Maizy Mae (5.13a), Drive-By Crag, Red River Gorge, Kentucky
God bless good ol’ “Unknown,” perhaps the most prolific climber in vertical history, with first ascents from Tijuana, to the Trapps, to Timbuktu. Unknown must have been feeling cowed by the Red’s enduro-pig overhangs when he stumbled into the central cave at the Drive-By. Because instead of say, setting his sights on one of the 90-foot climbs there like Dirty, Smelly Hippie (5.13a) or The Nothing (5.14a), he instead sank three bolts in a moss-green, 25-foot block on what’s now known as Maizy Mae, probably the shortest lil’ route at the Red. (The first two bolts have since been chopped, leaving Maizy a one-bolt adventure toprope. The solitary “anchor” bolt — a rusty spinner you have to stick-clip with a monster branch — is far to the side, making for a king swing.)

One Red local described the climb as a “masturbating-in-a-whorehouse type thing, since good, long, more ‘legit’ climbs surround you, yet here you are working a choss block.” Still, it’s been a lure for power climbers looking to nab a Red 5.13 without the heart-slamming, sweat-dripping, lungs-burning feeling bestowed, say, by The Madness, 110 feet of cave climbing in the Motherlode. On Maizy, powerful moves off the ground lead to a V6/7 crux, in which you layback a barely there, left-facing crimp rail, set your feet, and huck to a sandy pocket. “That’s two-thirds of the route,” said our source. He adds it wouldn’t be inconceivable to do Maizy ropeless — the cave floor is sandy, and you could load it up with supersized pads — but as a boulder problem, it would be very high, with “low-percentage dynos to grungy holes up top.” Ratings in the online guidebook at redriverclimbing.com vary from 5.13a/V7 to 5.12c/V5, and from rave reviews (“Best route at Drive-By”) to total pans (“…hardly worth doing”).

Kentucky Honorable Mention: Stay the Hand
(5.12a), Roadside Crag: 50 feet long (five bolts), but with the biz in the first 20, with pimpy, powerful, greasy pocket yards, featuring some of the harder moves in the Red (including routes up to 5.13d!). FA: Porter Jarrard, Mark Schussler, 1990.