Climbing with Kids: September 2013

My favorite place in the whole world to climb is definitely the Red River gorge. If you are trying to pick a place to go and enjoy steep, long, gorgeous routes, you can stop now. This is it. The most beautiful climbs in the world, seriously!

Photo taken by Vrai Photography. Mandy Byron (me) climbing on Wild Gift, 5.12C at Roadside.

Mandy Byron climbing Straight Edge, 5.12A

Why: The Red River Gorge has thousands and thousands of perfect, beautiful, long, well bolted sandstone routes. Many are steep and pocketed and require tons of endurance, but just as many are technical, vertical/slabby, and crimpy. The Red seriously has it all.

Where: The Red is located in eastern Kentucky, near the Daniel Boone National Forest. The largest city nearby is Lexington (1hour) for flying into. There are a few small towns in the area like Stanton and Beattyville, but they are nothing to write home about and not worth visiting other than to get your groceries. The climbing crags cover a large area, but all are located in gorgeous deciduous forests.

Mandy Byron climbing at Torrent Falls

Mandy Byron Climbing at Roadside

When: The best time for climbing is usually the fall. Summer gets too hot quite often (think 90 degrees with 100% humidity). Winter and spring can be great as well. Just depends. Best time would be October for getting sun and the right temps.

What Crags: Check out the online guidebook and purchase these awesome guidebooks for the trip. Since I gear this blog for families, my favorite crags to go to (based on the climbs and landing area and ease of access) are :
1) Torrent Falls - Access is private so stay at the cabins if you can. Easy access, flat landing area, easy climbs for kids.
2) Drive By - large flat area for kids to play. You can push a stroller up if you have to.
3) Left Flank

Accommodations: There are plenty of cabins you can rent if you do a quick search. For climbers, I recommend staying at the Climber's Cabin right at Torrent Falls. This place is right at Torrent Falls, one of the best places to climb in the red with kids for sure. You have basically no hike (just some stairs to climb up), no crowds (only for people who stay at the cabin or are friends with the owner), and my favorite 11s and 12s for running laps on to get endurance. Torrent Falls also has a ton of easy climbs for beginners and kids that are great right by the 11s. The cabin is perfect for a family with kids.

What to see in the Area: Lexington is a nice city with plenty to do on a rest day with the kids (see this post here). In the gorge, Natural Bridge is definitely worth checking out.

Where to eat: By far, the best two places to go are the Red River Rockhouse and the infamous Miguels. Drink Ale 8 One (a local ginger Ale) and eat Mingua Brothers Beef Jerky. Yum!

As always, if you have questions, feel free to shoot me a comment. Have fun!

Why: Beautiful beaches, limestone climbing right by the beach, little to no crowds, perfect weather, cheap accommodations, and great food. This place was awesome! I so want to return. The beaches were pretty much as nice as any beach in Florida, with soft white sand and shallow water, perfect for kids. We found hermit crabs, regular crabs, a jelly fish, tuna, and all kinds of other fish while snorkeling/hunting the beach.

Where: San Vito Lo Capo, Sicily is a short and very cheap ride away only on Ryan Air. We flew into Trapani airport and rented a large van for a week's stay in a glorious villa overlooking the sea. We were within a 10 minute walk to a beautiful cliff and within 20 minutes drive from at least 4 other crags, all pretty kid friendly.

When: Well, it depends. If you want to be able to swim, September or early October. We went in early October and really lucked out. Still warm enough to swim, but cool enough to climb in afternoon in the shade. If you don't care about swimming, I'd say November could be your best bet for cooler temps. July and August is tourist season, so the rentals will be pricier and the beaches crowded, and I would say it would just be too plain hot.

Accommodations: I would recommend the villa we rented, but the link is gone! However, I would have loved to stay at any of these places. There are plenty in the area and most are pretty well priced. There is also a campground our friends stayed at called Camping La Pineta that has rooms available that looks pretty nice.

Food: As always, we stock up on groceries and prepare a lot of our meals on trips like these with our kids. However, there are a lot of restaurants right on the beach in San Vito that made it easy to go out with the kids. Restaurants don't open though until 7:00, so that just didn't work for us. We'd do lunch out, but dinner in. The bakeries had really good patisseries for breakfast, and the wine/olives/pesto were wonderful. I believe I read that that most of the olive oil sold from Italy is from this region of Sicily.

Where to Climb: The easiest cliff with the kids was Sector Campeggio. It is located right near the town, next to the sea with little to no hike involved. The climbs range from 5.6 to 5.13 and most were pretty fun, steep routes. We spent two or three days in this area. Only thing is, this crag gets full sun almost the whole day. We visited another 2 crags that were great as well using a map we purchased in town that shows the climbing areas.

What to see in the Area: The City of Erice and other Sights. We visited this beautiful Greek city located at the top of a small mountain 750 meters up. Really awesome. Spectacular views, winding medieval roads, castles, churches, and lots of great shops/ceramic stores. One crazy story I have to share is the Temple of Erice. They turned it into a castle later, but this Temple was well known throughout the Mediterranean area in the ancient times (I think it said 5BC but I can't remember now). People would travel there from Africa even to worship the Goddess Venice. Now the crazy part. Families would drop off their unwanted daughters at the temple who would then be raised in the ancient art of love making. They would be fed well, on milk and honey, and at age 12, men would come from all over to worship/be with the women. They would bring them really fancy gifts as payment, and then the women would retire at age 20, very rich, and very sought after by men. Nutso. Segesta was one of the most important Siceliot (Sicilian-Greek) cities of antiquity. We visited a site at the top of a hill that was inhabited into the Middle Ages, and boasts the crumbling ruins of a Norman castle, a small church and a mosque, along with a classical amphitheatre. Built before 430 BC, the Doric temple is the focal point of Segesta. We walked around it for a little bit, and then took a bus ride up the hill to the amphitheatre where you could see views for miles around.