Kentucky 2000!
April 20-24, 2000
It's spring when a young man's fancies turn to thoughts of... Road trip! Road trip! Amy and I set out from Baltimore with nebulous plans one Thursday morning. After several adventures in the wonderful state of West Virginia (really, it's a wonderful state full of interesting things to do and see and some very friendly people), we arrived in Lexington, Kentucky, my former home to help Dr. Mike LaFontaine, drown his worries and celebrate his newfound freetime and PhDness. Here is some of what happened...
Caving
Saturday: Arrising with aching heads and grim resolution, Mike, Amy and I headed down to Rockcastle County to do some caving. Armed with my Big Book 'o Caves (sorry, no, I can't give you a copy or even a reference for it), we sought out Smokehole Cave. After driving around on some very nice dirt roads through increasingly beautiful, rural parts of the world, we came to a place which looked right on the map. Furthermore, the road ahead of us split into a stream crossing or a rocky climb--both unsuitable for otherwise intrepid but elderly Honda Civics. Half a dozen large dogs across the road to give us a leisurlyo give us the once or twice over.
Approaching the gentleman working on his truck near where we had parked, I asked if this was indeed the place and whether he minded if we explored what I presumed to be his cave. He replied that yes this was the place and we were welcome to park right there. We should cross the river on the bridge over there and follow the fence to the left. Couldn't miss it. [It turns out, that this was not the cave owner. The owner's name is Bob and he lives a little farther down the road. Ooops! I hope he will forgive us our trespasses.]
Indeed, after marching through a lovely field full of wildflowers (such as trilium, dwarf iris, and columbine) and listening to Mike's astonishing non-stop indentification, we discovered the entrance which was huge and exceedingly obvious. After viewing a small dome with a lovely breakthrough, we hunkered down and started the section of 3' high passage. Unfortunately, I had neglected my kneepads and crawling over 200' of rubble soon made me realize what a wonderful invention such protective devices really are. Fortunately, the passage emptied into a large room full of breakdown with 10' ceilings and quite a few formations. Mike and I pushed into the southern end which featured a smaller chamber with some spectucular rimstone and speleotherms. Rejoining Amy, we discovered that she was being assulted by bats awoken by our lights and noise. While small and non-threatening, they never-the-less were startling when one strafed by at high speeds. We headed north toward the main bulk of the two miles of cave.
The first item of note was a spectacular 50' dome with falling water and many lovely formations. This cave is sufficiently far from the beaten path, and there are plenty of more accessible caves in the area, that vandalism has remained low and many of the formations are still present. We scrambled around in the dome for a time before heading on.
In a side passage, Mike discovered a whole colony of female bats roosting in a mass probably 18" square. They were packed in body to body and looked quite a lot like some sort of dark brown inclusion in a sandy, smooth ceiling. They squeeked and shifted in the light of our lamps and the whole feeling was very organic and scary. I can see why bats frighten some people. They're really weird!
Amy lead us on past a marker tube to a trio of tall, narrow domes. This marked the point where the easy walking passage ends and the crawling begins (see my comment about kneepads earlier!). The height of the passage drops to about 2' while the width remains at 50' or more. Furthermore, it's not flat and the undulations of the floor made distinguishing the passage from non-passage tricky. Navigation became very difficult. I followed a lead and discovered it closed off to a few inches. Amy found what looked like a wall was in fact a several foot drop which allowed us to continue. I discovered that the easiest, fastest and most comfortable way to travel in this kind of passage was to actually log roll tossing my pack and camera ahead of me every rotation. We spent quite a lot of time crawling (or rolling) about looking for the passage onward. Eventually, we declared ourselves lost and, after a bit of confusion, retreated to the triple domes to regroup.
Energy was flagging, so I urged for a quick investigation of the tunnel which lead to a parallel passage ("for future reference!") and then retreat. Despite looking quite passable on the map, the connector passage became fairly narrow and required a dicey 6' climb and squeeze through a tight, wonderfully muddy hole. While Amy and Mike stayed below the climb, I squeezed through. The parallel passage looked very interesting and was fraught with formations, but popular pressure and aching muscles made me err on the side of caution and return.
