I Heart Kentucky

I just got back from Kentucky a week ago & I couldn't have asked for a better week!  The weather was perfect, the company was priceless & the climbing was amazing.

I rented the big house on Miguel's property and shared it with six of my friends.  We divided into two carpools for the ride down from Boston and arrived on the Saturday evening before Easter. My carpool did a straight shot on Saturday (alpine start) & the other carpool broke up the drive between Friday & Saturday.

I knew what to expect as we arrived at the big house, having had the private tour from Miguel on my last visit. It's not the fanciest of places, but given our limited options in the Red, I think it was well worth the $40/night each. I was a little anxious to see if my friends agreed with my assessment. Other than some plumbing issues, I think we were all fairly happy

We all took turns preparing group dinners & managed at least one group breakfast as well. With a larger group, meal planning can be fairly difficult, but I think it all worked out well. I was the only one with a dietary restriction (vegetarian), but I relaxed this for the week & ended up eating chicken for three of my dinners and bacon with one of my breakfasts. It all tasted delicious & I was quite happy not to have Miguels pizza for every dinner (although we did eat Miguel's twice).

We managed to climb for four days while staying in the Red, with one rest day in the middle. Perfect. I lead 13 climbs on this trip, one of which was my first 5.10a! This was definitely the highlight of the trip for me. I ticked this off on my first day. We were climbing at the Chocolate Factory in the Motherlode Region & after top roping Sugar Rush, I decided that it would be my first 5.10a lead. Why is a climb so much more difficult on lead? I flew up this climb on TR, but only managed to make slow, steady progress on lead. The remaining three days were all spent at Muir Valley. Such a beautiful place! I could have spent everyday climbing there, but was glad to venture out to a new area from my previous trip. I repeated some climbs from my previous trip at the Bruise Brothers Wall, but also climbed in the Boneyard, Practice Wall & Guide Wall.

Can't wait to go back... If only I had more vacation time!