Rock Magazine

America’s best sportclimbing? Ross Taylor ventures deep into the bible belt of Kentucky to find out

Sitting in front of your computer back at work after a holiday, the unreliable hold-all that is your memory tends to sift the quotidian detail down to a handful of indelible memories. Thinking back to my time in the Red I remember a few things with clarity: the feeling of pumped forearms; Miguel’s pizza; the drag of my skin across the gritty sandstone; the building screams of climbers through the trees and then the final scream of dismay at a last move failure; the toothless old man in the beer trailer calculating the age on my ID in a long, stoned silence; that moment in the forest on the first day when I stopped and listened to the sound of fall – leaves dropping from the trees like gentle rain. Even now the memory of the endless hours in the plane have faded to nothing more than mild discomfort, along with too-sweet icecream, percolator coffee and the orange substance that passes for cheese. That’s the true beauty of the human brain.

The Red River Gorge, in clichéd parlance, is a cut-lunch and camel ride away, 15 hours of cattle class misery across the Pacific to LAX, then onwards back in time over the canyon-riddled West Coast, the plains of the mid-west to Chicago, where you turn south and decamp in the horse-mad city of Lexington, Kentucky. Aside from horses, Lexington has so many churches that the so-called ‘City of Churches’, Adelaide, should hang its Godless head in shame. Until you visit the Bible Belt you won’t understand the power of God, or tax free status.
. But to the climbing. An hour from Lexington in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains lies ‘the Red’ (as everyone calls it), a sport and trad climbing Mecca. The rock, called Corbin Sandstone, is a kind of cross between the Blue Mountains (without the sharpness) and Nowra (without the grease or bogans [substitute them with hill billies]). The climbing is best classified as fun: it is low-admin, easy to read, well-bolted, softly graded and there is a lot of it. While there is the whole gamut of styles – cracks, slabs, roofs, etc – everyone comes for the pumpy sport climbing. Those who like hard moves have come to the wrong place, in two and half weeks I only came across two hard moves, and they weren’t that hard because I could do them.
On arriving in the Red you quickly adapt to the pumpy style by adopting what is known as ‘paddling’. Paddling means that you don’t stop, you just keep moving, because if you try to hang out you will get pumped. Instead, you paddle, left, right, left, right – nothing too tricky, until your burning forearms clip the chains or you peel off screaming.

The Areas

Here is a brief rundown of the best, there are many more than mentioned but we didn’t get time to visit them all.

Muir Valley

The Muir Valley is a privately owned property that is miraculously open to all climbers and walkers courtesy of owners Rick and Liz Weber. The area is accessed from a central parking area and is a paradise for sport climbers who climb moderate grades. The Muir can be extremely busy on the weekends, but there are 23 different crags, so it is possible to move around to find free routes. There is also a range of areas that are in the shade or sun at any particular time of the day. My favourite areas were Midnight Surf – which is in the shade all day and has a bunch of fun routes that are quite unique in style for the Red (big moves and blocky; the Solarium – as you would guess sunny, but with some awesome steep soft ticks; and Bibliotek – where all the routes look the same and climb the same but are still ridiculously fun and pumpy.

Natural Bridge

The areas that fall within the Natural Bridge area are the closest to Miguel’s Campground and because of that they can be super busy. Probably the most popular crag in the Red is Roadside, which is both convenient and has a bunch of excellent routes – though nothing much hard. Also nearby is Torrent Falls, which is on private property. You are allowed to climb there, but you can only go on certain days and you have to register. Lots of people rave about Torrent, I thought it was okay but not worth the hassle of getting in there, although if you can register on the weekend the fact that they limit the numbers means it never gets too busy.

The PMRP and the Motherlode

Pendergrass-Murray Recreation Preserve (PMRP) and the Motherlode are in the same valley and is the best area we visited in the Red. The Motherlode is an incredible amphitheatre of steep, pumpy sandstone up to 40 metres high in places. Watch out the body parts scattered at the base of the crag, these are the remains of climbers who climbed until they literally exploded in a cloud of lactic acid, chalk and limbs. Just down the road you will find the PMRP, which is actually owned by climbers (although it has a an oil lease operating it on it, so don’t be surprised to smell petroleum on the breeze). The PMRP is home to 20 different crags, all the areas we visited here were superb, including the Gallery, Bob Marley Crag and Drive-by Crag, while we didn’t visit it, the Dark Side is reportedly one of the best areas in the Red for anyone who climbs 5.12 plus.

Gray’s Branch

Another area that isn’t too far from Miguel’s. Our first day in the Red was spent at Military Wall, which has an excellent ranges of grades and routes, although it is another popular destination. We never made it to Left Flank, but for those climbing 5.11 plus it is apparently a superb destination.

Beyond these four regions, there were another seven regions we didn’t visit, including dozens and dozens of crags. And if you get bored of the steep fun Corbin sandstone? Four hours away in West Virginia is the New River Gorge and thousands more routes on sandstone that has been compared to Arapiles or the Grampians.

Accommodation

The beating heart of the Red is Miguel’s Pizza, an iconic pizza restaurant and campground run by a guy called Hamish (just kidding, Miguel the pizza making genius runs the show). Miguel’s is where most climbers stay, camping in fields out the back. On busy weekends it can be packed with literally hundreds of tents, which means it is sometimes noisy and definitely not for everyone. But it has a big shower block, washing machines, a covered cooking area, a basement where you can plug in your laptop/Iphone and only costs US$2 a night, plus, and this is the most awesome bit, you can eat choose-your-own adventure pizza every night of the week – providing your arteries can handle it. The Belgian waffles with cream and fresh fruit for breakfast are good also.
Miguel’s is great if you need to hook up with people to climb. It is also central to a lot of the climbing. Another popular campground is Linda Largo’s, which is closer to the PMRP, and apparently a bit quieter although more expensive with powered sites. The powered sites are nice when the weather is cold, one guy told me he had an electric heater in his tent. Depending on your budget there is plenty of places where you can rent cabins, these can be pretty affordable if there are a few of you.

Rest Days

Kulture comes with a capital K in Kentucky. I would like to recommend Lexington, but I can’t – it is a misery of circular roads around a dead heart. The best Lexington rest day activity suggested to us was the cheap lunchtime Indian buffet at Masala (eatatmasala.com) alongside dimple-armed Americans, followed by a dodgy dollar film (carmike.com), although a $4 film is better (cinemark.com). Cincinnatti is worth a trip, particularly to visit the Creation Museum (creationmuseum.org). There you can find many scientific explanations as to why things are as they are, like ‘Because God made it so’. Only in America you think, but then you find out that the museum was started by a Queenslander. Although it isn’t built yet, they are also planning to build a $150 million replica of Noah’s Ark that is 500 foot long nearby. That would also be worth a visit.
Rest days at Miguel’s can be very fine. From the campground it is worth walking or running up to the Natural Arch. There is also a paint gun place just down the road for those who like their pursuits more violent. Another rest day activity is visiting the small town of Stanton to stock up on food, worth visiting is a small and insanely cheap cafe there called Bruen’s where you can experience a genuine small town American 1950s-style diner.

When to visit

The best time to visit is in the fall (September through to November), but March through to May is also good. Apparently you can climb all-year around, but summer is extremely humid, while winters are cold by Australian standards. We had superb weather while we were there, but if it rains – and it really comes down when it does – many of the crags, like the Motherlode, are so steep that you can still climb.