Caver's Route
5.3 R,
Trad, 200 ft (61 m), 4 pitches,
Avg: 3.6 from 275
votes
FA: Unknown, 1950s
Kentucky
> Red River Gorge
> Northern Gorge
> Tower Rock
Access Issue: New route development is prohibited in the Daniel Boone National Forest.
Details
fs.usda.gov/activity/dbnf/r… Follow existing trails and climb using removable protection or in climbing areas with existing approved fixed anchors or bolts. Development of any new rock climbing, bouldering or rappelling areas and development of any climbing routes involving the permanent installation of new fixed anchors or new trail construction requires prior Forest Service authorization.
Description
Caver's Route is probably the oldest roped route in the RRG. No one knows for sure, but it dates back at least to the 1950s when a group of cavers were practicing their rope skills on the cliffs that towered over the Red River. The route ascends a gigantic fracture that splits the south end of Tower Rock from the rest of the monolith. The route is clean, fun and will leave you worn out.
Caver's Route can be done in various ways, but for optimum communication between leader and second, four short pitches is the way to go.
P1 - Starting at an obvious off-width crack, climb to a spacious ledge and belay. 5.3, 25'
P2 - From the ledge, work your way up into the first chimney and climb to another ledge, clipping a single bolt in the chimney about 30' up. 5.3, 50'
P3 - The cave pitch. From the belay, scramble up on blocks into the cave, then crawl slightly downward to a passage where you can see through to the other side of the tower. Worm your way through the passage into a narrow corridor, where you can stand and bring your partner(s) through. 50'
P4 - From the corridor, move up into the squeeze chimney above and climb past large blocks to a tree ledge. Climb a short flake feature to a spacious corridor topped by a bombay chimney. Find a way to gain the chimney (possibly the trickiest move of the whole route), then continue up to the top of the tower. 5.4, 100'
After enjoying the view and photo opportunities from the top, look for a pine tree with slings and rap rings on the west side of the tower. A short rap from here will bring you to a ledge and another slung tree; from here, a 60-meter rope will barely reach the ground for the final rap.
Location
Starts on the west side of Tower Rock at an obvious off-width crack, about 20' right of Razor's Edge/Curving Crack.
Protection
Minimal to none. Nuts and/or tricams can be used for belay anchors; a Big Bro is handy but not vital to protect the chimney moves.
![Topo of "pitch" 1 and 2 on Cavers Route, before entering cave.]()
[Hide Photo] Topo of "pitch" 1 and 2 on Cavers Route, before entering cave.
![Huong makes the tight squeeze on Caver's Route.]()
[Hide Photo] Huong makes the tight squeeze on Caver's Route.
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Urbana, IL
Detailed beta of what we did follows (there are other variations). Stop reading now if you want the full adventure.
Take very little gear, it gets stuck in the chimneys and makes them even more awkward. I would take a set of smaller tricams, a blue big bro (#4), a quickdraw, and a sling or two over the shoulder.
Start on the west side in a short offwidth with good face holds and climb 25ft to a large ledge. A #4 big bro can be used as pro for the leader, otherwise plan on soloing. A belay can be established on the ledge if you want to stay close to your second.
Continue up into the chimney. The bottom is pretty mellow and then a single bolt at about 20-30ft up on the climber's left side protects the more difficult moves towards the top. Squeeze up and onto another ledge and scramble up some blocks into the now larger chimney. We tied the rope around a horn to belay, there may be other options.
Now, crawl and squirm into the cave/chimney. Once you get inside you can see through the hole to the other side. After a few feet of crawling you can stand up and inch out along a ledge towards the east side of the rock as the tight squeeze chimney opens up above and below you (but doesn't get any wider). Once you get to the end the big bro can be used to anchor the belay for the next vertical pitch.
Climb up the tight (for me) squeeze chimney weaving around several large chockstones. If you're carrying cams you'll be sorry on this pitch. The leader could place tricams or other small gear, but it is probably more hassle than it is worth because the chimney is too tight to maneuver your arms/gear around easily. Once you mantel up onto the next ledge head back west through the now wide chimney onto a very large vegetated ledge. The tree with rappel slings is located here.
For the final pitch use a ledge system to work your way back-up into the wide chimney. There is an exposed high-step move that the leader can protect with a small tricam. Traverse back along the chimney (for the third time now) as you work your way up and out onto the top on the easy eastern end of the chimney. Once the second cleans the tricam, they are exposed to a pendulum fall onto the ledge below in the unlikely event that they were to fall.
Enjoy the view. Do a short rap back to the large ledge on the west side and then do a long rap off of a large tree with slings. A 60m rope is just long enough to get you to the ground near the start of the route. Jun 14, 2009
Decatur, GA
As already mentioned, gear is pretty much superfluous; other than clipping the bolt on P2, I essentially free-soloed the route and felt safe doing so. I did place a solid nut for a belay anchor at the top of P1, and a black tricam performed the same function for the P3 belay.
For the sake of good communication with your partner, I'd recommend against linking pitches. Oct 27, 2009
Watertown, MA
Pick your route carefully through the squeeze chimney (I had success moving higher earlier than the direct route would have taken me). I was unable to take a full breath in a couple of spots and I am a fairly small guy (31" waist, slender-ish chest). If your shoulders are especially broad you may also have trouble getting through the opening. The climbing is pretty chill for the most part, with the hardest and most exposed part depending on how you actually start up into the chimney.
Once through the hole you will be on a large ledge system near the top of the tower where you can easily rig a belay to bring up the second while watching them climb P3. I'm unsure what the "right" P4 is, but you can take your pick of a handful of options to finish out the last 15 or so feet to the very top of Tower Rock. We walked north-ish along the west side of the tower until we found a spot with easy looking climbing.
