Red River Gorge Kentucky trip highlights 08-20-2010 thru 08-23-2010

We climbed the following routes at Military:

With our entire group together, on Saturday, we debated going to a wall in PMRG, but the approach road is tricky for a regular car such as ours (worse in the rain) and the weather forecast was for scattered storms, so we opted to go to Phantasia instead. Joel had been wanting to go there on our previous trip because he wanted to lead Overlord 5.10b *** (sport), but it didn't work out.

We began on Creature Feature, a classic route which excited me as in all of my trips to The Red, I had yet to get onto it. Feeling good about my onsight lead, while the others took turns climbing Creature, I asked Lynne to belay me on Twinkie, a ridiculously overhanging route just around the corner that has permenent draws on it. This meant that I would not lose any gear by trying... Happy with having moved through the initial technical slaby start and up to the first bolt of the steep overhang before resting, then managing two more bolts before running out of grip for the remaining four (7 of 11), we returned to the group at Creature Feature, but left the rope on Twinkie for others to play on.

We climbed/got onto the following routes at Phantasia:

I had to take / include this picture of Lynne looking great in her pretty blue top :)

As with most climbs at The Red, the first couple of moves to get onto the route are typically tricky. Creature Feature is no different and the thin bouldery start quickly warms you up for the following large roof.

Once you overcome the start and the roof, the route is a very easy less than vertical ladder, but is very fun!

Once Joel has made up his mind to do something, he usually does and his lead of Overlord was excellent! It is a slightly less than vertical route of thin balancy moves, which he led with little difficulty. He hasn't led many routes and as I recall, his last lead may have been a 5.7, so jumping to a 5.10b is pretty sweet!

While I was at Overlord with Joel and some others, Lynne belayed Bob's lead of Pogue Ethics. A storm moved in just as he was finishing up his lead and I was preparing to climb and clean Overlord. Fortunately, most of Pogue stayed dry, but Overlord was awash and unclimbable, so I jugged the line while Molly hauled in rope and the others moved our packs to drier ground.

It was mid afternoon, the rain had stopped, and though we had not yet done much climbing we were wet, our gear was wet, and we all agreed that pizza sounded good, so after Molly climbed / cleaned Pogue, we packed up and headed to Miguel's pizza to begin a relaxed evening early...

On Sunday, we headed to Roadside, a destination with some easier climbs. This was Inna's first time outside and we wanted her experience to be postitive. The rain on Saturday had kept us from getting onto the easist route at Phantasia (Lord of the Flies) and they were heading home in the afternoon.

Always a popular destination, the easy wall at Roadside was already occupied by a couple of groups, so we began at the harder end and worked our way to some of the easier routes.

We climbed the following routes at Roadside:

Sasha had been to The Red with us on her first venture outside and so this time brought her friend Inna. They both did very well and we all had a good time climbing together.

One of the many wonderful things that I enjoy about the sport of climbing and the community which follows it is that it is primarily for fun and each person strives to improve their own skills with the encouragement and support of the others.

It's always fun to see the rapid advances made in the climbing skills of young climbers. Sasha was in Inna's position the last time she climbed with us at The Red earlier this year. The next time we all climb together, I expect that Inna will be sending these routes as well as Sasha...

Gravity almost always works, and when someone Sasha's size (she was trying on all of the size 5 climbing shoes on display at Miguel's) belays someone my or Adam's size, there is the chance they might fly off of the ground. For this reason, unless there is a secure anchor to tie into, having another person provide addtional ballast can be quite useful.

Joel borrowed Bob's sun glasses while he was belaying him and I had to sieze the opportunity to snap this photo...

We pushed the day as far as we could for those who had to make the return trip to the Chicago area Sunday evening and so after running all eight of us through each of the four routes, we packed up and headed to the parking lot to say our goodbyes. Only Lynne, Joel, and I were staying for one more day of climbing and we decided to continue our relaxed theme this trip by heading to Miguel's for some more fine pizza and atmosphere.

On Monday, the weather forecast was clear and we headed to The Gallery in PMRG where we climbed the following routes:

We had climbed 27 Years a couple of times before, but had yet to get onto any of the other routes at The Gallery. Like Creature Feature in Phantasia, A Brief History of Climb has a single crux move which may warrent the 5.10c rating, and then the rest of the route is probably only 5.9, but is amazingly fun as it bends up overhead into a 25 foot overhang and you just keep smiling as the holds are all bomber...

As we discovered during this trip, Lynne and I simply needed a break from our daily work load and Joel from the prospect of returning to school. We had barely had the energy to decide to climb Brief History, and so while there are a large number of stellar looking climbs at The Gallery, we decided to call it a day, get one more taste of Miguel's, and then head home. This is just what we did, pulling up in front of our home at about 8:30pm, with the cats waiting eagerly for our return.

Thanks to Molly, Adam, Bob, Sasha, and Inna for making this trip a fun and memorable one. We're looking forward to more in the future :)