kentucky 2002

Red River Gorge, Kentucky Memorial Day Weekend, 2002 By: Matt Talley



A long weekend with nothing to do… We thought about climbing at Sam’s Throne or Horseshoe Canyon Ranch. Southern Illinois and Enchanted Rock, Texas were both also mentioned, but I think it was Adam who decided that The Red River Gorge would be the place to spend our time off. After a little web research I agreed and David just wanted to get out and climb, somewhere/anywhere, so he was all in. Adam, David and I loaded up our climbing and camping gear into David’s Chevy Blazer and started driving for eastern Kentucky after work that Friday. We shift drove through the night, taking turns napping here and there. About 3:00am we got turned around a bit and it wasn’t until 4:30 that we rolled into the campsite, pitched the tent and fell onto our sleeping bags. I should have packed my extra Thermo-Rest pad because my back killed me the next morning from the hard ground. Our campsite was at Miguel’s Pizza (on KY 11 two miles south of the Rest Area on the left side of the road, you can’t miss it). While doing some web research Adam and I had found out about Miguel’s and that there was going to be an Access Fund climber's gathering there Memorial Day Weekend. Miguel is a climber and a long time supporter of the climbing community in "The Red". He had a “climbers only” campground beside his pizza shop that cost all of $2 a day per person (on the honor system) . There were coin-operated showers ($1), bathrooms, picnic tables, a huge fire ring, a slack line, a rain shelter that 30 people could fit under and a huge steel sink that you could wash your dishes in after the nights meal. A couple of electrical outlets were also available so that the blue-haired freaky people could plug in their life support equipment. Who could have asked for more?


If you go to The Red, you HAVE to stop in at Miguel’s, you just have to even if you're not going to camp there. The pizza was ok, but the social scene there is what climbing is all about. He has t-shirts, both guide books for the area, climbing gear and a few other odds and ends that could save a trip for sale in the shop in case you’ve lost or forgotten something essential. Flood had wanted to join us for the trip, but was either at his parents helping out or on an annual float with some college buddies, I don’t remember which. He mentioned that two climbers that we knew from Missouri, Kerrie and Colby would be at The Red that weekend as well. Colby was a crazy strong climber & slack liner and Kerrie could hold her own, so we figured that we would hook up with them at some point for a route or two. I stumbled out of our tent around 8:00 and Colby and Kerrie were sitting on Colby’s jeep eating breakfast about twenty feet from the tent and we joined them. After eating and brushing our teeth, Adam and I went over to Miguel’s to pick up a guidebook. As I said, there are two, so I bought Red River Gorge Climbs by John H. Bronaugh and Adam bought Selected Climbs at Red River Gorge Kentucky by Porter Jarrard & Chris Snyder. After a quick thumb through, we decided to head for Torrent Falls Crag. Colby and Kerrie had already left, so the three of us headed out. We soon found it best to use the road maps in both guide books simultaneously, They were both off a bit, but when they both pointed out a detail in the road or trail we knew to look for it. After parking, we made it about ¾ of the way to the crag before we saw Colby and Kerrie heading our way. The crag had been closed a few days before because Indian artifacts had been found. There weren’t any guards, but we were guests at the crag, not locals, and we weren’t about to wear out our welcome. The Red River Gorge Climbers Coalition, RRGCC, has done a huge amount of work in the area setting landowner’s minds at ease about the scruffy and sometimes freaky looking strangers playing on the rocks in their woods and on the edges of their pastures. It would be such a travesty for some idiot from out of town to destroy that hard earned trust. Regardless of it being the 21st Century, the residents of rural Kentucky aren’t real partial to strangers and if provoked, I doubt if they would be understanding... So, finding the wall closed, we headed to another crag. Along the way we walked by a Jeep Jamboree. It is amazing what some of those ol' boys can do with those things. The Red River Gorge isn’t just one long crag, it is a grouping of red and orange sandstone outcroppings spread all through a wide valley, at the western feet of the Appalachian Mountains made by the flow of the Red River in the past few million years. It is located in the Daniel Boone National Forest, near Natural Bridge State Park. The entire valley is lush and green with hardwoods and ferns. The rock itself is a sandstone of conglomerate pebbles and sand cemented by limonite. The rocks get their red color from a type of iron oxide that has been thrown in the mix. And there are natural bridges, caves, huecos of all sizes and rock houses (sheltered overhangs) everywhere.



