Red River Gorge, Kentucky. Beautiful overhanging sandstone. Yellow-orange walls, climbing just sweet and much more varied than most people think. Chicago, my home for now is only seven hours away, yet people in that city complain there is no climbing around! Crowds were hanging on the easiest climbs while the best and boldest lines saw little traffic. I could not believe that anyone dogging up a toprope for half an hour, taking all possible hangs, pulling on every single draw, would go down and say happily, “I did it!’ And the peers? “Oh yeah man, you did just great!”
– Chris Belczynski (from Rock & Ice Magazine)
It’s a bit like herding cats trying to get climbers organized on a trip, even for just a short one like this. We originally were expecting to have five, but it ended up being three. It was also supposed to be primo weather this time of year. So why was the forecast now calling for rain and SNOW? Renee claims to be a good weather magnet and that Awesome Dave and I had some sort of negative weather vibe since we were looking at the forecasts and predicting the worst. She on the other hand preferred to use the ostrich method of looking at the forecast. We will soon see which method was most accurate.
Well I headed south on 35 hell bent for vinyl
I hadn’t never had her up past 55 before
Well somethin’ ’bout that little red line always looked so final
Buddy you’d be surprised how fast a Chevrolet truck can go
– Week of living dangerously, Steve Earle
Day zero started with the prospect of a long drive. Plenty of coffee and tunes would be the order of the day. I left work early and hit the road. It was smooth sailing all the way down into southern Ohio. I got hit by rush hour traffic in Cincinnati. It must have cost me at least 45 minutes, maybe longer. Then it started raining and getting dark but I was at least making good time again. Until I had to turn off the highway and onto the back roads. Holy smokes! I was totally relying on my SatNav now, which was good because it got to be real white knuckle driving. Unfamiliar roads, narrow, twisty, hilly, no guardrails, rain, darkness… and pea soup fog. It really couldn’t get any better than that.
I finally found the place and pulled into this sopping wet grassy field to park and set up shop. The rain wasn’t going to let up anytime soon so I bit the bullet and set up my tent in the deluge. The nice thing about the Bibler is that you crawl inside it to set it up. Even so things got pretty damp. With that done I scooted back into the car and made a tuna sandwich and drank pale ale. Listened to the rain beat down behind the voice of Steve Earle, and waited for my buddies to arrive.
I was knackered from the drive and couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer so I crawled into the tent and into my bag.
Renee and Dave rolled in around 11:30ish and set up in the rain as I did. I woke up to say hi and found out I was in the ‘wrong’ spot. How was I to know? Looked like an empty field to me. Who knew that there was a ‘right’ spot? I would move my tent over to where their two were in the morning.
We woke to heavily leaden skies, the cawing of crows, and a fine mist coming down. This field looked like Woodstock… minus all the people. There were only two other vehicles there. We were undeterred by the weather. Dave cooked up a mess of pancakes, bacon and taters and we concocted some delicious French press coffee while we made our plans. This place is a sport climber’s mecca and people come from the world over just to sample it and indeed pit themselves against some serious test-pieces. Literally dozens of 5.13’s, a handful of 5.14’s and Southern Smoke Direct… 5.15a
Now lest you get the wrong impression and even though we did for some strange reason have a stick-clip with us, our prime motive was to trad climb, of which there is also abundance. So much so that one of us quipped that sport climbing there is akin to masturbating in a whorehouse. Many grades from 5.0 all the way up to something called Silently Does the Sun Shine which clocks in at a whopping 5.14a. Again, full disclosure, so there are no wrong impressions, we were aiming closer to the lower end of the spectrum topping out in the 5.8 region.
Our first day was at Fortress Wall; a place both Renee and I climbed at before but not Dave. It was mid-week, sort of raining, and trad… and yes we had the place to ourselves. One nice thing is that there is an upper headwall that is capped by a massive roof. On this day anyway it was sheltering us from the rain. And even though it was kinda damp and cool we got some good climbs in. Renee had two nice 5.6 leads, and Dave and I climbed a 5.4 each. Nowhere close to .14a, but we were having a blast. We each seconded all of the climbs so we got a bit of climbing in.
