climbing at new river gorge in august

My friends and I are trying to plan an end of the summer climbing trip. We were considering going to new river gorge in the beginning of august. Any locals know if the heat/humidity will be too miserable for climbing/camping? Should we hold off this trip until the fall or will it be really crowded then? We wanted to focus on the junkyard and buttress areas. Thanks, mjf

You can chance upon a good weekend in the New sometimes during the summer, but honestly June-August in the New isn't prime conditons by any means. It's hot. It's humid. You'll probably get rained out by thunderstorms. And man, are the bugs horrible.

Fall is where it is at for the New. Are there a lot more people, yeah, but I've honestly never seen the New so crowded that you couldn't climb. Junkyard usually always has some open climbs since there is no sport there. Bridge Buttress can be hit or miss but there are tons of climbs there that people don't expect.

Where are you located? Better to try to go to New Hampshire, or at least the Gunks in the summer. Save the New for the fall.

Certainly not prime conditions, but totally doable. Seek shade. Fall would be better, but if August is when you have time, then it is absolutely tolerable. I climbed there regularly every August I lived in NC.

We're located in Maryland. The only equipment we have is top rope, though we are getting a bouldering pad. We can top rope around 5.10d/5.11a outdoors, and our boulder skills vary from V4-V6. The areas we would go to would be the Junkyard/Bridge buttress. Might just save this trip for later in the fall. Combination of humidity and bugs seems like too much. Investigating the Gunks now, man the AAC camping is expensive! Thanks for all the advice! happy climbing

Depending on where in Maryland you are, the Gunks are about equal distance from the New, or possible even shorter (I am in D.C. and it is more of a question of traffic than distance)

The Gunks could be a lot better since the Gunks have some more developed/easily accessed bouldered, and a lot of top-rope areas in the Near Trapps.

Both of these areas get packed on weekends in general, there just isn't a lot of major climbing areas on the East Coast, so the main areas (New, Red, Gunks, Rumney, Canon, LRC) fill up.