When one gives up the working life to spend 12+ months on the road climbing on anything and everything, it's safe to assume ones gear is going to deteriorate at a much more noticeable rate. With that in mind, one must be prepared to replace certain items as they reach their end, and there is no piece of gear in a climbers arsenal that is going to see more use than their shoes. Knowing this, it is the climbers responsibility to take advantage of discounted shoes while they can. This is something I did not do. Whoops. 45 days into this excursion, and this is what the only pair of climbing shoes I brought looks like.



Christmas for myself is going to have to come a little bit early this year.

Today we explored the boulder field out on the east side of the Bald. I'd like to thank the Asheville crew for the guidance and the pad coverage, Thanks guys! Probably would have never even found half of the lines you guys put us on today, and I can truly say that they were some of the best problems i've seen yet!













Thanks again guys! Hope to see ya out there again real soon!

Starry starry night...

Here's a few from today. Ended up taking quite a few more abstract shots than normal ones. Gotta be a little creative at some point or another.

Yet another day wandering around downtown Asheville...



Back to the Bald tomorrow.

Today, being Thanksgiving, we decided to give thanks to Rumbling Bald, and what better way to do that than by climbing all over it's gorgeous granite spires and slabs! David was the most thankful of all today, proven by providing a blood offering! By showing this extreme devotion, David is now eligible for the Thanksgiving Award, which will consist of one hot shower at the facility of his choice, one apple fritter from Starbucks, and a bandaid, not one of the boring ones, but a designer leopard print bandaid. Tastefully tacky. Good luck David! Our winner will be announced at midnight.







Now, off to the pre-awards party with some of our new friends in Aheville...

The town of Chimney Rock, just outside of Asheville, is a gorgeous place with just about anything you could ask for, except a coffee shop and cheap camping. Due to that fact, we are camping in 'stealth mode' as not to draw attention and hanging out at the Ingles deli to charge up electronics and do important Internet business, such as download free movies and see what everybody's doing on facebook.



The lack of any 'legal' place to set up shop and call home for the month hasn't detoured us away from the primary goal of bouldering as hard as we can, as much as we can. We've been hitting up The Bald as much as possible, taking in all the sights and putting up chalk where there was none. We're not letting the 'homelessness' affect us in any way, shape or form. When we need to eat, we simply go into town and set up the stove on the picnic tables. Sure, the tourist look at us funny for cooking on a gas stove in the park beside a diner, but when all's said and done, we're the one's who are actually getting out there, off the beaten path, and seeing the things that they wouldn't even know existed had we not gone out there, taken pictures and sold them to the brochure company! VIVA LA DIRTBAGS!!!

Rumbling Bald, day 1.

We decided to ride our bikes into town tonight, as not to have to worry about designated drivers, and it turns out that the nightlife in Asheville is just as amazing. Thank you Jessica and Nathan for showing us the spots, and thank you Rosetta's Diner for giving us a healthy vegan alternative to Waffle House at 3:00 am.





Bedtime. Gotta go find a campsite tomorrow and quite being spoiled rotten. Thank you Beth, Hutch, and the 3 stooges for letting us inconvenience them! We'll find a way to pay you back somehow...

Hey everyone! Sorry for the brief hiatus, but I've (a) had writer's block. (b) had photographers block. (c) lost my arms in a bear fight. (d) just been lazy. Pick whichever situation you choose, they're all true.

Now, onto the present. We left Red River Gorge yesterday afternoon, and are currently residing with Bryson's relatives (pictures to follow) in Asheville, North Carolina. Electricity, home cooked meals and sleeping on an actual mattress as opposed to my crashpad has been a wonderful change of pace, and I'm looking forward to doing it all again tonight, but I am starting to miss our nightly fires, and there's something so simple and rewarding about having to roll around in my sleeping bag for 5 minutes before it's actually warm enough to go to sleep.

