Join us for the Outdoor Clip n' Go Comp

Rocktoberfest is about celebrating the Red and our property, the Pendergrass-Murray Recreational Preserve. It has hundreds of classic and beautiful routes. What better way to enjoy them to time you guys and throw prizes your way to make sure you get outside now and again.

So come out and compete in the 3rd Annual RRGCC Rocktoberfest Clip and Go Climbing Competition at the Sore Heel Crags.

Location : Sore Heel Climbing Areas (guide) (map)

Date : Saturday, October 9, 10am – 5pm

Cost : $15 / Person, $25 / team

The rules are simple.

1. Points are earned by bolts clipped on redpoint.  Go ahead try as many times as you want, only your high point counts.  The anchors always count as two bolts.
2. There is a multiplier for difficulty so harder routes are worth more points per bolt than easier routes.
3. Stick Clipping the first bolt is allowed, however you must attempt the route.
4. If draws are hanging cool, if you hang ‘em that”s cool too.  There is no difference in points.
5. There are 3 catagories for your pleasure (3 each for Men’s and Women’s).  Beer, Bourbon, and Ol Stones.  Just like in real life the beer can take care of many issues however the bourbon is for the harder problems.  The Ol’ Stones are just there to heckle and have fun and support the cause.
6. This year we have added a team division – two climbers can compete together.  Total points makes the team score.  (Note: While you can enter the individuals event online, the team comp must be entered day of the event. The team entry cost is $25 for two people).  Of course you can enter both the team competition and the individual comp, however you must pay for both.
7. There may be mistakes but the scoresheet is the final word.
8. Finishing time of 5pm means that you have to have the score sheet turned in at 5pm with the scores tallied.

Pre-register online or at the event or even at the sore hill parking, day of the event.

For All Climbers, A Reminder

To ensure that all the comp participants have adequate parking, Sore Hill parking lot will be open only to competitors on Saturday until 2:00pm.

Here are the competition score sheets so you can make your strategy.

Individual Score Sheet

Team Scoresheet

The Citizen Climbing Comp, November 13, 5pm at Rockquest

The Benchmark Outfitters and Rockquest, long-time supporters of the RRGCC from Cincinnati, are stepping up and hosting a climbing competition of their own doing.

What: Setting the Benchmark: A Citizens Climbing Comp

When: Saturday, November 13, 2010 5:00 PM

Where: RockQuest
3475 E. Kemper Road 
Cincinnati, OH 
(513) 733-0123

Come on out and climb for the Red River Gorge Climber’s Coalition at RockQuest! This is a citizen’s climbing comp, so all are welcome to climb!

Entrance Fee is $25.00 due at the start of the competition.

Sponsors include: 
Benchmark Outfitters, RockQuest, FiveTen, Arc’teryx, Black Diamond, and more to be named.

For more information, visit the competition information page.

The RRGCC April 17 meeting. We didn't get quite this close..

Another meeting down, another docket of business together, another set of cookies, stickie buns, and brownies put away.. Yep, the April 17th meeting of the RRGCC is all but history with one of our larger crowds in hand, likely due to some of the spring’s best weather to date.

If you missed this one, have no fear – there’s one tentatively scheduled for July 24. Check back again (or subscribe to our feed) to find out the details. In the meantime, read over the proceedings from this last meeting to stay up with the current happenings and updates.

Read more after the break..

The meeting started with introductions to the Moore’s, the very welcoming owners of the white house on Bald Rock Fork Road. With some recent events, they’ve come to own most of the land near the top of the hill to the Southern Region. Having noticed the number of climbers that come by (and the number that need a hand getting up the difficult hill to the Southern Region), they came to the RRGCC to discuss options regarding parking near the top of the hill. The RRGCC and the Moore’s will be coordinating the best solutions for both parties and look forward to working together in the future.

The RRGCC is doing a partnership with Leave No Trace (LNT) again this year.  The USFS is working with the LNT organization to work on a new program LNT is running, the Leave No Trace Hot Spots. The RRGCC will also be looking into the possibility of bringing a trainer course or scheduling a visit from the Traveling Trainers sometime this year.

Bill Strachan, the Executive Director who has committed a lot of time and energy to working with the USFS, informed the group that the Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) was approved. It’s been a long process and this helps bring the RRGCC and the USFS closer to working together on using and maintaining crags on Forest Service land. However, more work still needs to be done and Bill and the RRGCC still needs to draft a climbing management plan (CMP).  This plan must be approved both by the RRGCC and the USFS.  Bill explained that to improve “system trails”, which are official, published trails, such as the trails that start to Military and Left Flank, the climbing community needs to contact the USFS for permission to address the trails.  ”User trails”, such as those to Phantasia, cannot be improved or maintained until the climbing management plan is approved and published.  The CMP will likely be drafted by the end of summer and approved by the RRGCC BOD at the September meeting.   At that point, it will be submitted to the USFS.

