Eastern Kentucky has been hot. By itself, this would be manageable, but the humidity has been unrelenting for weeks on end, staying between 85-99%. Every time we take a shower, the clean feeling lasts for about 20 minutes before we immediately feel sticky again. Our van has developed such a damp feeling that we are convinced it has started to mold. Even days of heavy rain couldn’t break the humidity.
Everything here is so green… even the water.
On the bright side, the Red is so overhung that you can climb at most of the crags in the middle of a giant rainstorm, and the rough sandstone is still grippy in humid weather. So, despite feeling damp and uncomfortably sticky, nothing could prevent us from getting some incredible climbing in.
John on a typically overhung climb at Red River Gorge. Hypocrite, 12a.
We usually only get a brief taste of a climbing area before we move on to somewhere new, which doesn’t give us enough time to really push ourselves. Despite spending so much time climbing, we haven’t actually improved over the course of this trip. We decided it was time to buckle down and the Red is the perfect place to do it.
We purchased multiple climbing books and started making lists of the climbs we wanted to get on each day. I starting to make a concerted effort to get past my fear of leading. I can’t truly lead until I’m comfortable falling, so I’m trying to take a few falls on purpose each day. Still, every time I get above a bolt – even mere inches – I start gripping each hold in terror. It’s a slow process, but I’m trying to stay optimistic that with time and repetition there might come a day where the fear stops holding me back.
John climbing Eye of the Needle, 11b
As our last days in the Red are upon us, the weather has finally shifted, getting legitimately cold in the middle of the night and dropping to a comfortable humidity level. As much as we are disappointed with the timing, we are ready to move on; our fingers are so raw we can barely use them and we are downright exhausted. It feels like our vacation is ending and we are about to go back home… but then we realize that our vacation is simply continuing. The life of the full-time traveller is wonderful.
A view of the Red from inside a cave.
Ludwig met his dopplelganger!
My favorite cairn yet.
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