After consulting both guidebooks again, Colby decided that Lady Slipper Wall looked good and we were off. The uphill slog to the crag sucked but we were rewarded with great views and excellent routes. We climbed two sport and two trad lines that all started from a 30-foot tall boulder that sat just 3-feet from the rock face. Adam had just bought a hugely expensive camera and was testing out its capabilities on our trip. He got it set up as soon as we were settled and started snapping pictures. All of the pictures turned out great and sold us all on digital cameras for taking trip pictures. No wasted film, instant feedback, sweet effects without changing film or lenses, ect... Colby and Adam were climbing strong and David worked a sick little roof. I lead a sweet 5.10 that Kerrie red-pointed after me. As lunch came around, Colby took a little nap and Kerrie berated us for being men. None of us really knew Kerrie before this trip, just that she and Flood had dated some. Well, the conversation about our repression of women was an eye opener to say the least. Kerrie brought her dog, Otis, along. He was a decent dog, he just didn’t mind her very well. Apparently it was because as his gender… After lunch, while Kerrie and Colby worked a sport route, the three of us got on a 5.8 three-pitch trad route. I led the last pitch and ran out of gear about half way up. The next half of the pitch came with a high pucker factor, but I topped it out after bitching and cussing a good deal.



Around 1:00 the three of us decided to head for Long Wall and get in some classics for the area. After another sweaty climb uphill, David jumped on the first lead, a route called "Autumn", and sent it. Then the little bastard jumped on Rock Wars, an ultra-classic, and sent it too. He was climbing strong and was stoked about the routes. Colby and Kerrie came up while we were on Rock Wars and climbed on the routes next to us. There wasa huge sharp boulder that rises to half of the routes total height and is about 30 feet out from the base of them. It overshadows the base of the climbs in this area of the wall. By the time Colby got on Rock Wars, we had a group of spectators watching us on the route and taking pictures from the boulder. I don’t care what anyone says, if people are standing up and taking your picture as you climb it is a great big ego rush. Colby, who is usually immune to ego, decided to show off a bit and climb the route with only a set of nuts and hexes. He pulled it off with no falls. We climbed a few more routes in the area and headed back to the campground.



Let me say here and now, David is a maniac behind the wheel: accelerates into corners and breaks through them, drives about 20 mph over the speed limit, etc… He scarred the shit out of us every time we went to a new crag. And the drive back to the campground everyday was like Jimmy Swaggart going to Jesus; with reckless abandon. I love David like a brother, but the boy can’t drive. Adam can’t sing, Flood should NEVER rollerblade and I can’t play basketball. There are just some things that we shouldn’t do, period. We were pretty much car camping, so there was PLENTY of food and snacks. David and I decided to cook up something quick, and our boy Adam prepared his all time favorite camping meal: he takes a can of chili and a can of tamales, dumps them both in a pot, adds pepper, heats the whole thing up and chows down. It looked ok, but his little concoction hurt everyone the next morning… After dinner we played on the slackline a bit, but colby was really the only one who could walk on the thing. I could sit on it for a little while without falling, but every time I tried to stand up and walk there was an assault to my family jewels.



