Matty Hong Sends Old Red River Gorge Project at 5.14c

Matty Hong has made the first free ascent of an old Jon Siegrist project from 2011 at Red River Gorge. It took Matty a few days to sort it our. “The route involves big moves on shallow pockets before leading into a difficult boulder at the end,” wrote Matty on Instagram. He named the steep line Apple Juice Flood 5.14c.

Matty has a number of hard routes to his name, including the testpiece Papichulo 5.15a, Shadowboxing 5.14d, Kryptonite 5.14d, Fat Camp 5.14d, Bad Girld Fight Clup 5.14+ and Esperanza V14. Matty was introduced to climbing by his parents Steve Hong and Karin Budding at a young age. Both are still active climbers and often climb with Matty.

For the past few days I've spent most of my energy trying a line bolted by @jonathansiegrist in 2011 but left unclimbed. The route involves big moves on shallow pockets before leading into a difficult boulder at the end. After falling on this ☝️ move over and over I was relieved to clip the chains before having to leave, 'Apple Juice Flood' (5.14c). Huge thanks to Jonathan for bolting this beauty and giving me the chance to climb it 👊. I'm sad to be leaving this place but am grateful for this experience. Much love & peace out RRG ✌️️ // photo @andywickstrom

A photo posted by Matty Hong (@honngy) on Nov 28, 2016 at 1:57pm PST