Today was spent in downtown Asheville, and I've already fallen in love! From the curbside musicians to the double-decker bus converted into a coffee shop, this city radiates good vibes and hold an all around welcoming atmosphere. I'm actually finding it hard to sit down and post to this blog right now, simply because all I can think about is getting back into town to see if the city's nightlife can even come close to affecting me the way a bright, sunny saturday afternoon did.









That's all you get for now.

today was yet another day devoted to exploring our surroundings. We parked David's van just up the road from Miguel's Pizza, then drove Bryson's car up to the parking lot at Rock Bridge, over 18 miles away. That's where the hike began. I made it from the Rock Bridge to Chimney Rock, about 6.3 miles away, then turned around and hiked 6.3 miles back to Bryson's car at sunset. The rest of the hike has plenty of hidden arches and waterfalls to take pictures of, but seeing as the sun had gone down and there was no chance of getting any decent shots of any of these, I decided not to lug my camera and tripod the rest of the way. Now here I sit, eating a tasty BBQ chicken pizza from Miguel's, drinking a cold, frothy beverage and uploading the story and photo's of today to my blog while Bryson and David trek through the gorge in the dark. Have fun guys!









That's it for today. With any luck, we'll be back on the rock tomorrow.

Well, it would appear that during the winter, there is absolutely no point in the day where the north face of Half Moon gets direct sunlight, so that perfect landscape shot I've been building up for the past 2 days is a no go, at least till summer, when I'll be 3000 miles away. Anyway, here's the best shot I ended up getting of Half Moon, followed by a few extras from the Rock Bridge and Creation Falls, all in the east gorge.







and here's one of this evening's sunset from atop Chimney Rock. I've got a sequence of shots to piece together into a panoramic, but until I get photoshop, I'm only going to give you one of the 4 frames, and believe me, the other 3 REALLY set the picture off!

Got up to the East Gorge this morning for sunrise, only to find out that there's not going to be any sun on the Half Moon face until sunset. I'll be returning this evening, seeing as I made a promise to give you a good shot of the Half Moon, but here's one of the foggy gorge while you wait.

Ran into some familiar faces from Squamish and Hueco here in Kentucky on Thursday. Ended up having another Bulldog session with them, and it looks like both our crews are pretty much headed in the same direction, so these faces might be popping up on this page from time to time.



Over the past few weeks at The Red, we've started to develop a routine to climbing hard on the weekdays, and resting up on Saturday and Sunday, when the gorge is packed full of the weekend warriors. To pass the time today, we headed up into the east gorge to check out Sky Bridge, Half Moon and Chimney Rock. Here's some shots of each, minus Half Moon. Gonna start the day tomorrow with some sunrise shots of that, and those'll be much better than any I got today.







And here's one of the many nightly activities... punching the fire. Next trick, juggling coals...

Yesterday was spent at the Long Wall again. Our time at Red River Gorge is close to an end, and with that, comes the pressure to get back out and send all of the gems that shut us down in the beginning, and won't quit tormenting us at night.

Here's some of Bryson on Rock Wars and David on The Gift.







The Gift still has yet to go, as well as another boulder problem that might not have an F.A. yet...

Not much climbing over the weekend, but we still managed to keep ourselves entertained once we realized we had access to mountain bikes, shovels, rakes, and an excessively large mound of dirt. I managed to rip one of the 3 pair of jeans I brought, but other than that, everyone walked away unscathed.





After a much needed lazy weekend, we kicked off the climbing week on 2 trad routes. For those of you who aren't to sure what trad (or traditional) climbing is, it's a much less invasive style where the climber doesn't clip into bolts drilled into the rock face, but instead places their own gear in the natural features of the wall, then clips their rope in to that.
The climbers 'rack' or gear consists of nuts (a) and cams (b). These are what keeps the climber from hitting the ground if they fall.

(a)

(b)

With that bit of knowledge, I now give you shots from trad monday.







Now for the randoms of the week







and just a few more that scream Kentucky...