If you want to find climbers in the Red you head to Miguel's Pizza. You'll find them camping out, eating delicious pizza or cooking on a camp stove, and slacklining to pass the time between climbs. In the morning at Miguel's I had met a group of climbers from Spain that appeared to be super strong. Turns out that two of them, Pablo Barbero and Pablo Beltran, are firefighters that climb 5.14's regularly. They tell me to meet them at Drive-By Crag in the afternoon. Despite it being October the temperatures are in the 80's, and they do not want to climb in the sun. With the heat and humidity, the friction of the rock is not ideal for climbing hard routes. Ideally you'd want it about 20º cooler.

By the time I get off my perch at Purgatory and hike to Drive-By, there is not a lot of light left. Pablo Barbero is just jumping on Kaleidoscope 5.13c, so I don't have time to get a position off of the ground. I was really hoping to shoot more, especially in some different areas other than Purgatory.


Saturday at Rocktoberfest is the main event. Hundreds of climbers compete in an outdoor climbing competition at the Motherlode and other areas off of the Sore-Heel parking lot. It would have made sense for me to be there to photograph as much as possible, but of course, I got sidetracked. Neal was attempting God's Own Stone at the Gold Coast on the other side of PMRP (Pendergrass-Murray Recreational Preserve) and I went to capture his efforts.
The sun goes down over the red rocks and the autumn leafed trees. Everyone filters into the Rocktoberfest campgrounds for the festivities. You can use a sling shot to shoot water balloons at corporate sponsors' signs for prizes, or try and hit "Idiot Boy" to win $100. You can try to stack milk crates while sitting on top of them for bragging rights.





Then comes the dyno competition, the highlight of the evening. On a wall made from plywood climbers launch themselves from start holds near the ground and try to reach a range of finishing holds at the top. Not all make it, and others make it look easy.

A bouldering comp competitor fails to grab the finishing hold

Overall Rocktoberfest was a good time, but I didn't really shoot as much as I would have liked. And honestly, I don't know when I will be able to spend more time in Red River Gorge. But soon I will have all of Colorado before me.