The Red (River Gorge) - Labor Day weekend

Climbers - Tall Tim, Carine, Doug, Angie and Calvin
Weather - good, bad, then ugly

First, a big shoutout for Deb's awesome power cookies. Doug also makes a mean banana bread. That couple can flat out bake, yo.

Day 1, Saturday. Weather: Good.
We made good time Friday night to get to Lago Linda's around 1:30am local time. The highlight of the roadtrip was passing a burning van; literally engulfed in flames, with people standing not 20 feet away and the cops just sitting there letting cars go by. The gas tank looked ready to explode in about 30 seconds, but I guess the cops had it under control.


Saturday morning we headed to the PMRP, parked at Sore Heel and headed to Rival Wall. Doug and I started on Days of Thunder 5.9, while Carine, Tim and Angie put up the draws on Rorschach Inkblot Test 5.8+. It gets the '+' for having an awful waisthigh shelf-start. Other than that, fun 5.8. Next to RIT is Monobrow .10a, which climbs crimps and uses an arete. Deserves at least 4 stars for tricky and intricate climbing. Tim did a great job leading and Angie and Carine TR'd. Doug and I also tried Lobster Claw, .12a. LC is a heavily pocketed vertical wall. It had a bail biner at the third draw, so we figured what the heck, if we can't send, then at least we have an easy way down. Turns out it was way fun; we both sent second go after beta burns. I think Doug could have flashed it but decided to 'fall' in the easy mid-10 part just to make me feel better. Thanks Doug!

Rival also has two long and fun .10c's: Delayed Gratification and Hatfield. Both are about 80 feet long and 'slightly pumpy.' Slightly my arse. After we put the draws up, Tim, Carine and Angie had fun climbing these.




















Day 2, Sunday. Weather: Bad


Sunday we headed over to the Gallery. The Gallery is home to 27 years of climbing 5.8, described as 'the best 5.8 in the Gorge.' Bold claim. I can't really evaluate it because I had to clean it in the rain. :) Angie and Tim took turns leading it, but Carine didn't get a chance due to sore fingers. We had enough time to also put up Murano .10b and Johnny B. Good, .11a (very soft), but the heavens opened right around noon. We sat under the cliff getting soggified until we decided on a dignified exit.

After heading back to the campsite, we talked over our options and decided to stop by Roadside (yes, our old rainy day standby) for a quick burn on Tic-Tac-Toe, .12b. Tim, Carine and Angie had declared themselves climbed out, so Doug and I tried this one.

TTT is a 4 bolt 60 foot climb, so it feels a little heady, but the climbing is juggy and pumpy and not too bad until the last bolt. Here, you probably have something like a V3/4 crux guarding the anchors. Doug returned the favor and worked beta out until finding a sequence and shared with me. Pumpy bastard (the climb, not Doug). We tried for a redpoint second go, but we didn't make it. Miguel's pizza afterwards made up for the lack of sending. :)

Day 3, Monday. Weather: Ugly.
Monday, we headed back to the Gallery to try and give Tim and Carine another chance on 27 Years. I didn't mention that the lines had been awful on Sunday. The word is out on 27 years, and however the climb actually is (it's good, but I didn't think it was I-N-C-R-E-D-I-B-L-E; okay, maybe I'm a cynic), people want to try it because it gets 5 stars in the guidebook. While that was being climbed, Doug and I put up A Brief History of Climb .10c and The King Lives On, .10b. Click on The King and check out the picture - I swear it looks right out of Jackson Falls. Climbs like it too. Me like. Very much. Doug too.
Look:


Angie decided to lead Murano, .10b and was having a great time until the heavens decided to open back up. That effectively ended our day. Carine and Tim both tried A Brief History of Climb on TR, and Doug graciously cleaned it. I used an existing bail biner to clean Murano and we packed up and headed out.

It was a partially soggy weekend, but we had a great time nonetheless. I hope to get back soon and try Different Strokes, .11c (supposed to be very atypical climbing for the Red and Mosaic). Here are the rest of the pics.

The Beach - Sept 13, 2009

Climbers: Chad Tenbroek, Calvin
Weather: Breezy and Nice

I forgot to update the blog on our recent trip to the Red 2 weekends ago. I'll get that up soon.

Yesterday, Chad and I drove down to "The Beach," a little collection of isolated boulders on the Illinois side of the Mississippi. It's not far from The Holies (which are now closed for the same reason Draper's Bluff got shutdown) or some other local bouldering spots.

We didn't climb at the Gallery, which is about 10 minutes away up the banks, but spent most of our day on the Sex on the Beach boulder. This is a house-sized boulder with problems all along the edges. Due to shifting water and sands, the starts were several feet higher than listed in Matt Bliss's guidebook, but we managed. :)

On the side facing the water are two face problems, the one on the left V0?. You start on a left pocket and jump to get your right hand into a crack/side-pull feature. I understand that higher sand makes for an easier start. To the right of this problem is a V1/2(?) with good face climbing moves. It's to the left of Jimbo and I understand it's not in Matt's book. Both had fun topouts.

Immediately to the right is Jimbo, V4. Probably the most fun I had. You start on good crimps, work your way up out a small roof and have to dyno (not really dyno, but definitely a big move) to a hard to see right-handed incut on the lip of the quasi-roof. Get your feet back on, move your left hand up and match on a slopey rail. Also good. Here, it gets a little harder: you bring your feet up and deadpoint to a right hand feature. The rock is rounded here in classic So-Ill style so you have to figure out blind feet placement, match and fight your way up a little. The second time was much easier than the first. Chad and I worked on this problem and had great fun.

Next was Sex on the Beach, V6 (soft?), to the right of Jimbo. Following a slightly steeper part of the roof, it's almost like Jimbo, except with longer moves and a couple harder to use holds. I got my beta wrong the first few times, then used a nice righthand hold I'd missed (assumed it was for the next problem since it was kinda far away) and sent it. There's a similar deadpoint move up top, but it's a bit further away albeit easier to use once you latch on to it. Chad skipped SOTB because of a left arm injury, and we had fun climbing Jimbo.

I don't have any pics b/c I forgot the camera, but the Beach is pretty scenic for So Ill. The river didn't smell too bad and a constant breeze kept things nice and cool. We got to wave at barges going by and the view from the top of the boulder is cool. We'll probably head back someday to check on the Gallery area, but this was a nice, short day.