We rapped from a large tree with lots of slings on it already midway along the west edge of the tower at the P3-P4 ledge system level. You come down very close to the start of Caver's. Our 60 meter rope just barely got us down. A 70m rope could probably get you down from the very top as long as you carefully choose your spot for rope retrieval. Oct 26, 2011
Boston, MA
On a side note this is a bad climb to do with 5 friends who have not showered in two days. The tight chimneys and caves do not seem to vent very well. May 22, 2012
On a side note it is a rad and unique experience. Apr 2, 2013
Nicholson, GA
There are permanent SS rap chains now on the road side of the top out directly above the rap tree. You can get to the ground just barely with a 60m rope from the tree below the rap chains. Two raps total.
There is more pro available for climbing and building anchors than the other comments would lead you to believe. You just have to look around. We built solid 3 piece anchors on P1 and P2 with small cams/nuts. We built a P3 belay right after the tunnel in a nice crack that takes medium size cams if you brought any. Oct 15, 2013
P1 is very much as described, an off-width 5.3. On trad I have only lead 5.8 and I found soloing this to be very easy. In fact I ended up leaving my pack at the top of P1 and had to up and down climb it after the rap.
P2 is as a fairly standard chimney, but a bit tight. Its difficult to get through with gear on, but pushing my gear sling off to one side made it tolerable. The bolt is intact, but I wouldn't call a rusty button bolt bomber. The bolt is the only 'piece' I had on this climb and I was fine with that.
P3 as described here isn't really a pitch, I see no reason to belay anyone from the P2 ledge though this section. When you get up there you will find there are multiple places you can try and get through this tight squeeze corridor, we found the easiest was to scramble up the boulders until you cant scramble any longer, then drop down a couple feet to the tiny opening you worm through. At first we try to squeeze through the entire corridor... that didn't work out great.
P4 as described is a bit too long. Once you get to the ledge at the end of P3 look up and you'll see a chockstone. It appears you can go left or right of this chockstone, we chose to go left which sort of makes you weave through a couple other chockstones, this worked out well. The ledge with the tree is about 30' up from the belay ledge. We chose to end the pitch there. I soloed this pitch as well. It is much tighter than P2 and was very difficult to get through with a gear sling, I had cams getting stuck everywhere. What you cant see from here is that the chimney you just finished actually continues on, but its about 15' above you and is obscured from view, you will finish it later.
At this point you can climb out on a flake to get to the rest of the chimney like the description says, or you can just walk through the very large corridor back towards the other side of the cliff, from there you can easily walk up some ledges to get to the chimney. I believe this is the path that one of the other commentators said to do.
This last chimney was probably the most difficult, I was able to place a couple of small cams (<0.75) about half way up. I dont know if it really helped me, but it did protect the second from a swinging fall since this last section was a bit wandering.
The leader has nearly 0 protection, but you probably don't need it. The follower will get plenty of protection, it isn't too hard to make belay anchors.
The hardest part was finding the place, which is going to be real easy once I give you the coordinates to the trail head on RT715: N37 49.706' W83 35.921'
At the very top of the tower the rap chains are very nice, but they only get you down about 30' to the general area where you started the last chimney. We rapped a tree from this ledge back down to where the climb started. We had plenty of rope with a 70m. Jun 5, 2014
Estes Park, CO
pacmountaineering.weebly.co… Mar 31, 2016
Knoxville, TN
Also, I inadvertently bypassed the birth canal on the cave pitch. Leaving the belay, I scrambled into the cave, climbed up about 20' to another ledge, found a fixed stopper, then made an airy move into the final chimney section. Sep 6, 2016
Cambridge, MA
San Diego, CA
Why anyone would break the first section before the tunnel into two "pitches" is beyond me. Just link P1&2 past the single bolt to the ledge before the tunnel. Jul 16, 2018
Ky
Yerevan, AM
Milwaukee, WI
The spiciest mental portion of the climb was the start of the last pitch where you had to mantel over choppy rock about 15 ft below. Would not be a fun fall. Granted we didn't look to hard for other spots to hoist up into the chimney because it was still a technically easy move.
As far as the rap rings. We successfully rapped off both rap points using a 70m after properly inspecting. They're still safe to use, but I think they should be replaced in the next couple seasons.
All in all this was a great first multi-pitch lead and an adventurous climb to say the least! Jun 6, 2019
Red River Gorge, KY
Runout, minimal gear opportunities. I used every piece I brought: nuts, cams: 0.4-0.75, slings.
You definitely want headlamps.
We did see two guys speed solo this right after us, so it's possible, but definitely not for me. Theres a 30-40 foot fall potential in multiple spots.
Rap stations seemed intact and bomber.
"Fun" Oct 19, 2020
ann arbor, mi
P1 and P2 as described here are best run into 2 pitches. with a belay on the ledge above the bolt (used a 0.3, 0.4 and 1.0 to make my anchor).
From there it's up the ramp and through the hole that's off to the left at the end of the passage (you'll see chalk where people have dumped it crawling through).
Next pitch is up the squeeze, over the chock stones and the mostly straight up and slightly outward. You emerge in a space where you can do a safe hip belay without any gear. You can plug a nut in the chock stone, but by then the hardest part is over so there's not much point.
From there, wander up more choss into a big room capped by a wider chimney. My final pitch involved gaining the ledge (bouldery bit), traversing the ledge toward a ramp-y feature while plugging some gear to protect my followers (think it was a 0.3, 0.5 and 0.75), and then going up. The topout in this spot isn't dirty and you can belay your follower by slinging a tree near the cliff edge.
You might as well solo most of this as a leader, but it's pretty safe for the follower with the exception of the potential swing into the ground in the last pitch. Apr 8, 2021
Cincinnati
Nashville, TN
Kingston, TN
The hills