Volunteer Wall and the Online Guide

Post by **coop** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 2:22 am

Does anyone know what any of those sport routes are rated there?There's tons of lines and the online guide doesn't really help at this point. What about the cracks?

Post by **Steve** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 7:58 pm

Dig deep in the archives around here, Johnny posted some info on a handful of the routes not too long after they went up. I'm sure some of the cracks have been done. The crack to the left of the 10a sport route Southern Tradition is a nice little outing going at around 5.8 to the anchors of the above sport route. Jill and I did it back in the summer dubbing it The Wal-Martification of Trad. Take something big going for the anchors or reach over and clip a bolt.

Post by **J-Rock** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 4:10 am

Good question. I voiced my complaint about this problem at the RRGCC meeting. It seems strange to me that route information is so lacking. If the Coalition would like people to be interested in visiting their areas then they should do a much better job promoting their routes. Johnny, Terry, Blake, and others have done a fantastic job equipping many quality climbs on beautiful rock in the newer southern region crags such as The Volunteer Wall, The Inner Circle, The Gallery, etc. However, the route descriptions leave much to be desired. I understand that they wanted to keep the descriptions on www.thered.org but this site was later lost due to some type of complication. Perhaps they are waiting for the litigation to be settled with Charmane and they don't want to encourage visitation yet? I don't know. I've been wondering about these things for quite some time. The developers have done their job and done it well. There is still much, much, MUCH more potential and development will probably be continuing for quite some time. I just wish they would share these great climbs with the public in a more timely manner. Well, I've said enough for now... Anyway, I was wondering how other people felt about this. Perhaps I don't know the whole story, I just don't understand how the Coalition could spark an interest in the climbing community and potential donors without adequate and up to date route descriptions.

Post by **J-Rock** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 4:18 am

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the Murray Pendergrass Preserve is to be featured in the Crag Du Jour and SuperGuide sections of "Rock & Ice" magazine in the near future. Hopefully this will be what we've been waiting for all along!

Post by **captain static** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 6:03 am

To respond to this question about Murray Pendergrass Preserve route info, I would first point out that over 100 routes on the Preserve are chronicled in the online guide on this site. I would also point out that there is no direct affiliation between this site and the Red River Gorge Climbers' Coalition. Still, putting together any kind of climbing guide is a labor of love and I don't think I would be wrong in saying that what Ray has done with the online guide is pretty incredible. The work he has done in putting up the online guide is appreciated by the entire RRG climbing community, including the RRGCC.

The RRGCC made a start on an online guide to the Preserve on the thered.org website. The website work was done by a contractor. Unfortunately, due to a dispute with the contractor, the website work was lost but not the collected route information. Instead of an online guide, it is now the intent of the RRGCC to publish a printed guide to the Preserve in the near future. It was made known at the RRGCC meeting mentioned by J-Rock that we have a guidebook committee and that the RRGCC is seeking volunteers to get involved in committee work.

I will tell you right now that the Crag Du Jour & SuperGuide probably won't help with coop's question about details of Volunteer Wall & J-Rock's further mention of the Gallery & Inner Circle. For that you may have to wait for the printed guide. In any case, we would ask for patience on the route info. It has been the RRGCC's priority up to this point to focus on establishing parking area's on the Preserve along with the accompanying trails, signage, & kiosk's. Again, all reliant on volunteer efforts.

Post by **SCIN** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 2:10 pm

I'll get out there soon and climb all the routes. Then I'll put them in the online guide. It's not information that I can't find out on my own.

Post by **Artsay** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 4:07 pm

I've made an effort to try to obtain route information from the developers (Coalition members) but was never gotten back to. If you look in the online guide, the new areas in the southern region stand out like a sore thumb due to their lack of information. Without any other info out there for these areas, a climber who visits this site wanting to go there will probably be persuaded elsewhere given the extensive information available for other areas, i.e. Muir Valley.

I think it's a shame, amongst other things, that the Coalition doesn't want to get their info out there by using the online guide. It is without a doubt the number one resource used for climbers visiting the RRG. We would be (and have been in the past) more than happy to post access issues associated with these areas along with the route info (i.e. Oil Crag, Arena). I honestly don't understand why the coalition isn't more interested in utilizing this resource.

Post by **coop** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 4:14 pm

Why is the RRGCC trying to make a printed guide only for the preserve? It seems to me that they should either make a printed guide for all the current routes in the gorge, or to continue to put the route information online for everyone to view like is currently possible on this site. Is the idea for the printed guide suppose to be for generating funds for the RRGCC? If that's the case, why don't you make a donation box at the parking lot, something out of steel so people can't break into it? If there is as much potential as J-Rock says there is, once everyone knows where they are going and how to get there, won't route development boom and thus make the printed guide outdated? I guess it just seems silly to me to have a printed guide to only one small part of the gorge, especially for an area that has only begun to tap it's route potential.

Post by **Yasmeen** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 5:57 pm

Over the summer, I took what information I had and tried putting it into the online guide, for the areas mentioned above. The route locations and descriptions were hard for me to follow, and I'd even been to some of the places, so I stopped entering routes for fear of confusing people and/or leading them astray. I figured it would be better to wait for more complete and straightforward information, instead of adding to the confusion by adding more routes.

Post by **captain static** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 6:36 pm

Thank you Artsay and coop for your input. Here are some brief responses to what you have posted:

coop wrote:Why is the RRGCC trying to make a printed guide only for the preserve?

The RRGCC and Charmane Oil have agreed to attempt to solve our dispute through mediation. The oil company has requested we provide a printed guide.

coop wrote:It seems to me that they should either make a printed guide for all the current routes in the gorge, or to continue to put the route information online for everyone to view like is currently possible on this site.?

A comprehensive guide is being contemplated by the RRGCC. However, it might not be the best use of resources for the organization to take on such a large project.

Artsay wrote:I think it's a shame, amongst other things, that the Coalition doesn't want to get their info out there by using the online guide. It is without a doubt the number one resource used for climbers visiting the RRG. We would be (and have been in the past) more than happy to post access issues associated with these areas along with the route info (i.e. Oil Crag, Arena). I honestly don't understand why the coalition isn't more interested in utilizing this resource.

It is not that the RRGCC doesn't want to get route info out there but in doing so we must fully weigh any legal considerations. It is due to legal considerations that we are currently working towards publishing a paper guide. What I can do is present this input to our guidebook committee and see what might be done to expedite getting the new route info out into the public domain.