The trip out was largely uneventful. The 200' crawl was twice as arduous coming out as it was going in. @#$#@#$ rubble! @#$@#@$ kneepads. Mike's knee was behaving poorly as it was and I managed to whack my left kneecap on a particularly toothy peice of rock so we were in a foul mood when we finally emerged into the brilliant, scented outdoors.
Back to the car and back to Lexington for showers and dinner. Ah, a most excellant time in a cave which definitely warrants a return visit!
Climbing
Sunday: At last the long anticipated climbing trip to the Red River Gorge. There was one memorable camping trip here where Mike, his tent and the occupants thereof woke up halfway off a cliff. There was another long mountain biking trip in the spring of '96. But this was my first trip as a climber to the 'Red'. In Lexington, Mike, Amy and I met up with Steve Kaufmann and Jill Messer and headed out in Jill's truck with the Super Duper Stick Clip lashed to the roof (If you're going to use a stick clip, use a big one. This sucker telescoped to about 15'!). We met up with Jason 'JB' Burton, Honcho of the excellant KYWilderness website, at the Roadside parkinglot and headed up.
 Steve climbing the pocketty Motha (5.6). In the background is someone climbing Jump For Joy (5.9+). Photo credit Jason Burton. |
The weather was gorgeous and it was Easter Sunday, so the rock was packed full of heathen climbers enjoying the day. We hiked all the way to one end of the rock, failed to find any routes which were both free and doable by mere mortals, and headed back. The rock is very strange--lots of solution pockets from the size of fingers to the size of a beech ball. Nice, grippy sandstone, with alternating bands of pockets and largely smooth face. Most routes are 50-150' and some are feircely overhung. We eventually found a spot at the north end of the Roadside Wall and set up shop. Steve lead Five Fingered Discount (5.8), a thin, left-leaning finger crack, and I cleaned. After a little effort, Amy scampered up it as well.
The pocketty Motha (5.6+) next door gave us easterners our first taste of climbing the at the Red. Lots of little holds everywhere. Easy climb and fun. As Steve says, it's like holding on to a bowling ball.
Just down from that was the 5.9+ Jump for Joy so named because it starts from a large boulder and requires an initial lunge for a set of bomber holds. The route is harder than I usually lead, but with the bolts, I thought I'd give it a try. Clipping the first bolt from the ground, I smeared up to the first set of huge pockets (no jumping for those of us above 6'). The next bolt was similarly no problem but I had broken a sweat by the third. The holds were dusty and petered out above the third bolt. I traversed left in search of better holds. "Charles, where are you going?!" yelled Steve on bellay duty. Clinging to the best holds I'd found for a while, Elvissing like crazy, I noticed I was about ten feet above and ten feet to the left of my last clip! While it's easy to be brave above a bolt, a fall would have been interesting and pendulous from my position. I traversed back to the right standing on tiny ledges and catching an almost-fall. Swearing and dripping with sweat, I finally clipped the fourth bolt and clawed my way up to the rap chains whereupon I returned to Terra Firma. My first sport lead and hardest lead to date was definitely exciting and, in retrospect at least, a whole lot of fun.
 Roadside Attraction (5.7***). Photo by Jason Burton |
When everyone had sufficiently had their fun, we all retreated back down to the car and to the legendary Miguel's. Miguel makes pizzas (the veggetarian version is supposedly the best), rents camping spots down by the river and generally provides a hangout for apres-climb activies. I had heard much of this pizza joint from the locals and wanted to see how it compared to The Porch at Seneca. The verdict is that the pizza wasn't quite as good (which I downed like a starving wolf) but the atmosphere is just as fine. Tired, sore and happy, we retreated back to Lexington and, at length, back to Baltimore and our normal day jobs.
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