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The Red River Gorge (or simply the red) isn't really much of a gorge for much of the area, and it isn't much of a river at this time of year, it is more of an area containing a number of valleys and ridges. Some of them have steep sandstone cliffs, occasionally rediculously steep. The area is best known for long overhanging routes with generally good holds where you fall off not because a move is particularly hard, but you just can't hold on any more. It is said that the area has the biggest holds you'll ever fall off of. It might be true. The first order of business here is to develop some endurance if you don't have it already. That was certainly the case for me when I got to spend about 5 weeks at the red this fall.
When I arrived, I moved into the parking lot of Miguels pizza and found some people to head out climbing with. We went to the "solar collector" and I proceeded to pump myself out on overhanging 5.10d to 5.11d routes. The next day I recovered and hiked up to a natural arch at the nearby state park. As a bonus, there was a small cave you could go through. A typical day for me at the red involved getting up and cooking breakfast, then sitting around the smoldering fire seeing where people are heading out to climb, and who I could climb with that day. Then going out to climb for the day, returning in the evening to cook dinner and sit around the fire talking with others. When Spencer was around, some evenings had "wax bombs", this involves heating up a can full of wax (a huge busted up candle) until it is hot and smoking and burning on top. Then the can is put under the end of a pipe and the stove is removed. When everyone is back, water is poured down the pipe, and when it hits the wax, it vaporizes, spraying hot wax upwards resulting in an impressive fireball and mushroom cloud. Another afternoon I went shooting with a bunch of people. We went to the end of a dirt road and stood up a heap of plastic milk jugs and pop bottles and cans along the bank. Then we proceeded to shoot them with a variety of firepower ranging from a .22 rifle through handguns, an AK, some fancy rifle with a holographic sight, and a russian infantry rifle that was more like a handheld cannon. A few hundred rounds later, everyone headed home.
I realized I had too much old food in my food bins, so I decided to eat down my reserves. This wasn't a problem at first, but as time passed, and I ate things up, my diet started to get a bit odder. I ate a lot of pancakes, and my protein intake was suffering a bit 'til I got about 10 cans of giant squid in the form of imitation abalone when Kava left. It was not very flavorfull, almost like stringy tofu, but people really complained that it stunk when I was cooking it. I thought it was much ess offensive than the cigarettes that many smoked.
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Typically on weekends it was really crowded with maybe 100 cars in the lot (just a guess, it could be full) and lots of tents and people all over. Most seemed to have come from Kentucky and the surrounding states and Michigan, but there were also vocal crowds from as far away as Kansas and Missouri for college fall break, and a rather large and vocal Quebecois contingent. During the week, the numbers dropped a lot, but there were always at least 20 or so people staying there.
Back to the climbing... I managed to redpoint (climb cleanly from the bottom to the top without falling or hanging on the gear) few harder routes (for me) without falling, some sport climbs up to 5.12b, as well as many 5.11 sport climbs. I also did a few trad lines, including B3, which was a bit of an epic for me, as I misread it, and thought I could get a rest at one point, when actually that was the crux. Needless to say things were a little hairy, and I fully expected to take a big ride, but instead, I miraculously stuck the move and made it to a rest. Often, what seemed to be the critical factor in me being able to redpoint a climb is if there is a no hands rest on it somewhere - a slot or hole you can crawl into, or a knee bar or stem or something to give your hands a rest. I did feel like my endurance did slowly increase while I was there though.
The weather was pretty good while I was there, with a few cold days, and a few wet days. You could have climbed pretty much any day I was there, but some were a lot nicer than others. I was hoping for some more spectacular fall colors, but that didn't happen. It was amazing how many more cliffs were visible once the leaves started to fall though.
I ran into a few people I met before, so that was nice, but mostly it was a different crowd from most of my roadtripping. Some of the other "highlights" included "dance party 2005 - Rock out even harder", climbing in costume for halloween, and burning boxes and throwing rocks around the campfire.
One evening after climbing I was talking with some friends in front of Miguel's Pizza (where I was camping), and I looked enough like a picture of "Jake" that I was asked if I wanted to act for the next 2 days. That sounded interesting and profitable to me, so I said yes. It seemed like the only requirements were that I had to be able to rappel, function without my glasses, and be available for the next 2 days. All of the other actors they had were climbers except one who was some guy they found at a gymnastics place.
That night a cold front moved through, so things were a little chilly the next morning. We met up at Red River Outdoors where we watched a video from the interviews with 3 of the original participants in the events we were to re-create. This was for a Hallmark Channel series on heros, and the hero of this segment was Matt. He was a gymnast and coach who had run someone over accidentally a month or so before (there was a car crash at night and the guy was sprawled in the middle of the road), that wasn't the heroic part though. He was rappelling with his friend Jake and their girlfriends when Gabe lost control of the rope and zipped down the line, Matt jumped under him (to try to grab the rope to slow Gabe?, or to catch him) and got landed on. Gabe and Matt were helped out, but it was assumed Gabe was the injured party but all he had were some rope burns. Matt had a shattered clavicle and his scapula was split in 1/2 and maybe some vertebral damage too, in any case he was in the hospital for a while. I think they will intersperse the interviews with the reenactment footage for the final product (like they did for "Touching The Void"). By the time we had finished watching this, they had picked up the permit and we headed off to Gray's Arch where the original accident took place.
There was a lot of gear to carry the mile or so to Gray's arch, where we set up to film the stuff that took place at the top of the arch (arriving, setting up to rappel, fixing Gabe's knot and reminding Gabe to take his gloves, rappelling over the edge...). After lunch and a few more scenes, we headed back to the parking area to film meeting the EMT people and those scenes. That was enough for one day.
The next day was colder, but also sunnier. We filmed the actual rappelling scenes with a camera out on a boom as well as a camera person lowered over the edge of the arch. Then we re-created the fall and landing. This involved JR (playing Gabe) getting pretty much dropped with an open gri-gri (belay device) to about 10 feet off the ground, then Matt set up under him over a bouldering mat covered in leaves he was dropped the rest of the way from about 7 feet up. It looked pretty good and in fact people thought they had actually been injured in the re-creation the first time. They also put fake blood on his hands so they looked like they had been burned. As actors, they rarely told us exactly what to do or say, so we were just making things up as we went along. That was fine for a while, but after a bit, you would run out of inspiration, but the cameras were still rolling. Hopefully those parts will get cut in post production. They filmed more scenes including helping injured people climb back out after the accident, calling 911 from the top of the arch, and other fillers. One of the things from the original accident is the less injured guy got strapped down and taken to the hospital by the EMTs, and the guy who was really injured went in later on his own.
One of the things they kept reminding us was to wear the same clothes for both days. Really not much of a problem for dirtbag climbers, although we did get a bit bulkier from the added layers underneath our jackets.
The next morning we filmed a scene where we left Red River Outdoors to head off climbing.
So that is my bit of "hollywood" fame. I haven't gotten any calls from agents or anything yet. The show is supposed to air some time in March 2006 on the Hallmark Channel. I am curious to see how the final product turns out. It will be nearly impossible for them to entirely cut me out without really changing the story around or showing very little of the re-creation.
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