Red River Gorge

Planning climbing trips to the midwest is always a dicey proposition, especially in the springtime. Rain falls hard and frequent, leaving any plans at the mercy of the weather - especially concerning since there were about 15 of us planning on travelling to the Red. Most were making a six hour drive from St. Louis, but with three heading down from Boston, myself from Tucson, and two coming all the way from France, we were really rolling the dice with this trip. 10 Day Forecasts looked good, then bad, then good again. Hoping for the best, I loaded up my brand new (and free!) Osprey backpack, and headed to the heartland.

Then the worst happened - Eyjafjallajökull! With consequences as terrible as its name, the Icelandic volcano shut down European airways, making it impossible for Team France (Sophie's newphew and his wife) to make the trip to the States. We were down two already, but they remained with us in spirit, and also in cardboard.

Fabrice and Manon peering through the window of Miguels Pizza

The rest of us arrived safely, but with with a growing sense of concern about the trip. The forecast was getting worse and worse. I arrived late Wednesday night with Angie and Calvin, set up my tent and tried to get some sleep. Restless from the time in the car and anticipating all the sandstone goodness to come, sleep did not come easy.

I awoke the next morning and happily greeted everyone who was sleeping when we arrived the night before. Our posse rolled deep - Sophie (the remaining member of Team France), Capt. Burke, Calvin, Angie, Tall Tim, Yusuf, Dane, Little John, Yoli, Christian, Josh, Catherine, Woody, Thom, Kristin, baby Carrig and myself. A unique and diverse group including 2 doctors, a pilot, a lawyer, 3 math nerds, a lizard killing scientist, a waiter, a couple students and a few other random professions. These are the fools of Team Saucisson, and a truly incredible group of people to share 4 days in Kentucky with. We climbed hard, and laughed harder.

The first day we were blessed with perfect weather - blue skies and cool breezes. Perfect spring climbing weather. We headed down to the North 40 area and used this day to get reacquainted with the sandstone of the Red, and shake off the sluggishness from travelling. The following three days were not quite as nice - we were faced with off and on rain, and the looming threat of torrential downpours. We had laptops and iPhones all checking different weather forecasts, looking for one to be hopeful about.

The good news never came, but not to worry, as we had two things on our side. First, the Steepness. We knew that as long as conditions were good enough to make the approach to a crag, we would be able to find dry rock. The Red has numerous crags that stay dry in just about any condition. Secondly, we avoided staying at the classic Red campground, Miguels Pizza, and instead stayed at Lago Linda Hideaway. When the rains came, instead of our tents becoming islands in a pond (which is what happnes at Miguels), our tents stayed nice and dry underneath the sweet pavillions we could camp under. With an adjoining pavillion with picnic tables for cooking and hanging out, we only had to venture into the rain if we wanted to use the excellent bathroom facilities or head over for morning pancakes cooked by Linda. Delicious!

Over the next three days we sought out dry crags and classic climbs, all to great success. We climbed at Roadside, Drive By, Curbside, Bruise Brothers, Boneyard and Midnight Surf, each having many high quality climbs that stay dry in the rain. We threw ourselves at many fantastic climbs, including AWOL (10a), Breakfast Burrito (10c), Pocket Puller (10d), Fire and Brimstone (10d), Amarillo Sunset (11a), The Return of Chris Snyder (11d), Check Your Grip (12a), Ro Shampo (12a), Tic Tac Toe (12b), Iniquity (12b) and Beer Belly (13a). We had many successes, including Dane sending Ro Shampo, Krisitin crushing a 10c 3 months after having a baby, Sophie climbing strong after a recent injury, Burke going hard just a couple weeks after a bad fall....and many, many more. I climbed four days in a row (and did 30 routes in 4 days), and I can't remember the last time I did that. It was a blast climbing so much, but a week later I am still feeling it in my arms.

