Breaking down Vermont into a couple regions

I'm looking at breaking down Vermont into North, South or North East, North West, South.

Where to cut the lines? Tough Schist for North/South?

I want to simplify how we can help finding which crags are in a nearby area.

Thank You!

NW, NE, Central, SE, SW?

I feel like North or South would be too ambiguous. Where would the line of demarcation for North/South be, Rt 4? That seems more arbitrary than using the inter-cardinal directional points which would seem more intuitive if you understand the geography of Vermont. This might cause more debate though (i.e. is Smuggs NW or NE).

My view:
I would say central is Killington area. Montpelier is the west/east boundary for the northern section and Killington is the west/east boundary for southern?

I think of VT as South, Central, and Northern. I think given the volume and distribution (looking at the MP map) it doesn't make more sense to break it down into more then three regions, if even just North or South.

You probably have already seen it, but in case not, in NH we just broke it into geographical regions to not have everything buried in a long list of micro crags. We kept a handful of the most popular and used areas separate so they could quickly be found on the main page, using the trick of placing an * before the name to keep them at the top of the list and than made a note with a direct link in the description of the region they would normally have been found. This seems to help get the best of a cleaner front page organization and also not having to drill down to find the most popular crags.

I think a good map showing the region breakdown is important. Since it has so much climbing, we broke the White Mountains down into sub-regions with the prefix WM:

NH

I don't like county organization because most aren't going to be familiar with another state's counties. I think you want to keep out of towners in mind who may not have a clue what part of the state a main climbing area is and making them dig all over for it defeats the purpose.

I agree with Morgan that you don't want to break it down too much if it doesn't need it. As it is now, the list of VT areas is quite small and manageable so having to dig down to another level may still out way scrolling through the list.

Luc wrote: I want to simplify how we can help finding which crags are in a nearby area.

VT is tiny, I don't really see any reason there should be more regions than North/Central/South. MAYBE North East/North West since the top half is much wider than the bottom, but still, compared to other states, its not that wide.

I agree with M Sprague and Eddy. VT is small. I wouldn't want to see the guide broken up into multiple books (or were you just thinking sections in one book?). If you did want to categorize the areas better, I'd mimic the NH and ADK books-- do it based on specific region, not an arbitrary geographic line. Think, "Bolton area", rather than "North east region".

Honestly, I don't think there's enough rock in VT to warrant breaking it down more.

north central and south and better yet simply post a link to travis Peckams site to buy Tough Shist. he has a whole pallet in his garage.

Vermont is wider in the north. I think it only makes sense to do South, Central, Northwest, Northeast

I lived in VT for about 1.5 years and found myself thinking about North, Central, and Southern when guesstimating locations and travel times. As a transplant that made the most sense to me. Anymore than that starts to get confusing. My suggestion is to use Rte. 4 and Rte. 2 as the dividing lines. Those are easy for anyone to distinguish by looking at almost any map. I never learned much about any climbing in NW Vermont, so it doesn't seem to make sense to divide that out into a different area.

If we need to divide then I would agree with Matt - Northeast, Northwest, Central, South.

South - Mass border to route 103

Central - 103 to a line south of the 89/route 2 area - basically south of Burlington, Waterbury, Montpelier

Northwest - Smuggs and west to Canadian border

Northeast - East of Smuggs to Canadian border

I have 9 destination bouldering areas that I will be starting to add soon all with 100+ problems in central and southern vt.

North, central, south makes sense. My OCD tends to go to micro-segmenting but I recognize that's my own personal pathology.

North and south works, VT is an easy one

How's this?

Looks good, I just wouldn't put the division line right in between Richmond and Waterbury, simply because there's a lot of crags in that zone that should be listed in the same general area.

Just think northern VT should have all Bolton area crags, Smuggs, etc

I agree with Nick that Bolton/Richmond stuff and Smuggs should be in North and I would say south of Route 2- Marshfield etc should be in central.

If you look to Vermont Rock as a guideline for how to break it up by region I feel Travis has done a pretty good job of it.

This is how Travis has it:
Northwest Vermont
North Central Vermont
Mid Vermont
Central Vermont
The Northeast Kingdom

I think you could also add a region for southern VT. In looking at the division of the NH page, I think it is important to keep the major crags highlighted at the top,separated or in addition to the regions. If you have never climbed in NH you most likely have heard of Rumney or Cannon but you might have no idea what part of the state they are in.

Consistency is the way to go. Since Travis's guidebook breaks VT into regions, sticking with what is already published will minimize confusion, particularly for travelers unfamiliar w VT.

I was looking at Tough Schist as a guide, but combining some adjacent regions based on how much info has been entered on MP.

Southern Vermont, and Central Vermont have significant amounts of climbing. When I look at Vermont and the areas I'm currently developing or areas that are on my mental list to develop I realize that as a state we have way more rock that hasn't been climbed - or at least documented than the amount that is. For example, there are close to 20 crags with potential for over 20 routes each just between Middlebury and Manchester - not including any that already have development...and these are just the ones I've looked at. This doesn't scratch the surface for bouldering. Bouldering between Manchester and Middlebury has at least 20 concentrated sectors with over 100 problems each all on public land.

I'm happy with whatever is decided as long as we have Central and Southern areas to split up the state a bit below the Burlington area :)

How's this?
Vermont Areas

If someone knows the general areas well enough to write up some descriptions I could move over the sub-areas.