Accessible Rappels in the Gorge?

[toad857]

there was a thread about this a while back that actually had some answers that you're looking for

[COTrained26]

out of curiosity..why in the world would anyone rappel except to get off a climb?

Climbing is by far a much more fun and exhilarating activity but there are defintiely times that i love a nice rappel. I guess in all honesty, in a place like Red River Gorge, where the main reason for traveling there is to climb, rappelling really isn't that much of a draw. With that said, in a place like Moab, it is pretty cool to do a 10 mile hike where you have no choice but to rappel 150 feet into a canyon in order to complete the hike. I guess as both a backpacker and a climber, there is a sense of adventure that goes along with rappelling and it is most certainly advantageous to practice the necessary techniques when you know you can just climb down if you don't remember something than forget those techniques when you don't have a choice.

Just my 2 cents.

[gripster]

Uhh, if you are able to get up a route, then you can rappel back off of it. Why don't you ask what routes in the Gorge have the most fun rappels, and then climb that route?

[COTrained26]

Uhh, if you are able to get up a route, then you can rappel back off of it. Why don't you ask what routes in the Gorge have the most fun rappels, and then climb that route?

Decent point. Why don't you then enlighten me as to which routes have the most fun rappels?

[TradMike]

Half Moon off the far point on the right side as you walk up is the one rappel to do. You need to be an expert rigger though to set up the anchors and have the items needed. Then you can toprope the climbs that are under the rappel. We did the Half Moon rappel once on a dynamic rope back in the day. We jumped off the point, did a free fall until 20ft from the bottom and then locked off. The strecth of the rope would put you close to the ground. Kind of like base jumping in a way. Scary as hell, dangerous and fun all in one. Static lines are lame to rappel on and you can't free fall very fast on them. There is also a nice climb under the point on Half Moon that goes up shallow pockets that would have to be bolted to be a climb.

[Crankmas]

all the routes at Pocket Wall and Oil Crack have stellar rappels

[Redpoint]

One of the most popular places to rappel is at the top of Indian Staircase. Just go up there and walk along the cliff until you get to the frog feature. If you look on top the frog you can see where ropes have dug through. There is tons of giant trees to rig to. I watched some people Australian rappel off of it once, it's perfect for that since the cliff below is overhung. I think it's around 150 - 200 feet, but I'm not sure. I heard it takes 15 minutes to hike back up to the top though.

If you have a really long rope do Eagles Nest, I heard it's about a 250 foot rappel. As soon as you rappel there is a cave thing with a bowl like feature in it, that's the Eagles Nest. Some crazy guy said him and his friends used to climb down to the nest with no rope and all circle around and smoke weed. I laid down and looked over the edge to check out the climb and it looked sketchy as hell. He was about to attempt it but my brother and I convinced him not to, explaining to him that if something did go wrong he was totally going to ruin his girlfriends day, she joined in and also begged him not to and he finally admitted that it was a stupid thing to do.

My brother and I have been looking for the most convenient rappel in the gorge, as in the smallest approach. Some park ranger was telling us that there is a place right off the side of the road, I think it's Tunnel Ridge Road. I'll let you know if I find out exactly where it is.

Rappelling is a lot cooler if you have some ascension gear to climb back up the rope. I use a frog system, but I bought it for vertical caving. If you love rappelling then you would really love vertical caving. If you want to get in to that just join the Louisville Grotto: http://louisville.caves.org/ or your local grotto. There is some vertical caver lady who still uses prussics to vertical cave, and I heard she recently did a 250 foot pit with that setup. Normally you wouldn't want to prussic anything over 50 feet since using 3 prussics takes so long. Another cheep option is to use a setup like what the arborists use, most of their setups are for double rope technique though. Here is a cool option, just make a frog system out of a Gri and a single hand ascender with a footloop attached to it. Make sure that the hand ascender is also attached to your harness, you should always have at least two ascenders on rope that are both attached to your harness. The gri would count as one, and the hand ascender would count as the other of course. The gri and hand ascender way of climbing is the way they set routes at Rocksport, and some arborist websites also sell that exact system.