Day two actually did dawn. The skies were icy blue and there was a heavy layer of frost over everything and a wicked chill in the air. The prior day’s puddles were now frozen, as were water bottles that had been left outside the tents. This was going to be a slow start for sure. The entire lot of us has a collection of bone and joint issues so after the long drive, a damp day climbing, and a cold night we were a bit lethargic and creaky. But as Dave says “motion is lotion” I got us started with some more of the java while He and Renee fired up the stove for bacon and eggs.
Green Eggs and Ham
Our plan was to hit two areas. Dip Wall and Muscle Beach. Dip wall was real mellow. Green Eggs and Ham. A 5.7 apiece for those two. We pottered around the area a bit looking for some other lines within our reach, but the only others looked a bit grungy and by this time of day were in deep chilly shade. So we hiked back out and drove over to the trailhead for Muscle Beach. We were kind of leery about where we parked because there was this real sketchy looking local camped there with his pick-em up truck and a pop-up trailer and a good size wood pile. It didn’t have a temporary look about it if you know what I mean. Here was this grizzled old-timer just sitting by his fire next to the river. He exchanged a few pleasantries with us and we were on our away across the dam and into the woods; albeit a bit nervous about what we might come back to.
You know he no longer travels but he’s still pretty spry
He’s not much on talking and he’s just too mean to die
And they’ll be comin’ down from Kansas and from west Arkansas
It’ll be one great big old party like you never saw
Uncle Slayton’s got his Texan pride
Back in the thickets with his Asian bride
He’s got a Airstream trailer and a Holstein cow
He still makes whiskey ’cause he still knows how
– Choctaw Bingo, James McMurty
We followed an old overgrown road for a spell and then sort of bushwhacked up through open trees to the base of the cliffs. We had three climbs in mind to do, but in the end only tried two of them. Renee tied into a very sustained, thin and serious looking 5.7. She placed a couple of pieces, and then she wasn’t feeling it, so she backed off and down climbed. One thing about most of my circle of climbers is that they pay very close attention to the vibe, and to how it feels. And if it doesn’t feel right then we don’t do it. That’s a good attribute to have if you are planning for longevity in this game. That climb will be there next time. We toyed with doing this fun looking 5.6, but opted instead to save the daylight left for this crazy 5.8+ offwidth. 5.8 my ass! I guess if you have well-honed technique maybe it’s not that bad. But Dave was going in sort of as an offwidth virgin. We had the all the gear needed and he made a valiant effort but in the end down-slithered the crack. Again letting discretion probably save the day. We decided to turn tail and run.
Awesome Dave gettin’ into it
For some time now we had been hearing the telltale sounds of a powerful engine revving. Eventually we came to the conclusion that maybe somebody was stuck. When we got back out to our car, much to our relief all was copacetic. Our rustic acquaintance was gone as was his truck. We looked down the road apiece and saw what all of the commotion was about. Indeed someone was stuck. We quickly discussed it and decided that the good karma thing would be to go and see if we could assist. We drove down and stopped in the middle of the road. What had happened was this: A young couple was on the first night of a three day camping trip. They found a nice campsite by the river and drove their F250 down to it. For some reason they decided to try and see if they could get back up to the road. They could not. The ground was pretty muddy from the recent rains, it was a steep bank, and the Ford was only a two wheel drive. The old-boy had heard all the ruckus from his camp and drove over to investigate and eventually help out. We chipped in as well. We tried winching from a tree. We tried towing with ‘Bobs’ truck. We piled a couple of people into the back the stuck truck to add weight. We dug out the wheels and wedged firewood underneath the tires for traction, but to no avail. I think they might have busted something in the differential as well, as it got to a point where neither wheel was spinning. These kids were caught good. Bob being a good old boy was packing a 9mm on his hip so I was keeping an eye on that all the time too. But he seemed an okay sort. Said he was gonna give er one more go and if that didn’t work he was going to go back to his camp and “listen to the river again”. He did offer to drive out the couple in the morning to get them help.
