virgin river gorge - all those cliff bands and no trad?

What's up with that? Crappy rock? access issues? Anyone know why?

Sweet! Is there a guide book? Am I looking in the wrong section on mp?

I think we may be talking two different things. Are you talking about virgin river canyon in Zion? I'm talking about vrg on the border of Arizona and Utah.

plenty of scary FAs to be had

I think most of the VRG in the corner of Arizona is limestone. While there are exceptions, generally, limestone and gear is not the greatest combination.

I believe the last comment was correct. There are, however, some limestone crags that do have enough integrity to take gear and falls. This gorge may not be one of them especially higher up on the more weathered surfaces. Limestone is mostly created by ancient marine invertebrates. Interestingly many of these invertebrates from the time the VRG was being formed can now be found as fossils in the "Jungle" (a Utah crag with a lot of trad lines in an Andesitic Lava) at over 10,000 ft. where they were washed (when elevations were much different) eons ago from one crag to another.