to go back...

Can you find Leah in this picture?

Indian Creek Education

This year I have been strangely compelled to work on my weaknesses and seek out the obscure and ignored.  So keeping with these themes, I went to Indian Creek with Joe Mills and spent the weekend getting schooled by splitters and wandering along the base of neglected walls.

The first day, we went to the 2nd Meat wall.  After warming up on a nice 5.10, Joe suggested that we jump on a stunning 12- called Camping Under the Influence.

10+ warm up.  Anyone know the name?

Camping Under the Influence

At most areas 5.12 is a very comfortable grade, but at the creek it's my project.  Especially, when the crux is a ring lock boulder problem right at the chains.  So Joe styled up the crack, and I flailed on top rope, cursing through the last 20 feet.  On my second go, I taped up, and tried to tap into the extra motivation that being on lead can provide, but still fell towards the end.  Frustrated, I clean the route, and decided to enjoy the education that the Indian Creek was offering.  Thus, the tone for the trip was set.

Me in my old man, anti-skin cancer outfit

The next thing on our agenda was a 12- off width called Carnivore.

Carnivore

Shamefully, in my 17 years of climbing I have never tried an off width crack so I was excited, curious, and a little nervous to hop on such a hard crack for my first taste of this style.  Anyways, I headed up Tube Steak Tomorrow 10+, anchored in and brought Joe up.  After exchanging gear, he headed toward the gaping roof with typical Joe Mills confidence, and then just below the roof gear issues, and sheer difficulty eventually added up and he slipped out of the maw.

Perplexed, he tried a number of permutations to the problem, until he gave up and aided the pitch.  Apparently, Indian Creek was offering Joe an education too.  I am sure he took some notes.  With the sun low on the horizon and my legs numb from hanging for over an hour, we packed up, and headed back to camp.

Joe and Boone enjoying a moment.

The next day, we trudged up to the Disappointment Cliff to try a 13- finger crack called Winner Takes All.

Winner Takes All

Joe onsighted it with minimal issues and I found myself hanging on the rope, crippled with pain.

It was Indian Creek whispering climbing lessons to me again.  It said, "tape up."  So I did, and it felt much better.

With his confidence high, Joe wanted to try a 13+ ring lock crack called Hong Kong Fuey.  So we slowly wandered left of Winner Takes All and eventually found it.  What a beauty!

Unfortunately, we didn't have enough gear, so we headed back the other direction to find a 12+ called the Angry Inch.  Eventually, we found a nice looking line with anchors so Joe headed up.

Not the Angry Inch.

About half way up with none of his inch sized gear fitting in the crack, he realized that we were on the wrong route.  At about that time I noticed a plaque that indicated the route was called Dangerous Lesions.  Ooops!  After some heroic aiding effort, Joe reached the anchor.  I tried top roping this thing but the tip jams, and fresh edges on the crack were way too painful.  Not sure what the Creek was trying to tell me. 

Completely humbled, we skied down the loose, dusty slope and enjoyed all the strange rock formations and animal tracks in the damp river bed that led back to the car.

Sunset at camp.

Found these tracks at camp.

Our last day was spent at the Battle of the Bulge trying to squeeze a bunch of pithces in before the 7 hour drive home.  We quickly warmed up on Binou's Crack(5.8) and then cruised up the ultra classic Dos Hermanos(11+).  Looking for a bigger challenge, we both went up Ruby's Cafe(13-).  I had forgotten how thin and painful the jams were and struggled the whole way up my first go.  This time Indian Creek told me that I need to wear better shoes on thin cracks, so I did and my second go was infinitely better, even though I was extremely tired. We ended our day with a super fun, thin hands crack called Crack Attack(11-).

As I was jamming up this climb, Indian Creek told me to forget about learning and just enjoy the movement and scenery.  At the top, I silently promised to return for another lesson when my skin grew back.