This weekend Mrs. Narc and I made a quick trip to the Red River Gorge in Kentucky, leaving after 7 pm Friday and returning before 7pm on Sunday. Over 1,000 miles of driving, 16+ hours spent in the car, 1 sleep-inducing midnight traffic jam in Indianapolis and 1 night spent in a thin walled motel room next to a couple that just got married. All for a quick 1.5 days of climbing. Was it worth it??? OF COURSE!
We started Saturday at the Chocolate Factory, a crag that is home to probably the most fun 5.10 sport route at the Red you should never visit because there are no fun routes ;). In the afternoon we ventured over to the Motherlode where I managed to finally send a route after 9 years of very sporadic failures attempts on a variety of lines there. I almost did a 2nd before coming to my senses and falling right before the last bolt. Sunday was spent at Phantasia where I managed to monkey my way up the insanely steep jug haul known as Twinkie (5.12a, how did I never try this route before???) before hitting the road.
After spending 95% of my climbing days at the Red over the years sweating and battling the humidity it was a real treat to climb in the amazing 60 degree, sunny and windy conditions that persisted throughout the weekend. Don’t look now, but I may be turning into a sport climber…
In actual climbing news that can be augmented with video, Jimmy Webb and Brion Voges both made quick repeats of Dave Graham’s Poudre Canyon classic Circadian Rhythm (V13) over the weekend. Check out some video of their sends below. The video also includes Webb making a fast 2nd try ascent of Both Sides Of The Spectrum (V12) in RMNP’s Moraine Park.
Colorado 1 from Jimmy Webb on Vimeo.
First vid of the season!
Including:
Both sides of the spectrum v12
Canopener V11
Whats left of the bottom of my Heart V12
Tilt Sit V8
Circadian Rhythm V13
Rumblings on the interwebs seem to indicate a confluence of very strong climbers in Colorado this summer. Should be interesting to see how the alpine season shapes up!
Hope that nice RRG weather holds for a while longer as I’ll be making my way there in a bit over a week. Definitely won’t be going at that choss pile chocolate factory.
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I miss the Red sometimes, but that first paragraph reminded me of everything I don’t miss about being a WI climber!
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Jerk! How far did you drive to go bouldering this weekend? 10 minutes roundtrip??
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I made a conscious effort not to mention that, but since you ask, Flagstaff is less than 10 minutes from CU. Eldo is about 20min. 1hr to RMNP, 2hr to Mt Evans, 2.5hr to Shelf Rd. Obviously I’m spoiled.
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I recognize both BSOTS and Circadian, but would anyone mind giving a rundown on the names of the other problems?
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I updated the video on this site so that it includes the names of the problems from the vimeo page
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