RRC Archives

An email exchange with 5.12OW got me thinking about this. It is said that you can never come home again. But one of the best climbing trips I ever took, was coming home to Kentucky in the fall of '79. Teaming up with either Pearsall or Seibert, or sometimes both, we did first ascents The Quest, Tower of Power, Wimp Out, Insanity Ceiling, Jungle Beat, The Underling, and Gold Digger. Everything went free, first try, no falls, with the exception of the final slot on The Quest. I think I lead every pitch.

The fall weather was perfect, the ropemates were beyond compare, and some defining goals were realized. The irony of the fact that I had moved away for better climbing, only to return home for some of the best climbing of my life made for bitter-sweet, and lasting, memories. Still, the West was now home, and all road trips end sometime. So I packed it up for Colorado after Thanksgiving.

My last two trips to the Red ,I ended up at crags I hadn't been to in years. The colors, the weather, and the climbing have been awesome. I'm still working the stuff you all put up and there's a whole new crop of traddies behind me.

Home is where the heart is. I have little homes all over the place but the biggest piece of my heart is in the red. I have left for "greener" pastures only to realize it's just greener because of the dog shit. There is NO better place. You can always come home. Just depends on if the family is still there with open arms.

Then there was the time Tom Evans and I went to Tuolumne for a month of climbing. Our transportation was my motorcycle. Of course we had a tent, sleeping bags, foam pads, ropes, gear, shoes, cameras, rain gear, sweaters, helmets and cooking gear. All on a GS 550. We climbed almost ever day, all multipitch trad, with the culmination being a grade V alpine wall, the SW face of Mount Conness. The combination of world class climbing, and motorcycling through the High Sierra to begin and end every day's climb was a blast.

If you've never been to Tuolumne, get there. I guess I'd say the main feature is the world's cleanest granite. You're at pretty high altitude, so the summer weather isn't too hot, and pproaches are generally easy strolls through spectacular terrain, huge trees, alpine lakes, and such.

I'm kind of embarrassed that, at the end, I just couldn't face packing all our gear back on the motorcycle, so I made Tom take the bus home. He was kind of pissed, but our friendship survived.

I moved away from the Red for "better climbing" out West and question if I made the right choice all the time. I guess coming back for the summers will have to do for now.

I think the worst part of leaving is the packing. Maybe that's why i procrastinate so much when it's time to go. Besides, if the west was so great, it wouldn't be out there.

Yesterday in the Red was one of those picture perfect days. The friction seemed to be unreal.

When are you going to write a book about the early days at the Red...I mean Gorge... Larry?

I guess since I live in Lex and am in the Gorge quite a bit it may seem strange that I haven't climbed much here the last few years. For some reason, I got kinda burned out and disenchanted with the climbing here and felt better traveling. I've prolly averaged 3 out of 4 climbing trips in the last 3 years away from the Red, bouldering and chuffing all over the southeast. It felt kinda weird, maybe because things had changed so much the last few years, or maybe because I wasn't climbing so strong, but I just couldn't get jazzed about the climbing around here.

That's a monkey on my back I've finally managed to shake. Funny, but I think I can put my finger on when it changed. A few weeks ago I took a week day and hung out with one of my favorite people in the world. I had a great, mostly private day watching him cruise up all three pitches of my favorite route around here. Oddly enough, it was one of those olde school Larry Day routes called Jungle Beat.

So, that was one of the best days I've ever had at the red, and it got me jazzed to be here again. I think I've manged to finally come back home and I cannot wait to get down again this weekend.

CONDITIONS ARE PRIME!!!!!!!!!!!

*of course I'll be bouldering in Alabama next weekend

When I was in college in Georgia, I did a couple of long cross country road trips. We'd climb all around Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, California....but we always either started out at the Red River Gorge or ended there on our way back home. Each road trip, the Red was my favorite destination of the whole trip.

I've lived here for almost seven years now and the climbing just gets better and better. If anything, it's a curse living here because it's hard to get myself to go climbing anywhere else when there's just still so much I haven't done here.

There's nowhere else I'd rather be than climbing in our beloved Red River Gorge.