The Red River Gorge

I was shocked to discover that it had been a month since we last posted anything.  I guess time flies when you're having fun.  We've spent most of the last month in the Red River Gorge, Kentucky.  This was one of the places that we were most excited about going to before we came out to the States, as we'd spent quite a lot of the few months before we left looking at the very inspiring guidebook.  The climbing certainly didn't disappoint.  It is a huge area, with miles and miles of sandstone cliffs.  Some of these have been developed, but there is a lot more which hasn't.  The climbing is generally steep on good holds - the climbs don't have many hard moves, the difficulty is keeping going until the top, fighting the legendary Red River Gorge pump.

Shady Grove, a typical Red River Gorge crag

Me on a typically steep 11a called Little Turtle.  This is about the only photo we have of either of us climbing in the Red - it's difficult to get photos when there are only two of you, as you are either climbing or belaying.  This photo was taken by another climber who we got talking to.

The most famous crag is called the Motherlode.  This is about the closest you could get to an outdoor climbing wall.  It has lots and lots of steep, bolted climbs, right next to each other, above a flat sandy base.  When we arrived all of the routes had fixed chain quickdraws.  It also stays dry in the rain, which is just as well as it seems to rain quite a lot in Kentucky.  Strangely enough the area that the Motherlode has some oil reserves, so occasionally you come across very small oil wells, and there is a funny smell of methane in the air. 

The Motherlode

Unfortunately the Motherlode is pretty popular, meaning that it can get crowded.  This has led to tension between so called "local" climbers and visiting climbers, with the locals viewing it as their crag and resenting the crowds.  The irony is that the locals aren't really locals in the sense of being born and bred there, they are just climbers who have moved to live in the area to be near the climbing.  While we were there, some local climbers came and removed all of the fixed quickdraws, apparently to try and keep the crowds away.  I'm sure this will be counter productive, as people will just leave their own quickdraws on the routes which will then deteriorate and become dangerous.  What happened is symptomatic of a slightly unfriendly atmosphere at some of the crags, the first time we had come across this in America.

Kentucky is also very different from the Western states such as California or Colorado.  As far as I could see it seemed to be a lot poorer and more deprived.  Going into a grocery store near to where we were staying was a fairly depressing experience, as there wasn't much on the shelves.  The towns don't have very many chain stores, but do have a lot of pawn shops.  Obesity rates seem to be even higher than back West.  Just going for a walk can be a fairly frightening experience - it seems to be fairly common for people to have a couple of large dogs (usually Rottweilers) outside their houses which are not chained up.  These dogs come hurtling towards you as you go by, and you just have to hope that they don't attack you.

The other thing that's different about the Red River Gorge is that it is in the middle of an enormous deciduous forest.  Most of the crags are hidden away and you don't see them until you get close to them.  At this time of year, the colours of the trees are beautiful.

Innes reached a significant milestone while we were there: his first 13a.  This was a route called Convicted at the Motherlode.  He fell off the crux, which was right at the top, more than 10 times over a period of several days before he succeeded.  He was very pleased to get it.  Sadly I didn't manage to get my first 12b, partly because I injured my wrist slightly and couldn't climb hard for the last week that we were there.  Once Innes had got Convicted, we decided to leave the Red.  There was still a lot of climbing we wanted to do, but we felt ready for a change of scene.  We were also missing the bright sunshine and low humidity of the West, as it had started to get a bit cold and rainy in Kentucky.

We decided to head back to Utah, where we plan to do some bouldering at a place called Joe's Valley, and also climb some desert towers.  On the way we have stopped off again at Rifle, where we were in September.  Here we did a couple of days' climbing and celebrated Innes' birthday.  It's pretty cold - last night there was a heavy frost, and the condensation on the inside of the van windows was frozen.  So we're about to set off for the desert, where we hope it will be warmer.

Best wishes

Ruth