2022 Events

2022 was a great year for events! We partnered with many gyms and businesses to bolster our fundraising efforts as well as give back to the local community. Overall, the RRGCC was a part of twenty-seven events in 2022!

• LEF Boulder Comp
• Red River Reunion
• Women Rock at Climb Nulu
• West Sixth Trivia Night in Lexington
• Country Boy Tap Takeover in Lexington
• Climb L8 - 16 gym events spread out between Cincinnati, Lexington, and Indianapolis!
• Rock L8 - 2 outdoor trips planned in collaboration with multiple organizations and outreach across the tristate area
• JATD
• Rocktoberfest
• Access Fund Advocacy Conference
• Access Fund Future of Fixed Anchors Conference
• Muir Valley Trail Day

Trail Days

During Johnny and Alex Trail Day (JATD), we had over one hundred volunteers which completed twelve large projects. It was amazing to see everyone back together again to celebrate John Bronaugh and his son, Alex Yeakley, and to steward the lands that we love to climb. The RRGCC is very grateful for the support from the community and we hope to see you all again in 2023! Although, JATD is our largest trail day of the year, we had many other trail days in 2022. In total, the RRGCC hosted over twenty-five separate trail days and completed a total of over 1200 hours of trail work! These groups came from climbing gyms, universities, climbing teams, local climbers, and of course, the RRGCC land manager Curtis Gale-Dyer and his wife, Audrey. We were even lucky enough to receive help from the Access Fund Conservation team as well as Patagonia sponsored athletes! That’s a lot of time cutting trail, building belay bases, fixing bridges, and much more. With the help of Shannon Stuart-Smith, we even opened a new crag in Bald Rock Recreational Preserve (BRRP) named Hazel Hollow which boasts many climbs with a wide range of difficulty and a short approach. Thank you all that helped with these trail day efforts!

Rocktoberfest

Rocktoberfest 2022 was a huge success! Sponsors and vendors showed up in force with swag and excitement for all of the attendees. The "vendor village" at Land of the Arches campground was at max capacity with the likes of Quantrell Subaru, The North Face, Yeti, Black Diamond, Petzl, Sterling Ropes, La Sportiva, Quest Outdoors, Mosaic climbing gym, Ale-8-One, and many more! The event also had a speed climbing competition on Elemental Climbing's mobile climbing wall and a drop-tower for attendees to demo Bailout System's self-rescue device! We can't thank our sponsors, vendors, attendees, and volunteers enough for making this event possible.

Climb L8

The Climb L8 event was started in 2021 by the RRGCC's Education, DEI, and Outreach committee and the event is still growing! The monthly Climb L8 program has been funded by donations that we have received from Ale-8-One, local businesses, and dedicated donors. The community has supported the RRGCC's goal to promote responsible climbing and ensure that everyone has the chance to experience and appreciate the sport. This has allowed the RRGCC to partner with climbing gyms in Cincinnati, Lexington, and Indianapolis in order to assist people from marginalized communities that may not have had the chance to experience climbing otherwise. The Climb L8 event schedule for 2023 is currently being organized; it will be available on our website!

Rock L8

In 2022, the RRGCC utilized funding we received from Climbing 4 Change and The Friends of Muir Valley to expand on the Climb L8 program and take the initiative from the indoor climbing gyms to the crags in the Red River Gorge. The RRGCC partnered with Adventure Crew in Cincinnati, Amachi in Lexington, Friends of Muir Valley, and Bluegrass Climbing school to plan and execute two trips down to the Red and bring 28 individuals outside climbing for the first time.

Conferences

As you can see from our list of events, not all of the RRGCC events involve climbing gyms or beer. The RRGCC also had some learning opportunities in the form of conferences. Our Executive Director, Billy Simek, attended the Access Fund Future of Fixed Anchors Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. During this conference, we learned how other local climbing organizations (LCO) and the United States Forest Service (USFS) currently manage fixed anchors on their properties. These discussions helped us understand our own stance on bolting and how we should be involved with the anchors on our own properties. This led to the development of the RRGCC's bolting Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and Route Registration form. Read more about this below!

We also attended the Access Fund Advocacy Conference in Chattanooga, Tennessee. This was an amazing event where we were able to reconnect with folks from all over the southeast. We heard from many amazing speakers which topics ranged from land management and acquisition, to creating and supporting affinity groups. We were also able to tour some new properties in the Chattanooga area to learn about new ways to conserve and preserve the properties that we currently own, as well as any new properties that we may purchase in the future. It was great to hear all of the different perspectives from people in the global climbing community. Much of what we have learned is already being implemented into our work for 2023.

If you have any events or businesses in your area that you think the RRGCC should be a part of, please reach out to us at events@rrgcc.org.