One of the best things about climbing is getting to test yourself on the unique climbing styles at different areas. Coming from Tucson, the climbing is a huge contrast from the technical granite we typically climb. The climbing here tends to be on gently overhanging rock, with juggy huecos and pockets, horizontal ledges, and iron plates. The routes are usually straight forward with easy to read sequences, except for on some climbs which are so featured and pocketed that you waste all your energy searching for the best holds. Fancy footwork isn't required too often, but you better be ready to face the pump factor, which sneaks up on you and hits hard. This style of climbing is more my style and preference over the vertical, crimpy granite of Mt. Lemmon. I really do enjoy the problem solving aspect of our more technical routes, though, and have learned to appreciate that more after four days of straight pulling.

Fortunately, we had many cameras to capture the action, including a couple high quality cameras and a couple of great photographers. Here are some of the best photos from the trip, blatantly stolen from Yusuf, Sophie, Yoli and Calvin. Thanks guys!

John on Iniquity 12b

Yoli cranking at Curbside

Calvin trying decipher slopers

Dane on the beautiful Amarillo Sunset 11a

Yusuf under control on Tic Tac Toe 12b

Beautiful backdrop for climbing

Sophie on the classic Ro Shampo 12a

Cell Block Six 12c, Midnight Surf Wall

Bruise Brothers Wall

Ro Shampo and Tic Tac Toe

Josh pulling on immaculate sandstone

For more photos, check out Team Saucisson, and for those interested in a good look at the Red, check out this excellent video put together by Yoli.

Another Lovely Evening at Joe's Anti-Grav Bar

New Personal Best at Gates Pass

There are no words for the feeling when you haven't been able to get out and work your favorite problems or routes for as long as I have.  School and life, it turns out, take a lot of attention and time-- more even than my new pitbull demands.

So, it was beautiful when I got out to Gates Pass on Wednesday and finally put to rest my blood feud with the Low Travers-- V5.  It was a personal best for me as well and, thus, doubly gratifying.  The video can be viewed as a kind of condensed version of my relationship to this route.  For more background refer to my summer of unfulfilled ambition. 

Crickets

I recently received this message from one of our more regular readers (maybe our only reader?).

"Not much blog activity. Getting out much?"

Good question. I haven't been too productive with internet output lately - on this blog and with the boulderingtucson.com website. Things have been busy, and while I have been climbing regularly, I haven't been able to squeeze in time to document it. I've been trying to find the time to add more to both sites, but with no luck. I know Dustin and Clayton have been super busy as well, so things have been a little slow here lately. So here is a quick and dirty run down of recent climbing exploits, and a couple sources of eye candy.

With all the recent rains we've had in Tucson, most of our stream beds have been pretty flooded, meaning most of our low elevation boulders are now islands. So for the time being I've switched back into sport climber mode, and have been mostly roping up lately. Have spent a lot of time at the Sun Spots Crag, a great winter crag with a good variety of challenging sport and hard trad lines. One exciting development there is a new line we have been toproping, with the intent of bolting it up next fall or early winter. The line follows a dead vertical, thin seam system for about 35 feet of DESPERATE climbing. It starts with a technical and very thin section, leads to a decent left layback, into a section of very powerful and tenuous right laybacks. The hands are good to decent, but the feet are nearly non-existent, forcing you into strenuous opposition moves up to a sharp, painful slot, and then to another section of hard, hard laybacking. Once you manage these moves, a fun section of 5.10 climbing leads you to the top. This route is probably the hardest vertical, technical climbing I have ever attempted, and will almost certainly be in the 5.13 range. I had tried it a few times without getting to psyched on it, then I discovered some really wild and cool beta that was much more fun, and am pretty excited to try it on lead next winter.

I've made a couple trips up to the Super Mega Secret Show And Tell Area (aka The Chessman), and have really enjoyed the routes up there. Two Kings and A Pawn might be the best 5.11 on the mountain, and Serf's Up is an incredibly fun 12a. I've got my eye on Kings Arete (5.13a), a beautiful green lichen streaked arete, but have so far not gotten on it.

