Moving to DC

Hey Guys,
Just found out that I got in to grad school in DC so I'm moving to that region in May. I'm a Chicago native but have been living out in Boulder, CO for the past 5 years. I'm an avid lady climber (mostly trad and sport, with an occasional foray into the world of bouldering) so I'm mourning the departure of my beloved state of CO. Like for real. This blows. Anyways, any word on the best place to climb around DC? Is there a good community of climbers out that way? What's the closest outdoor climbing? Do I reaaaalllly have to drive all the way to the New to get on rock? I'm considering living in Rockville, MD near the earth treks and commuting to the city on the Metro. Any suggestions on better places to live in the DC area? Please help make me less sad. I know there must be cool kids and crushers out that way.

Chrissy

Hi Chrissy!

Welcome to DC! It's a great city, though not the best rock climbing town. I'm originally from California, so I can understand the pain. I'll try to give you the best low-down I can.

So Earthtreks Rockville is definitely the best gym in the area. I live in the city, and commute on the red line to go there. If you aren't going to have a car, I would probably recommend living in the city on the Red Line and commuting out to ET. Georgetown, GW, and American are all accessible from the Red line easily (not sure which one you are headed too)

There is a decent sized community of climbers in the D.C area, though nothing like Colorado, California, or other climbing states. To be honest, there are lots of lots of intense indoor climbers, who occasionally foray outdoors.

Nevertheless, I will say I have found good partners. I love to climb outside, my favorite is trad, will climb sport, and boulder if that's the only option. The New and the Gunks are about equal-distant, and are the two best "big" spots close by. There is decent rock closer however, with Seneca Rocks and Old Rag. No sport, but good trad climbing (with the occasional bolted route).

But for the most part, if the weather is good, those dedicated amongst us are probably pulling the classic Gunks or New weekender. And there is tons of quality rock there.

If you are looking for partners once you get into the city, let me know! I seem to have a lack of trad partners lately. I have a full rope and rack, and always ready to climb.

-Alex

Hey Alex,
Thanks for all of the advice. It's good to hear that there are climbers out that way. I guess I can't complain about weekend trips to the New. I would love to have a partner out that way. Let me know if you could show me around when I get there! I will be at GW studying my ass off most of the time but will need climbing breaks to maintain sanity.

Chrissy

Chrissy, there is tons of great climbing close anywhere from 1-4 hours from dc. My usual partner and I find something epic to do pretty much every weekend. Mostly trad climbing and top roping, but we are always having a blast. You are more then welcome to tag along and we can show you our favorite crags in the area. Send me a message if you are interested and I can forward my phone # to you.

Hey Chrissy, shot you a PM.

Plenty of local crags both around DC and up around Baltimore to keep you entertained along with bigger/better climbs within reasonable driving distance. As mentioned Earth Treks is great and has multiple locations in the area as well.

hey, i moved to the dc area about a year ago from just outside yosemite. be prepared for a really hard transition (unless you are more adaptable than me!) i lived about an hour outside the valley and had a really close-knit group of friends/partners there. it has been really hard to reproduce that out here, and also to find serious partners.
the climbing here is excellent- it's just all really, really short. there are rarely approaches: picture ten minute strolls on flat roads/ trails. old rag, about two hours from dc, has an actual approach, granite, and some splitter cracks, but the routes are quite spread out. additionally, nothing is long here. seneca is maybe three pitches- if you drive to north carolina (minimum six hours) or new hampshire or the adirondaks (further) you get some longer stuff, like five, but it's more likely you will spend most weekends cragging. if you like long approaches and mellow 5.7 ridge traverses, like i do, forget it. if you do climb ice, there is a decent amount within a few hours.
depending on what you like, the climbing will probably be completely different. i was leading solid 10's out west-lots of off-vertical splitters and offwdiths. out here, everything, even the 5.4's, overhang. be prepared to get pumped! my lead grade dropped about three notches when i moved out here just because everything is so steep.
finding partners has been challenging also. there are a lot of people at the gym, but i am going to guess that 75 percent never go outdoors. among the ones who do, you will meet a lot of people who just toprope. that being said, i have met some amazing climbers this past year... just very few of them who are local.
i think the hardest thing to adapt to here is the weather. it blows. it rains, and it rains a lot. i'm pretty tough, but both the extreme humidity and the frigid winters have brought me to tears. i just want to climb, and when you have sweat pouring into your eyes and running down your arms and forming a chalk paste as you are trying to climb because it's so humid, even in the shade in the evening, it's frustrating. ditto when you are determined to get out and it's 28 degrees and you can't feel your hands but ice hasn't formed yet. if you move here in may, be prepared to get here during rainy season that quickly moves right into humid and rainy season. i didn't realize how good the weather was in cailfornia until i moved here.
sorry to scare you off, but it's probably going to be a rough transition. i was miserable last year. this year is a little better.
i have gone to earth treks a couple times, but i belong to sportrock, which has a gym in sterling and another in alexandria. there were things i enjoyed about earth treks (separate party room for the kids for one) but overall, i didn't find the routes to be substantially better or the experience to be amazing. earth treks is definitely the largest. the gym in sterling has the nicest employees in my opinion.
that all being said, the new and the red are amazing.
anyway, welcome to the area. i'm living out in winchester now (about an hour and a half from dc, i commute to the gym a couple days a week, more if the weather is bad) and would be happy to meet up. if the weather is remotely climbable i'm out, and would be happy to meet up. i pretty much only climb on gear. i also have some partners back in the dc area who are now looking for other partners since i moved if you need some instant belayers. :) good luck, hope to hear from you.
amy

