This post is written as a recollection, because I failed to finish it in a timely manner. I am finishing this post six months and 13 days after the events took place.
Part of my much needed vacation during the first two weeks of June was a planned climbing trip with the ol' Stever in Kentucky's Red River Gorge. We left for the Red on June 8th, but I drove over to WV a few nights before for a small family reunion outside of Charleston. We had great weather over the weekend and I was hoping that it would hold out for the enitre week of climbing, but my hope was energy wasted on wishful thinking. We would spend part of the week sneaking around thunderstorms that peppered the Gorge before calling it quits on Thursday morning and heading home. In between rain clouds we did do some climbing...
June 8th, 2009:
Our vehicular ingress to the Red brought Steve and I by Fortress Wall, which has some classic trad routes, some classic trad routes that Steve let me lead. We climbed all afternoon having fun on American Crack, Calypso III, and the first pitch of Bedtime for Bonzo.
This was the first time Steve allowed me to lead trad routes and it was very exciting and scary all at the same time. The experience was something that would add fuel to my addictive fire for climbing as I would rack up some debt building my own trad rack later in the year.
After doing three routes and leaving the crag with a sense of trad accomplishment, Steve and I drove to Middle Fork Campground and set up our campsite.
June 9th, 2009:
Steve had a big day planned for the 9th and a big day of climbing was had. We drove out further into the sticks than normal to the Pendergrass Murray Recreation Preserve, specifically Sore Heel Hollow. Steve knew of a good wall called The Shire, which he claimed had some jug hauls on it and he was right. Very juggy and platey, but very fun, pumpy climbing.
We racked up three in a row in the Shire; Pee Wee, Audie, and Miranda Rayne. Miranda Rayne was especially pumpy and had very thin last moves as an extra little slap in the face.
After climbing Miranda Rayne, we haphazardly packed up the gear as I dreamt of making the leap to 5.10 on Bulldozer, but moved on to the Rival Wall to see what we could see in Rorschach Inkblot Test. The belay was sloping and the start required either a rock pile or cheerleader flexibility. I made like a cheerleader and Steve went with the rock pile. It was a fun climb with interesting moves near the top.
Already feeling somewhat tired from the pumpy Shire, we headed to another part of the Hollow to tick some other fun routes.
In Left Field, we climbed Lowered Expectations and on the Volunteer Wall we touched the perfectly spherical hold on Swap Meet.
June 10th, 2009:
Today we did not have much a plan, so I picked some do-able routes in Muir Valley out of the book and we set out for another day of climbing. On Indy Wall, we started with Face Up That Arete, which turned out to an great route with very thin holds to help build one's technique. Next, I decided to let it hang out on Moots Madness, my first 5.10, where I literally did hang out on the first few moves, because they were hard for me. After the tall bottom moves, the top gave way to a pumpy slight overhang that nearly spit me out before I clipped the anchors.
I lowered from the route with rain drops falling all around and we quickly pushed on to Great Wall where the book indicated we would find rain protected routes. As the rain picked up into a downpour, we discovered, to our dismay, that there were no rain protected routes on Great Wall.
We watched it rain for an hour before deciding to hike all the way over to Bruise Brothers wall where we knew there were two rain protected routes, CH4 and A-Beano. At Bruise Brothers the two routes were open and we climbed them as the rain poured around us, just barely staying under the roof and out of the rain.
And this is how a second trip to the Red ended, with rain. After Bruise Brothers, we would head back to camp only to wake to rain the next morning. Another trip cut short, another long dreary ride home.
'Til next time...