We made a trip to The Helmet WAY too early in the season, and nearly got frostbite trying to do a 5.9 warm up. Once the sun hit us, we had a pretty good afternoon. I worked on No Climb For Old Men, I made progress, but I'm still not sure how old is too old. Do I need to get the redpoint before I turn 33? Apparently this amazing climb had not seen an FA, which I find odd, since it is such an inviting climb. 40 feet of 12a/b lead to the beginning of the business - 30 feet of pure horizontal roof climbing. Last year I tried the route a handful of times, but could never even get to the last draw and attempt the crux. This day I managed to figure out the beta for the difficult boulder problem at the end of the roof. Amazing movement and crazy exposure, I really want this route. It's so much fun, but having the endurance to do the last boulder problem after 25 feet of roof climbing is going to be difficult to build. Here are some photos Dustin took from that day: THE HELMET by DP

Dustin is becoming an extremely good climbing photographer, and also a super strong climber. After The Helmet, we headed up to the Matterhorn Boulder so he could try his hand at Jewel Thief. This is one of Tucsons most classic and difficult boulder problems, with a tall and intimidating crux way above the pads. Dustin has made quick work of deciphering the beta for this line, and was hoping to send. Unfortunately, his second try he fell making the last hard move, missed the pads, and jacked his ankle a bit. He will get this problem soon, though, and it will be a proud, proud ascent.

Lastly, I finally edited together some of the footage I took while in Hueco Tanks last month. I ran around North Mountain like a junkie in search of a fix, trying my hand at as many of Huecos classic problems as I could. My goal was to send one hard problem and then tick off as many 3 and 4 star problems as I could. I pretty quickly sent Daily Dick Dose (v7), which fulfilled my first goal. After that I tried a few more hard problems (namely Babyface, Baby Martini and Mexican Chicken), but mostly climbed moderate and easy classics, such as No One Here Gets Out Alive, T-Bone Shuffle, Lobster Claw and Melon Patch. Here is a short video:

Tamo - High and Low Expectations

This is Tam O'Shanter Peak:

On the left there you can see a portion of one of the many quartzite crags surrounding Tamo. The reason these cliffs have seen any development at all is pretty unusual. A few years ago a mining company set it's sights on extracting the vast copper deposits below some of the amazing climbing at Queen Creek, just 30 minutes north of Tamo. In an effort to appease the climbing community they paid John Sherman and a small crew to bolt anchors, scout boulders, and to write-up a guide for the cliffs around Tamo. The mining company also planned on buying up the private property necessary to secure 2WD access to Tamo, and proposed to turn the area into a State Park. The last two parts of their plan never happened, leaving hundreds of established trad and sport routes and countless boulder problems without legal, or by any means easy access. The link for the guide that Sherman wrote was quickly removed from climbtamo.com.

This spring break, when plans to go to Joe's Valley didn't work out, my brother and I decided it was time to get out to Tamo, finally. We eagerly contacted anybody who had been there via Mountain Project for directions and road conditions. We were surprised to get the guide emailed to us so easily; 40 pages of color photographs and descriptions for around 80 routes got us psyched for a new type of rock and an area that according to a man who has climbed in all fifty states "boasts arguably the finest stone to climb on west of the Mississippi."

The Road
We had read a trip report from 2007 that stated that access could be gained without opening any gates or crossing any private property signs. Armed with satellite images from Google and a printout of this trip report, we headed out early Thursday morning. The dirt road was paved for the first 2 miles, hugging the foothills of these limestone cliffs:



Soon we came to a locked gate marked "NO TRESPASSING." We backtracked to a turnoff for a small jeep trail and started up some tight switchbacks. The road was pretty bad. Granted our truck, a Chevy diesel is pretty wide, we found ourselves constantly checking the tires. To our left was usually a scary steep hillside, while on the right we were trying not to scrape the tires and wheels on large or sharp rocks.



The Rock
We arrived, set up camp, collected wood, drank a beer and bitched about the cold wind that was steadily gaining force. We then set out for the nearest crag, which happened to be a shady and sheltered top-rope area called The Corridors.

We did several routes, most of them overhung, and then went up a slab 11a. The rock features everything from sloping edges to boxy pinches, to sharp and round pockets. With mostly short routes on awesome rock, we walked away that night with mixed feelings about what to expect the next day when we would walk the mile long main wall, down to the ultra-classic 5.10, Mi Gusta.