Josephine gave a brief recap of the Red River Reunion, which was put on by Miguel’s Pizza.  By the end of the night, Miguel’s had helped the RRGCC pull in over $2,900!  Rick Bost helped to organize and run the climbing competition at Torrent Falls.  In the future, we’ll be working harder to get the word out about the climbing competitions. As it was, more than twenty people competed and most of them walked away with some pretty handy prizes. It was also proposed that we have a raffle and silent auction at Rocktoberfest.

The Managers, Mike Driskell and JR Goodwin

Mike Driskell gave a brief recap of the Roadside trail day.  In addition to the improvements, he and JR Goodwin expressed concern about the dilapidated state of the slab wall base. One option he presented involved building a retaining wall and a fence similar to what is currently in place at Animal Crackers Wall in Muir Valley. He also discussed building a split rail fence to keep the general population from spreading down the hill.  Since any actions would need to be coordinated with the land owners, no action was taken at this time.  Mike is planning another trail day for Roadside in the spring of 2011. Later, Mike showed off some signs that he’d made for around the area. Keep an eye out for some nice looking signs and remember to thank Mike for the efforts.

Matt Tackett of Red River Outdoors discussed the mountain bike trail building on the PMRP.  Thanks to several weeks of hard work, Matt mentioned that the trails are really coming along nicely. Every third Saturday he and a small crew are doing a small trail day to work on the trails and hey’re currently working 70 to 80 hours per month. Matt Tackett has written a grant to fund the trail building and that grant is currently pending approval. Should the grant by approved, Matt will be more strongly promoting the trail days and the trail building effort.

JR Goodwin, racked with the guilt of having yet another birthday, volunteered his big day to host a trail day on May 15, likely at Dark Side.  Also, JR and Mike Driskell are asking that the RRGCC website have a place for people to “report bad trails” and Yasmeen Fowler and Paul Vidal were volunteered to implement this feature. Matt Tackett also suggested doing a trail building clinic for people that are interested in building trails.  IMBA has a great program and Tackett suggested imitating it. Eastern Kentucky University has environmental impact programming and the RRGCC may try to reach out to this group to see how we can work together.

Earlier in the meeting, the community was informed of a climbing accident that occurred at the Dark Side. Details were fuzzy but, having been on the scene, JR was able to give a slightly more complete picture. One thing that JR explained was that Lee County could use assistance with regard to preparation for climbing accident rescues. For example, they are in need of  wheeled rescue litter and directions and descriptions of the crag locations. Rick Bost promised to research the cost of the litter and the RRGCC will strongly consider purchasing it for them. Another effort that would go a long way to improving the situation would be to establish better communication with the Lee County Search and Rescue (SAR) with possibly an appointed RRGCC liaison.

The RRGCC Credit Card. Sign up and help the RRGCC earn $50!

With the mortgage still the top priority, the topic of fundraising spurred plenty of ideas. Rick Bost further explained the new RRGCC credit card.  After the first purchase, the RRGCC gets $50 and 0.3% of all purchases after that. Josephine Neff asked that the RRGCC purchase logo items for sale. Specifically, she suggested a coffee mug, flask, and beer koozie and the Board agreed to get back to Josephine with a vote with two weeks. Bill also suggested leveraging large donations to use as incentives for matching donation drives.

For Rocktoberfest, the RRGCC is working to host the event at the same location as last year. As for managing the waste, Mike Driskell asked that we promote aluminum can usage so that we can recycle them for income at Rocktoberfest. Mike Driskell volunteered to talk with the Beer Trailer about putting up signs encouraging aluminum can use. Also, Joe Haynes suggested outreach programs at the school systems, something the RRGCC has tried to incorporate with past Rocktoberfests. JR proposed giving a day of guided climbing for students who get a certain GPA. Tackett suggested we do a scholarship for local residents for U-Climb. In support of Rocktoberfest and other events, Josephine will be working to get a few vinyl signs that says “RRGCC” of some sort.

Thanks for reading over things.. If you’d like to get more involved, we’d love the support. Just let us know and we’ll get you plugged in. If cash or credit card is your prefered donation currency, we’re happy to accept that as well.

We look forward to seeing you at the next meeting.

This past year had a lot of exciting happenings for the RRGCC.

The year began with a large ice storm.  Bill Strachan worked with 5 climber volunteers and three US Forrest Service personnel.   On February 21, 2009 they cleared storm damage in Martin’s Fork area, which includes the approaches to Military and Left Flank.

