Muir Valley in Red River Gorge Threatened

Anyone who has climbed in the Red has heard of Liz and Rick Webber, the generous owners of Muir Valley. For several years the Webbers have provided the climbing community with unfettered access to the largest concentration of moderate climbing in the gorge, not to mention some of the best hard sport routes the Red has to offer.

Now the Webbers need your help. A proposed restructuring of Ky 715 has resulted in plans that may force the Webbers to turn over Muir Valley to the Ky Transportation Cabinet through imminent domain law. You can read the details at

redriverclimbing.com/viewto…

Please take this opportunity to write charles.martin@ky.gov to express your concern with plans E and F of the proposed Ky 715 restructuring. Also take this opportunity to spread the message amongs your local climbing community. Remember, at risk are almost 300 sport and trad routes. Perhaps more importantly, we need to show the government that they simply cannot appropriate the private property of the Webbers, property that climbers have mantained with thousands of man hours of volunteer work, without out a fight.

i agree. muir valley is a place worth saving, if only for the general awesomeness of rick and liz weber. last year some friends and i from the Notre Dame climbing club participated in the annual Muir Valley Trail Day. rick and liz had us and about 30 other people in their home after the work was done, and provided pizza, beer, t-shirts, and various other door prizes to everyone for helping out. these are spectacular people who maintain a spectacular climbing area for anyone's enjoyment. letting it fall go to waste as a foundation for a highway would be a disservice to the Webers and anyone who's ever put a positive face on climbing as a sport.

The Weber's are what John Muir was all about. Put your heart, soul and your wallet if you can, into the environment to save these wonderful places in our country. Write your letter soon, get friends to do ss. Stress how this road project would be soooo bad for the beauty of this area, for the overall tourism effect. We don't need bridges and 4 lane intersections throughout the backroads of thte Red. All I need to see is another huge motorhome trying to pass me on Rt.11.

To reiterate:

You can also elect to e-mail and/or write Mr. David Martin at Charles.Martin@ky.gov -- as suggested by Mrs. Liz Weber (refer to posted link above), and as done by others in this thread, for those of you concerned about the potential closure of Muir Valley resulting from this proposed improvement/re-routing project for KY Highway 715.

Thanks!