We Just Witnessed the “Largest Land Acquisition” in US Climbing History

What if you could double the size of your local climbing area?

As more and more people take up climbing or make the transition from gym to outdoors, it’s an enticing question. But also one that feels massively out of reach.

When Jereme Ransick—a board member on the Red River Gorge Climbers’ Coalition (RRGCC)—started pondering that exact question five or so years ago, it did indeed seem like a long shot.

The land in question was part of the former Ashland Wildlife Management Area (WMA), a privately owned, 2,506-acre tract of land managed for hunting by the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. The RRGCC had its sights set on 718 acres that would significantly expand climbing in the Red River Gorge. This acreage includes an expansion of two existing climbing areas within the Red: the Pendergrass-Murray Recreational Preserve (PMRP) and the Miller Fork Recreational Preserve (MFRP). It also spans an entirely new area between PMRP and MFRP: the 582-acre Cave Fork Recreational Preserve (CFRP).

All in all, the land Ransick was eyeing constituted over 14 miles of cliff line with ample potential for high-quality route development—and it would nearly double the size of the RRGCC property in the Red.

But the likelihood of negotiating a deal and finding the means to make a purchase would be a stretch. “A lot of people including Ransick and Billy Simek [RRGCC Executive Director] were really doubtful this would ever happen,” says Tara Taylor, RRGCC Marketing Director, who lives in the Red River Gorge.

A project two decades in the making

The true origins of the lofty goal of making this massive tract of land “climber-owned” date back to 2002, when John Myers, an RRGCC supporter, inquired about purchasing the Ashland property.

“The Ashland property has been this white whale for a long time,” says Curtis Rogers, President of the RRGCC Board.

In 2015, the RRGCC and Access Fund put together a proposal to the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources that would allow climbing access to the Ashland WMA. Nothing ever came of that. Then around 2020, Ransick and Simek started more seriously assessing the climbing potential of the parcel using topographic mapping and remote-sensing LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data.

“Clearly, the area had a lot of potential,” Rogers says.

Since 2022, RRGCC had been trying to convince the property owner to donate or sell the property to them. The RRGCC spent six months trying to forge an off-market deal, but these attempts essentially went nowhere.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere in October 2023, the entire Ashland WMA appeared on Zillow, thrusting the RRGCC and Access Fund into “chaos mode,” according to Daniel Dunn, the Access Fund’s Eastern Regional Director.

Watch excerpts from Climbing‘s interview with Tara Taylor, RRGCC Marketing Director

 

Once the parcel appeared on Zillow, RRGCC and Access Fund began pulling together partners to jump on the sale. They got the Ventura Family—who owns the iconic Miguel’s Pizza—on board, as well as local real estate developer Ian Teal, and other climber. They scored a grant from the Imperiled Bat Conservation Fund through the Kentucky Natural Lands Trust at the direction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to help protect the threatened Kentucky arrow darter fish and local bats. A Community Forest Program Grant came through from the US Forest Service. At the 12th hour—after the RRGCC had closed on the deal—a grant also came in from the James Graham Brown Foundation.

Of course, they also saw a groundswell of support from climbers who love the Red. “The climbing community really came together to make this happen,” Rogers emphasizes.

The rest, RRGCC covered with its own reserves and loans from individual climbers. All in all, this 718-acre purchase constitutes the largest land acquisition for climbing in the history of the US. And at $1.64 million, it’s “certainly the most expensive,” too, according to Dunn.

Ultimately, Taylor says that it’s the Coalition’s partners that allowed them to think big and make it happen. Rogers agrees: “The beauty of this acquisition is the number of people and entities who all came together.” He also says “outside the box” thinking was the key to success, empowering the Coalition to call upon the local climbing community. “They showed up,” he says.

“If we own it, they can’t close it.”

Twenty-three years after RRGCC began planting the seed about the Red River Gorge land acquisition, it went through last week. So what does this mean for climbers?

In short, more climbing, fewer crowds, and “iron-clad” access, to borrow Dunn’s adjective.

Indeed, the Red has seen more and more climbers season after season. “From a personal perspective, living there this past season is the busiest I’ve ever seen it,” Taylor says. “And it’s probably just going to continue to be that way.”

In some cases, crowding has led to challenges for local climbers. Recently, a private landowner closed access to The Zoo for the foreseeable future. According to the landowner, the decision to revoke access stemmed from “erosion around the bottom of the cliff, illegal camping, no upkeep on trails,” and a “sense of entitlement” among climbers.

Taylor is hopeful that the Red River Gorge land acquisition will help address not only the crowding, but the environmental impacts of that crowding. “What we hope to do with this property is to get ahead of that high traffic and create really sustainable infrastructure that’s going to be the best possible solution for the land as well as for all of the people that want to visit it,” she says.

Usually, Access Fund Eastern Regional Director Daniel Dunn explains that infrastructure—parking lots, trails, belay areas—come after route development. But in this case, the RRGCC has the opportunity to develop infrastructure before route development. This will help minimize impact. “We can design the sites the way we want,” Dunn says, “and make them suitable to handle the massive crowds the Red sees.”

With 14 miles of added cliff line, there will be plenty of sites to develop. Some established climbing areas already exist on this newly acquired parcel within the MFRP, including Monster Wall, Devil’s Kitchen, Outer Space, and Corn Flake. “People were out there putting up routes whether they were supposed to or not,” RRGCC Board President Curtis Rogers says.

While he admits there are “outliers,” Rogers emphasizes that for the most part, the community in the Red has good intentions and does their part to mitigate impacts. “We have a great community of people who show up for trail days,” he says. “The community in the Red is what makes the Red special. It’s what drew me into climbing.”

Developers of the Red unite

Soon, the RRGCC will kick off outreach to local developers interested in establishing routes across the new parcel. “We will start meeting with them next week to provide maps and pictures, and provide some general best practices,” Rogers says, “but they will do their own thing and let us know what they put up so that we can publish it when the area is ready.” The RRGCC plans to start reaching out to the local community next week via social media to answer access and route development questions.

To assess the hardware at existing climbing areas, the Red River Gorge Fixed Gear Initiative will evaluate whether any gear needs to be replaced.

In the meantime, RRGCC has set up a fundraising campaign to drum up $200,000 to pay off its $100,000 in private loans for the land purchase, and another $100,000 to build out infrastructure. Black Diamond has kicked in $11,000 in gear to use as incentives for donations. The infrastructure project will include parking areas, access trails, and belay bases, which Dunn of Access Fund says is all-important: “What if we can get the infrastructure in off the bat instead of playing catch up to deal with all the traffic? It’s great that the Coalition is thinking about it that way. It’s really how we should look at all our climbing areas.”

Ultimately, the RRGCC is committed to reducing impact on this new swath of land and supporting its conservation partners in protecting holistic forest health as well as the habitat for threatened species. “Our motto is let’s take care of the areas where we climb and do that as sustainably as possible,” Rogers says. “Let the rest of the land be wild and remain in the state that it’s in.”

As far as when all this new climbing will be ready, Rogers anticipates that “there will be new routes up as soon as the weather gets warm.”

So what can climbers across the country take away from the RRGCC’s triumph? The climbing community should think big. The best way to sustain access to climbing areas is to get the land in the hands of climbers. While that takes a lot of resources, when a community comes together like it did in Eastern Kentucky, huge things happen.

“This is the reason why you should support your local climbing organization,” Dunn says. “It takes a lot of time, energy, and behind-the-scenes work to build those communities. However you show support to your local scene, keep doing it because this is what happens when we have a strong base of people behind us.”

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