Red River Gorge

So as some of you know I made a brief visit (5 days) to the Mecca of sport climbing otherwise known as the Red. Since this was only my 2nd visit I went to a different crag each day to try some different climbs in an attempt to discover my style of climbing there. What I found out was that I am MUCH better at severely overhanging routes rather than face climbs. For example, on Tuesday we went to Bob Marley Crag and I sent a fun route called "Bloodbath" 5.12c. It took me four tries and I had a blast on it because it began with some steep climbing then continued out a roof and finished with some easier moves on the headwall. My level of endurance is nowhere near where it should be to send hard at the red but I feel that if I spent a longer amount of time there that I would be sending pretty difficult routes. I also put a burn into Nagypapa 5.13d at Military Wall on Monday & made it to the fourth bolt without any trouble (it only has 5 bolts & then the anchors) but it was getting dark so I had to come down but I want to come back to it when it's colder and the slopers feel better. Well, for now I think I am going to continue training endurance and try to finish off a few routes here in Tennessee including several of the test pieces at Foster's such as: Gas Chamber 5.13a, The Big Empty 5.13b, Turbo Dog 5.13c, and Kill or Be Killed 5.13d. Around the time of our spring break I was working Turbo and on my best attempt I fell clipping the last bolt so hopefully it won't take me too long to do once I start working it again but who knows. I am also hoping to get some video of some of these routes so keep checking my blog because I promise some badass footage will be arriving soon!

School's Out!....almost

With the school year coming to a close things are getting pretty crazy with last minute tests, exams, and so many friends graduating it's hard to stay sane. But not to worry children, in this hectic time I ventured down to Rocktown with my brother, Zach Adkins, and did some rock scaling/filming to blow off some steam. It wasn't too hot but warm enough to make the slopers feel awful. Anyways, we warmed up on The Island of Beautiful Women V4 and then I worked on Speculum V10 and fell on the last hard move about 6 or 7 times only about an inch from the next hold so hopefully it will go down next time... after that we headed over to the Sherman Roof and Zach sent Nose Candy V6 and I did Sherman Photo Roof V7. Maybe it's because of the heat but the second hold felt really awful, it's a very small sloping crimp and really the only grip on it is the lip of the hold even though it appears to be a full pad in the video. After that Zach worked on Mr. Stiffy V5 which is a really fun, super classic problem that involves a looong lock off from a crimp to a...crimp...yeaa... but no send unfortunately. He did make a lot of progress on that as well as Pythagorean Theorem V5. As for the rest of my day I took it easy with P.T. & a crazy problem called Pulling Tubes V6. Basically it's no feet and sloping crimps of the decent to poopy categories. I made a video of a few of those problems so if you need a break from studying then check it out>>>

Pulling Tubes V6, Sherman Photo Roof V7, Nose Candy V6 from chris adkins on Vimeo.

What a Day...

So I woke up to the awful sound of my alarm this morning at 5:45 am and my first thought was, "time to go climbing!" After gathering all my gear and loading up the car I met Nick at the gym and we prayed to the rain gods to hold off, but of course we ran into a torrential downpour about 10 minutes before we got to Rocktown. (We also turned too early creating an hour long detour...go figure) Anyways, once we got there we waded through what used to be a trail and is now a swamp, thanks to the rain, and to our disappointment pretty much everything was soaked, including The Womb. BUT a classic V8 to the right of it was dry except for the slopey topout. The aptly named, "Vagina" went down relatively quickly and didn't feel too hard even with greasy holds & puddles on top of it (not joking about the puddles...I splashed Nick with one). Nick got on The Island of Beautiful Women & Nose Candy but no sends today...he'll get them once they dry out. After we got back to Nashville, I headed over to the Full Moon Film Festival and ended up winning "Best Sports/Action Cinematography" & got a flip ultra video camera which is a neat and virtually idiot proof gadget which will be fun to mess around with. Work is going to be an all day thing tomorrow but hopefully I'll get some training in this week & maybe get back outside next weekend

The Vagina V8 from chris adkins on Vimeo.

Blogspot...

Thought it was about time to get a blog so I have something to do other than daydream about climbing. I plan on keeping this as up to date as possible & post vids & pics to keep it from being lame. 

Anyways... After two months of pulling down plastic due to saturday school, work, & the horrible weather Im ready to head outside, rain or shine. Nick Williams & I are headed to Rocktown, GA tomorrow and the plan is to make a full assault on The Womb (V10/11). Hopefully it will be dry enough to attempt a send. I haven't tried it yet but the video on Jon Glassberg's blog of Nate Draughn sending it makes it look really fun!

On a more artistic note, The Full Moon Film Festival is tomorrow night and I have high hopes for my movie Aggrestic so we'll see how it goes. Its a high school film competition and Im the first one to submit a sports video (anyone wanna guess what its about?) Well, it did have to relate to American History so I chose the history of sport climbing which should be more entertaining than listening to some old dude ramble on about how Stratford High is poor...ok ok Im done complaining for today but be on the lookout for a new vid tomorrow from Rocktown

Aggrestic

Aggrestic from chris adkins on Vimeo.