Welcome to the area. Consider joining the local PATC climbing club (link below). People are always going out just about every weekend. We also meet every Wednesday at Carderock for climbing during the summer season. There is some good trad and sport within a few hours drive. Most stuff is really short though and many crags only have a hand full of routes that can all be hammered out in a day. PM and I can send you a list and my opinions of the areas I've been to.

Potomac Mountain Club

I was up there this summer for an internship. In short, it's a pretty shitty place to live for climbing (but an awesome place for many other things).

I lived in Arlington on the Orange and all the gyms were at least an hour away on the metro. This made gym climbing after work pretty impossible. As mentioned before, if you live on the Red line, the gym would be pretty feasible, especially since GW is on the Red too. You can also traverse the canal walls in Georgetown for a quick training fix (sadly, this constituted the majority of my climbing this summer :P).

I dabbled in some of the local stuff at Carderock and Great Falls. It was pretty awful. I hear some of the other local stuff that's a bit further afield is better (like Old Rag). I think there's some good bouldering in PA, like 2 or 3 hours away. To be fair, I gave up on the local stuff pretty quickly, so there may be some good stuff I never saw.

As for actual good climbing: Seneca is closest, 3+ hours. Other than that, you're looking at 5++ hours to get to the New. Add in Friday evening traffic leaving DC, and it makes for a pretty shitty drive. Not sure if you have experienced DC traffic yet, but everything you've ever heard is true, only worse.

So for me, all this added up more or less to a summer off from climbing. It was a pretty short time to live with that, and there is so much fun stuff to do in DC that I just wasn't psyched to sit in traffic for hours on a friday evening in order to climb that weekend.

Multiple years would be another story. With some planning you could work the gym into your routine easily, but you have to be pretty dedicated and driving-tolerant to get outside regularly. That said, if you can swing it, there are other people in DC doing that for sure.

Used to live in the DC area and one of the best decisions I ever made was getting the heck away from there, now in Evergreen, CO.

Expect to be extremely disappointed with the amount of local climbing, weather, and traffic, they all suck compared to CO!

That said, one good thing about living in Rockville is you'll be close to Carderock, Great Falls and EarthTreks (certainly one of the better gyms in the area). The climbs at Carderock and Great Falls are short, stiff for the grade and slick as snot on greased glass. Climb in those 2 areas and I guarantee your footwork will improve, or you won't make it up too many climbs. Don't expect bolts or to lead anything in the immediate area, the rock does not take gear well and has a tendency to fracture under load (aka falling).

Go to Carderock and introduce yourself to this guy: facebook.com/john.gregory.5…

John is one of the long time locals, he knows all the hidden gems in the area, is a vast well of knowledge, extremely safe and competent and if he likes you can introduce you to a very tight local climbing community.

Be prepared to travel to get better climbing.

As already mentioned, most of the local routes are short toprope/trad, but there's some longer stuff (and short bolted lines) at Harpers Ferry about an hour from the city. Rocks State Park north of Baltimore has some longer single pitch routes too. And for all the hate that Carderock gets, I actually love climbing there, both for the history and for the delicate footwork.

If you're willing to make more of those forays into bouldering, Maryland has lots of good small areas, especially if you don't mind walking through the woods for a bit to get to them. Also plenty of people who get out bouldering locally year-round, as well as hitting up the good spots in neighboring states.

The Adopt-a-Crags and other events put on by the Mid Atlantic Climbers are also great ways to check out areas and meet new people to get out with.

I recommend meeting up with local legends John Gregory and Mark Nord, there are a lot of awesome and willing climbers in the area. I personally believe that Great Falls has better climbing than Carderock, though you'll find yourself very willing to drive to the NRG to get some quality climbing in. Awesome climbing can also be found at Seneca Rocks in WV, which is about 3 hours from DC if you speed a little bit.