The Main Area
The next morning, having still not seen the main cliffs, we wondered down the hillside above them, looking for the cave that would take us through the BBQ Gully. Once we made our way through a small chimney we finally got a glimpse of the cliffs and of the many large boulders below them. We started climbing pretty quickly.

The large red face on the left is the Overlook, over 100 feet tall and located on private land, and currently not developed.

The Red Wall, over 85 feet tall, sustained overhang with three truly aesthetic routes, 12+, 13+ and unknown.

When we finally made it to the day's goal, the "***OFF THE CHARTS***" 5.10 that Sherman dubbed Mi Gusta, we found a beautiful north facing cave filled with grass that sees no sunshine. We also noticed orange-colored water seeping out of the walls. The dogs were super stoked on the grass.


We ate lunch, and then got our asses spanked by Mi Gusta. Some of the moves are so long and committing and the holds so elusive that even the steady 5.12 leader would have trouble getting the onsight.

We honestly were completely unimpressed with the climb; outside of rock quality, meaning simply hardness, we couldn't understand the "***OFF THE CHARTS***" rating. At about 3:00, we left Tamo, utterly disappointed at least with the roped climbs (we didn't hike down to the boulders), and determined not to waste the last two days of our trip. I must say that if Tamo had received the attention (read funding) that it was originally supposed to get, if the road was easily navigable in a Civic, and if there were about 400 more routes, then it might be worth it to go there.

Sadly we still had a good two hours between us and our next big goal: cheap and awesome Mexican food and margaritas at Los Hermanos in Superior. We were headed to the Rhyolite climbs of Queen Creek, safe in the thought that Marty Karabin, one of the main developers there, had never let us down before.

Devils Canyon
The first route we decided to do in Lower Devils was an eight-bolt 5.8 called Hidden Splendor. To get to the climb you have to climb a chimney that involves a freestanding pillar no more than 3 feet in diameter. The approach comes up the center of the following photo, about 30 feet of unprotected 5.6 climbing, and lots of fun.



The route itself climbs through about 90 feet of awesome, sustained 5.8 climbing, and in our humble opinion deserves about 20 more stars than Mi Gusta at Tamo; Hell, I'd even give the approach as many stars as that 45 foot climb.


Having climbed in the shade all day we decided to go find something in the sun. Our search for warmer walls paid off with this:

Texas Duo, 5.10, climbs through 9 bolts of slab, overhanging, and exposed rock. While many of the holds sounded hollow, nothing broke, and the friction and shape to them was just incredible. In Queen Creek, hold grabs you.

Alien Abduction and The Bamba Wall
On our last day we decided to check out a V3 boulder problem that we had heard a lot about, called Alien Abduction. It climbs an overhung face with sinker pockets, friction crimps and several jugs. The top-out is actually the crux, requiring some small crimps and the use of a vertical crack. An awesome problem, and a good warm-up for our next stop.

An amazing sloper-pocket-pinch on a nearby stem-problem.

Next we went to the Bamba Wall, an amazing wave shaped rock with numerous top-ropes and two sport routes. The easier of the two routes is rated 12c and climbs a beautiful line up the face and finishes up a crack and dihedral. The crux seemed to be moving into the crack using small crimps.

We finished up the day by climbing as many routes as possible at the Davey Jones Locker and the Girls Locker room. While there I surprised myself by sending a problem that seemed impossible the last time I saw it, two months ago, no idea of the grade or the name.

In reluctant conclusion I have to say that even if Tamo was carried out to fruition it could never hope to replace the amount and quality of climbing in Queen Creek. I realize that one starred route and a few top-ropes is not really enough to judge an entire area, but with such short routes and quite a bit of bad rock I just don't see that much potential. It will be sad to see many of Queen Creek's areas disappear into the pits of mines, but at the same time, if we can preserve Devils Canyon, Oak Flats, The Pond and Atlantis, then I am more than happy to part with The Mine Area and Euro Dog Valley, especially if it means even a small number Arizonans get steady jobs out of it.