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Might be a first step, I guess. I sent an email to the tourist development department mentioning the irony of using rock climbing in the visit KY film while making it off limits in the state parks. No reply of course.

It seems small, but until this I am not aware of any climbing, trad, sport or top roping allowed in a KY state park. And, they even put in top rope bolted anchors.

Carter Caves State Resort Park is located at 344 Caveland Drive in Olive Hill.

Editor’s note: An opening ceremony for the rappelling and rock climbing area will be held July 2 at 1 p.m. Today!

That is about an hour and a half from Lexington. I might run out there today. If anyone is interested PM me.

http://parks.ky.gov/parks/resortparks/C ... fault.aspx

They have it up on the internet, so this must be true. I think it is a great. Maybe other state parks will follow in their steps. There is A LOT of rock on our state. A LOT.

This looks like a great place for a family vacation.

Which 'experienced' rock climber would go up there and fill out paperwork for a 30' TR? This is a joke.
Perhaps an even bigger joke is the 30' rap ...

Carter Cave State Park Website wrote:The location consists of a nice sandstone cliffline which provides a great 30–40 foot rappel or climb.

Rappelling and Rock Climbing Area Rules and Regulations

• Rappelling and climbing are permitted in this designated area only.
• Rappelling and climbing by permit only. (Permits to be completed at the front desk of the lodge.)
• Rappelling and top rope climbing are permitted.

caribe wrote:Which 'experienced' rock climber would go up there and fill out paperwork for a 30' TR?

Ha, agreed. Still, I do wonder how this came about. Did the park management want to attract visitors? Were local teens already rappelling and top roping? I'm not expecting this to be the stepping stone to climbing at Pocket Wall, but it is at least it is the right direction. Baby steps?

Maybe Redpoint will check it out and put up some sweet beta vids...

Before white-nose bat syndrome they used to have this huge event called "Crawathon" each winter where they went through the wild portion of a lot of the area caves. Since it's not been feasible for a few years they've been doing a "Winter Adventure Weekend" with featured rappelling and similar activities. I'm guessing this grew out of an extension of that event.

I used to work at a Girl Scout camp across the street from Carter Caves and it was always a really great park. There are a couple of wild caves near the entrance that you used to be able to pick up a free permit and go through. Unfortunately an idiot killed a bunch of bats. That plus white-nose bat syndrome led to the end of the free wild caving, at least in Laurel Cave (not positive about Hornhollow but the easiest way to access it was through Laurel).

It's great for kids, and it's hopefully a first step towards bigger and better things. Pocket Wall's probably never coming back, but there's lots of cliff around Mill Creek Lake.

Not to be a buzzkill, but it's unlikely things will change quickly at Natural Bridge (or in the area to the south where Pocket Wall is located) because of the State nature Preserve status.

I recently talked to the superintendent about mountain biking and that (nature preserve) is the reason NB can't have mountain bike trails. He even said it was too bad because mountain biking would be good for the area. State Nature Preserve regulations have extremely ignorant language citing activities like mountain biking and climbing as being "destructive" to the environment. Hiking does more damage to trails than mountain biking on well built trails. But hiking is seen as an acceptable activity whereas mountain biking is not. There is a negative bias toward non-hiking activities and they are deemed incompatible in nature preserves.

The best strategy would be to work at a state level to change that underlying language in the policies of state nature preserves. It would take a lot of education and perseverance to get it done.

Has the Coalition been working this angle?