Todd McCormick and the University of Pittsburgh hosted a climbing competition to raise funds for the RRGCC.  Their event raised $1,125!

On April 11, 2009, Miguel’s hosted Red River Reunion to benefit the RRGCC.  The event included a shoe demo by 5.10, climbing competition at Torrent Falls, Rodeo Clip contest, as well as booths by 5.10, Petzl, & Black Diamond. The evening ended with the Stone Alliance Film Tour, music and, of course, a giant bonfire.  The event raised over $500 for the RRGCC.

This year, we kicked off our grassroots, community-led trail program. Rather than rely on one large trail day to accomplish much needed work, the climbing community broke the work up into smaller chunks, maintaining their crags with smaller, more focused trail days.

Jack Dickey got us started with the Spring Trail Day on April 18, 2009.  He headed up a crew of 16 volunteers and tackled projects in Sore Heel Hollow.   The trail crew repaired trails damaged by the winter ice storm.  They began stabilizing and reclaiming the denuded hillside leading down to the parking lot and made a specific path for trail that traverses top of said hillside.  They built stairs for the beginning of that trail.  In addition, they improved the bridge to the Gallery and built a new bridge on the trail to What About Bob Wall.

Phillip Gall’s partnered with Patagonia’s 1% program. They raised more than $1200  for the Coalition in 2009 in addition to several generous gear donations!

On June 13, 2009, Mike Driskell and Driskell Home Repair continued the trail day initiative by conducting a trail day at Roadside.  He and his crew were able to remove downed trees that had fallen across the trail, relocate and widen the start of the trail.  They then added stairs to the beginning of the trail and added water breaks to the new trail and portions of the existing trail.

We made our $30,000 mortgage payment on July 15,  2009.

On August 1, 2009, the Red River Gorge Climbers’ Coalition hosted their most successful trail day event in their 13-year history. Over 90 people came together to lend their skills and talent to developing new trails, and rehabbing existing pathways on the Pendergrass-Murray Recreational Preserve. Additionally, the trail day most certainly ranks as one of the largest Access Fund sponsored Adopt-A-Crag events in 2009!  Work was accomplished in Sore Heel as well as at Darkside, Drive-By, Bob Marley, and Crossroads.  Afterwards, the volunteers enjoyed live music, food, beer, and the 100-foot-long slip-n-slide!  Special thanks goes to Sandy Davies for organizing this event.

In other exciting news, for the first time ever the Johnny and Alex Trail Day raised money for the coalition, both in private donations and sales at the event.  The event raised $800!  These funds and donations of goods and services from our generous sponsors financed that great party.

Red River Outdoors partnered with Mountain Gear’s to host their U-Climb clinic.  It was held on September 12 & 13, 2009, and both Mountain Gear and Red River Outdoors donated proceeds to the RRGCC.

Then, on September 26, 2009 RockQuest Climbing Center & Benchmark Outfitter put together a climbing competition to benefit the RRGCC. Climbers competed for excellent prizes from vendors like The Benchmark Outfitter, Sterling Ropes, Arc’Teryx, and La Sportiva.  The event raised $500 for the RRGCC!

Finally, the RRGCC wrapped up the year with their 9^th annual Rocktoberfest on October 9-11, 2009.  The event kicked off on a rainy Friday with vendors, a dyno comp, movies, milk crate stacking, funnel cakes, games, and a great DJ.  On Saturday, the rain held off for the climbing comp in Sore Heel.  This was followed by water balloon launching contest, dyno comp, dunk tank, a milk crate stacking challenge, movies, live entertainment, and vendor giveaways and raffles.  The event raised $12,500 for the RRGCC.

As of right now, we have only four annual payments, approximately $118,000, left before we’ve fully paid off the mortgage.  We’re all counting down to our last payment on July 2013. Thank you for your help and we look forward to owning the Pendergrass-Murray Recreational Preserve!

September 26th at Rockquest, Cincinnati: Benchmark Outfitters will put on a comp to benefit the RRGCC

This September 26 in Cincinnati, at RockQuest Climbing Center, Benchmark Outfitter is putting together a climbing competition to benefit the RRGCC. Starting at 5pm, climbers will compete for excellent prizes from vendors like The Benchmark Outfitter, Sterling Ropes, Arc’Teryx, and La Sportiva. And while they’re pulling down, the $25 entrance fee will go to support the RRGCC in our mission to secure the PMRP.

Don’t miss out on a great chance to have a blast and support the Coaltion at the same time!

For more information, call 513-791-WILD (9453). Or check them out Benchmark Outfitters on Facebook.