There is a hard to find thing that the PMC has called their listserv. Everyone talks about it and it is impossible to find, but it is a gold mine for partner finding. I've only had one person be a kind of a jerk to me on there because I wasn't a paying member of the PMC and I was trying to get involved with one of their trips. Here it is: groups.google.com/forum/#!f…

The best two routes at Great Falls (in my opinion) are Potomac Valley Overhang (P.V.O.)- 12a and Tipparillo - 11c.
If you're coming from normal climbing, everything at these places is going to feel really sandbagged and awkward. That is just kind of how it goes around there. Fun is still possible close to the city, so get at it, good luck, and have fun.

Hi Chrissy,
You said that you are going to school in DC, if you live a bit west in Fairfax you can get to Seneca in just about 2 hours.It is a great place to trad climb. Just to add a couple of places 2 hours or less from DC I would recommend Annapolis Rock in Maryland and for sport Franklin Crag, West Virginia.
For Franklin I would find a local to take you as I do not think that it is in any books. About a dozen years ago when I use to climb at Franklin the range was from 5.8- 5.12 with over 80 routes established. Two routes that I recommend are Blood Sweat and Chalk 5.9 and a bit harder Barnacle Bill 5.11B. There are a few gear routes but, very few.
Back in the day Sport Rock gym Alexandria, Virginia had a lot of people who went outside climbing and a board to find partners. I have read some of the negative posts about the DC area and although it may be a bit humid, the routes not as long as those out West and the ratings a bit stiffer it isn't all that bad. Some of my favorite areas such as City of Rocks in Idaho is compromised of routes similar in length as to what you find in the DC area. The rock quality is good and lets face it for the most part a bad day on the rocks is better than a great day at the office.
Good luck at grad school and happy climbing.
David G

Pm'd Chrissy.

amy a wrote:i think the hardest thing to adapt to here is the weather. it blows. it rains, and it rains a lot. i'm pretty tough, but both the extreme humidity and the frigid winters have brought me to tears. i just want to climb, and when you have sweat pouring into your eyes and running down your arms and forming a chalk paste as you are trying to climb because it's so humid, even in the shade in the evening, it's frustrating. ditto when you are determined to get out and it's 28 degrees and you can't feel your hands but ice hasn't formed yet. if you move here in may, be prepared to get here during rainy season that quickly moves right into humid and rainy season. i didn't realize how good the weather was in cailfornia until i moved here. sorry to scare you off, but it's probably going to be a rough transition. i was miserable last year. this year is a little better.

That's the one thing climbers born and raised in the NE don't seem to 'get' -- the weather here is nearly as anti-climbing as it can get. Heaven help people like me with a 9-5 job M-F, and it happens to be crappy multiple weekends in a row. Looking forward to the day I can ditch this bad dream for brighter horizons.

Having done 1-2 vacations out West each of the past 6 years as a climber, all I can do is shake my head when I hear the usual denial BS regarding our shitty NE weather. It's unbelievable the days you get in out West (except perhaps Seattle) compared to here.

Thank you for not candy coating your answer like I've read so many do in other threads like this in past years. We're not doing anyone a favor selling them bunk goods. The NE weather sucks for climbing, just sell the low expectation and if it turns out to be marginally better than bad then it's bonus.

BTW, I had a climbing friend who moved here from Boulder and was/is utterly miserable. I think they've just about given up climbing(?). Having done 2 CO vacations in the past 2 years, I know why! If I had a big bank account I wouldn't have even gotten on the plane to head back "home".

There's no graduate schools out West?

In DC now if anyone wants to meet up. Foggy Bottom neighborhood. Send PM and we can complain about east coast weather.

Seneca rocks!!

Brendan Mulhern wrote:Seneca rocks!!

Seneca Rocks rocks!

Kevin Heckeler wrote: That's the one thing climbers born and raised in the NE don't seem to 'get' -- the weather here is nearly as anti-climbing as it can get. Heaven help people like me with a 9-5 job M-F, and it happens to be crappy multiple weekends in a row. Looking forward to the day I can ditch this bad dream for brighter horizons. Having done 1-2 vacations out West each of the past 6 years as a climber, all I can do is shake my head when I hear the usual denial BS regarding our shitty NE weather. It's unbelievable the days you get in out West (except perhaps Seattle) compared to here. Thank you for not candy coating your answer like I've read so many do in other threads like this in past years. We're not doing anyone a favor selling them bunk goods. The NE weather sucks for climbing, just sell the low expectation and if it turns out to be marginally better than bad then it's bonus. BTW, I had a climbing friend who moved here from Boulder and was/is utterly miserable. I think they've just about given up climbing(?). Having done 2 CO vacations in the past 2 years, I know why! If I had a big bank account I wouldn't have even gotten on the plane to head back "home". There's no graduate schools out West?

--Would some Admin please sticky this info regarding weather to the other post ages ago about the Choss Monster dumping Seneca after too many burritos please? These two factors combined ought to really cut down on traffic. Seriously people the rock stinks, the weather is bad and people like me suck. Stay AWAY! ;-)

the gunks are 5+ hrs away...worth it if you going to climb multiple days