Now, I’ve wasted some more of your precious time by describing some hill folk stuck in the mud, but here’s the twist… ‘Bob’ turned out to be ‘Trad-Bob’. He was some cat from way up north in Michigan who moved to the area twenty years ago specifically for the trad climbing. I guess he used to climb up a storm. Apparently he fell from a ladder a few years back and messed up his ankles big time. Not unlike our buddy Kevin. It’s much tougher to recover when you are in your sixties however; Which Trad Bob from Michigan must have been, if he was a day. He said he was still willing to give it some time and wasn’t ready to hang up his rack just yet. Looks can be deceiving.
Day three was more than likely going to be our last climbing day, and although the night had been far warmer we got off to an even lazier start. The beers in camp late the night before didn’t help, but probably more the culprit were the blueberry pancakes and cups of coffee in the cookhouse. That plus we got to yakking with a couple of British climbers. These dudes may have been close to my age and yet they were working on .13b’s. But eventually we made a break and headed up and down some gnarly gravel roads to a place called solar collector. This area had a much higher concentration of sport climbs and correspondingly way more people. This was the first time we were sharing a crag with other climbers on this trip. Renee being the rock star she is turning out to be, led another fun climb under this big dripping roof.
Renee
We then decided to look at this 5.8 sport route but another group of three beat us to it. We hung out for a bit to watch for some beta to see if it would be worth our while. It looked hard for a 5.8, and it was. Those nice folks let us run it on top rope, which was fun, and cured us of any desire to lead it. We poked around a bit looking for some other climbs but decided to bail to another area. Dave had been eager to see me on a sport climb. Ever since I have known this ‘awesome dude’ I have done a lot of posturing about the evils of sport climbing and the beatific righteousness of trad climbing. He wanted so badly to see me on a sport climb and even more so to have a photographic record of it. We found the only parking spot left, grabbed some draws and a rope and descended into the gates of hell. Bruise Brothers Wall. I really wasn’t prepared for this. This was like an outdoor climbing gym. There were friggin’ bench seats. The climbs all had little tags with the names and grades. Nice shiny bolts. And people… One short section must have had twenty five climbers. Mostly young people. Let me correct that. All young people. I felt wonderfully out of place. Dave had a couple of climbs in his sights and off he dashed to nab the first open one. One small mercy was that I didn’t have to wait in queue for a climb behind some pimply teenager. Renee didn’t want it (smart girl that she is) so it was up to me to take the first bullet for the team. I racked up some draws on my harness, tied in (with a bowline mind you!) Checked my sanity and dignity at the door and stepped into the breach. One, two, three, four, five clips and there I was flagging off a lieback flake and was clipping the chains. It was over way too soon. I had a shit-eating grin from ear to ear. That was actually fun. Dave said it was like watching a ‘typewriter’ and accused me of being a sandbagging hold out, figuring I had a lot more sport climbing under my belt than I let on. But you see I hadn’t. This was my first one.
Renee quickly cleaned it and abseiled off while Dave went off snagged another one for us to do at the other end of this little cliff. Dave offered me the lead but I quit while I was ahead. He did the climb, and I cleaned it. There was still some daylight left but we called it a wrap. I decided to try and regain some of my soul by charging hard up the hill on the hike out.
The following morning we swapped lies and e-mail information with the English lads and then slowly packed up and headed north. It being Sunday and all, the many little back country churches were filing up with parishioners in their go-to meeting clothes as I snaked my way through hills and hollers back to the highway and the lengthy drive home.
I wonder where my old father
Amen
I wonder where my old father
Amen
He’s somewhere sitting in glory
Amen
He’s somewhere sitting in glory
Amen
– Zion, Hot Tuna