One Year of Climbing Van Life

Exactly one year ago today we transitioned into living out of a 60 square foot mobile box. Back in the fall of 2014 we packed our belongings into boxes, built the "Millenium FalcVan" and then on November 20th we moved in to start our dream rock climbing trip around North America. We love our climbing van life, and are so happy we made the commitment to taking this trip. Living in a small space does have some limitations though.... We’ve come up with a list of five things we love that are unique to this lifestyle, and five things that we kind of miss from before.

The Loves

1.     Improved health. We go to sleep and wake up with the setting and rising of the sun. We eat better (in part to save money), we sleep way more, and we are active all day. We experience very little stress, and never get sick.

2.     Living simply. Our van home has a lot of storage space to hold the things we need, but overall we live with few possessions. We do not have phones or constant access to wifi (unless we seek it out), so we live a mostly distraction-free life, spending time with each other and friends.

3.     Our backyard. The inside of a van is a very small space. As such, we are pretty much only inside when it’s raining or when we’re sleeping. All of our every day chores happen outside of the van. Cooking, eating, washing, finding bathrooms… etc. This allows us to truly enjoy and appreciate our existence in so many beautiful natural places.

4.     Mobility. As the saying goes, “home is where you park it”. If we are tired of one place, we simply move to another. Being in a van as opposed to a camper or RV, we also have the advantage of “stealth camping” just about anywhere we go.

5.     Closeness. We simply have to get along in such a small space. Communication and teamwork are essential to keeping our van life successful. And we are forced to snuggle every night :)

The Misses

1.     Friends and family. The van is a great magnet for meeting a lot of people, and we have made some truly incredible friends on the road. That said, being so far from our friends and family back home is a huge challenge.

2.     Lattes and Restaurants. Graham likes lattes… a lot. Back in city life, we’d often go out for a coffee a day. Being on such a tight budget, we are simply unable to indulge in these luxuries. Same goes for ordering out pizza…

3.     Theft. Although we haven’t experienced this (knock on wood), theft is a worry. Our whole life is currently in our vehicle and a break-in would be devastating. There is nothing more haunting than parking in a lot with signs up that say “Don’t leave valuables in your vehicle”.

4.     Clutter. For the most part, we are pretty darn organized. We just have to be. However, after a hard day of climbing it is a lot more inviting to have a beer and relax with friends than it is to tidy the van. So inevitably, clutter happens.

5.     Showering. You really learn to live without it, and to be honest this one doesn’t really bother us all that much. The reality is, that frequent showers disappear from your life, as paying for them quickly adds up. We often have friends in different places say “you’re welcome to stay with us when you’re passing through!” We usually respond with, “Oh we’re very easy house guests. No need to put us up in a spare room, we’re happy in the van. But could we hit you up for a shower during our visit?” Same usually goes for laundry…

<3 Kim and Graham

a post box sticker from a few years ago

The FalcVan holds up in the snow!!

<3

Six Weeks in the RRG

Is it actually possible that this rock is real, that these holds are natural, that we are climbing on these angles??? Wow. We’ve spent the past six weeks enjoying our first trip to the Red River Gorge (aka “The Red” or the RRG) in eastern Kentucky. The RRG is a sport climbing mecca – this is the only destination in the USA so far where we’ve met more international travellers than we have Americans, and even the Americans we’ve encountered have travelled far across their country to climb in this incredible place. 
 

Graham climbing one of the routes at "The Zoo"

Scalloped iron bands in the sandstone

Overhanging horseshoe after overhanging horseshoe of solid sandstone walls make up the climbing in the Red, and autumn is definitely the season to be here. From early October through mid-November we watched the leaves on the trees shift from green to brilliant reds, oranges, and yellows before eventually falling to the ground (and making it harder and harder to find suitable pee spots!). It feels almost tropical here, with the rolling hills of dense deciduous forests, ever-high humidity, huge prehistoric-looking leaves, and so many interesting creatures. 

Stick bug!

Leaf bug! Katydid?

Turtle.

We spent the first three weeks of our stay with Dan and Nicole and Shep which was AWESOME! They’d been here for a while before we arrived, so they had a bit of a routine going already and toured us through some spectacular crags. They invited us to stay with them at Lago Linda’s, which is a lovely campground with a pretty chilled out feel that caters almost exclusively to climbers. 

Shep chillin'

Rest day activities...

Throughout our stay so far we've participated in a few events that have added some depth to our experience beyond simply climbing. We visited and volunteered at the Rocktober Fest, an annual event that the Red River GorgeClimber’s Coalition puts on to raise money for land acquisition and maintenance. We’ve discovered that access issues are a lot more finicky out here in the East compared to the West, so it felt great to contribute to helping access in this region. We also attended the annual Woolly Worm Festival in Beattyville, the small town that is nearest to Lago Linda’s. It was pretty interesting to see where the woolly worms are raced to predict the outcome of winter and take in some live bluegrass music. 

With our Albertan friends, Victor and Kyle, heading to the Woolly Worm Festival

The championship race is a pretty big deal

Coaxing a woolly worm into a practice lap

We wrapped up our time at the festival with some maple bacon donuts... mmmm

It took us a little while to become accustomed to the steep angles and long enduro-style routes in the Red, but once we got into the groove we were able to enjoy climbing a ton of different lines and come away with a few great successes. We've been pushing hard and climbing tons of great routes... here's a sampling of some of the things we've been on:

Graham warming up at Purgatory

Graham flashes "Table of Colours" (5.13a) as the sun sets

Dan in a hole

Graham on his send of "Ultra Perm" (5.13d) - Photo credit: Bonar McCallum

Nicole hiding in a hole and making a biiiiiiiiig reach on her send of "Check Your Grip" (5.12a)

Kim on her send of "Easy Rider" (5.13a) - Photo credit: Marcin Szymelfenig

Kim on her send of "Massive Attack" (5.12a) - Photo credit: Kyle Melnyck

Lea cranking moves on "Bettavul Pipeline" (5.12a)

Bonar on his send of "Kaleidoscope" (5.13c)

After so much good climbing and finishing up most of our projects, we were all set to pack up and head further south today. Cool temps have arrived, crowds are dispersing, and change is in the air - BUT we've made a spontaneous decision not to leave! The plan is to stay up to two more weeks unless the season ends earlier, and we've set some mighty ambitious goals.... time to get our focus on.