Kentucky- The Red River Gorge!!!

This blog has been created to document our 10 week rock climbing road trip around the USA and Canada.

Hope you enjoy!!!

After various set backs and car troubles, Ryan, Elan, and I finally hit the road around 10:30am Saturday morning (after a quickly stop at MEC of course). We would have left Thursday, but Elan had the car blues which began when the air conditioning on his new car was broken, worsened when the mechanic, after fixing the A/C forgot to screw in the bolts for the tires so the tires fell off and the whole car basically dropped after he tried rolling it out of the garage. Then Elan was convinced he had a flat tire and made us stop every so often to check it, but really it wasn't flat. Anyways, as I was saying, we finally began our road trip Saturday morning. First stop was Kentucky, 10 hours away, where we would meet up with our other rock climbing buddies for May 24. Nothing too interesting to report about the car ride, it was pretty generic. Elan and Ryan may tell you I had gas issues, but they don't really know what they are talking about. Worth noting however is the fact that 3 people managed to fit clothes, camping gear and climbing gear for about 3 months, plus a cooler and 2 guitars...pictures of Elans driveway full of gear will soon be added.

We rolled into climbers haven (Miguels) at around 11ish. Miguels is an awsome campground for climbers only equipped with a restaurant that creates the most amazing pizza you will ever taste. We met up with our friends, quickly downed some cold alphaghetties, grabbed the brandy we picked up at duty free, then got back into the car to drove to a party that was supposed to be 5 minutes away but ended up being 30. Party was kinda wild. It was made up of climbers who were all pretty much convinced they were going to get up at 8 the next day to start climbing but we all know that never happens. Also worth noting is the fact that I am going to permanently switch my drinking preference to Brandy because it is amazing, and the fact that it is almost impossible to find weed in the states.

Sunday morning we woke up at 7:00, then went back to sleep until 10 (I blame it on the brandy). The crew headed over to Muir valley where we went to the crags Tectonic plates and Johnny's way. Climbing was fantastic. We stayed until after dark and had to do a long uphill hike back to the cars in the pitch black (Elan and Steve held hands the entire time). We were convinced someone siphoned out gas but really it just took the car a while to warm up (elan is clearly paro when it comes to his car). Made it back to Miguels around 10 and made a mouth watering feast of steak and potatoes mmmmmmmm.

Bitches and Roses
Elan: B= parking the cars; R= crankig over the roof on the trad climb; R= being able to start his standard car on a hill; R= watching Ryan clean his first outdoor climb.
Sam: B= chickening out on the 5'9 lead climb; R= the 5"8 slab climb
Ryan: B= Ryan has no bitch; R= the smiley cup

To be continued.............