Just after dark Kurt Smith, an old school Yosemite climber and one of the main developers of the El Potrero Chico climbing area in Mexico, put on a slide show discussing some bouldering problems he had been on through the years. Afterwards, there was an Access Fund raffle and a pull up contest. I entered the contest and lost by 7, but I was in the top half of the pack. My two friends, who weighed 120 pounds each and who were crazy strong sat the contest out. Colby, who could do a one-arm pull-up,didn’t enter -- pussies. The girl that won the over-all contest pulled off 32 pull-ups after an entire day spent running 5.11 routes. We were all very impressed. After the contest David went back to the tent, put his headphones on, blaring Techno, and went to sleep. Adam and I stayed up and sat around the fire laughing and telling climbing stories. Kurt came by after a while and sat in. We weren’t real impressed with him. He was, in fact, kind of an ass, but his wife/girlfriend was amazingly hot, super strong on route and very personable. Her personality and appearance more than made up for his arrogance. After a couple of beers we headed to bed and left Colby talking to a Swedish climber/scientist (who he ended up dating for a while afterwards) and to a guy that made his own wine. By the way, The Red River Gorge in a very dry county and I think that the counties around it are also dry, so if you want any beer during the trip, you have to bring it in yourself. Also, the legal amount that you can have at one time in your vehicle is one case (24) of beer and one fifth of the hard stuff per person. If caught with any more than that by a Kentucky State Trooper, he will make you pour the excess out on the side of the road and that would truly be a tragedy. We woke up the next morning, had our sense of smell assaulted by Adam’s chili and tamale germ warfare experiment and headed for Military Wall. There were climbers everywhere. We got on a couple of routes, but we had to wait forever on a couple of groups that were just sitting underneath routes and letting everyone in the party leisurely climb them. So, we went to left Flank Wall and it turned out to be crowded as well, but we got on a sweet 5.10a with a dyno start (next to Face Up to That Crack). All the crowds were really starting to be a pain, so we headed to the furthest routes on Sky Bridge Ridge. On the way there we stopped at a little bridge to take some pictures of the stream under it and I’ll be damned if there weren’t a small heard of buffalo across the stream. Buffalo in Kentucky, who knew?



I got on a little 5.8 sport route after the hike to the right end of the crag. David was on belay and because of the easy route grade had a bunch of slack spun out. Just after the third bolt, I blew a foothold and took a 15-foot whipper that left me about 5-feet from the ground. I slammed into the wall with my hip, but was able to climb the route from the ground up again without too much pain. It wasn’t a big deal and David apologized for the sport-loop belay 10-times, so I couldn’t fault him. That was it for climbing that day and we headed back to camp. On the way both to and from the crags that day we had driven through the Nada Tunnel. A railroad company blasted a tunnel about 200 yards long through a ridge about a hundred years ago to get the areas timber and minerals to other parts of the country. The railroad is gone but the one lane tunnel is still there. It was very picturesque and a little spooky when you emerged for the other side.



We all went in together for supper and made bean, beef and cheese burritos. We had about three each and ended up stuffed and bloated. David slipped back to the tent right after dark for some more Techno and Adam and I hung out at the fire and had three of four beers and someone passed around a couple of pizzas. I bummed a plastic bag and some ice from Miguel’s daughter (hottie) before the shop closed for my sore hip. Colby scored some homemade wine from the ol' boy the night before, but it tasted like the box of grape juice that you left in the back widow of your mom’s car for a couple of days in Jr. High -- foul! Sunday night was more casual than the previous night and a couple of guys sat around playing guitars and singing folk songs. I got up the next morning and my hip was killing me. It had a green, purple and yellow bruise about the size of a softball on it. I limped to the shower, figuring that it would get better as I started moving. It didn’t. I was in no shape to climb. Adam and David decided to climb at Roadside Crag and I limped along to take pictures. It was a sweet spot! They got on four routes and there were a couple of waterfalls flowing over this huge rock overhang. Near the overhang, someone with a few hours of time on their hands built a 5-foot high morterless rock arch.



It was very carefully put together and will stand for years unless some asshole damages it. We left the crag and went by Miguel’s to pack up camp and square all our gear away. Before leaving we took pictures with Colby, Kerrie and Otis the dog in front of Miguel’s. The trip home was uneventful, except for David cutting a trucker off and running him off the road and getting caught in a traffic jam in the middle of nowhere because of a rock slide. We rolled through the beautiful mountains and prairies that we had missed seeing on the night drive there. There is a part of the state where there are horses and green rolling hills on both sides of the road for miles on end. In one of the green pastures there was gray stone castle. I shit you not: outer walls, towers, drawbridge, inner keep, and flags on the turrets, the whole shebang. There must be crazy money in thoroughbred horses! We were home in Arkansas and in bed by 10:30pm. The trip was so worth the long drive. I felt good, David and Adam climbed strong, we laughed a lot, the rock was quality and everyone came home safely.