Sunrise, just another wonderful day in rural West ...
This is a state with so much climbing, please contribute your experience/knowledge...
Every contribution is appreciated.
Description
Due to rainy weather, crazy locals, a depressed economy, and Deliverance most climbers don't ever consider West Virginia much of a climbing destination. However, West Virginia has some of the best climbing on the east coast and is definitely worth a visit, if not a stay.
The rock ranges from bullet-hard sandstone, to quartzite, to gritstone, to kitty-litter cliffs. If you are a granite junky, don't come to WV for granite, but come to cut your teeth on some awesome sandstone in the New River Gorge. The sandstone is as hard as granite but has many more interesting features than your average granite cliff will afford.
Ultra-Uber-Classic climbs in the state range in grade from Old Man's Route(Seneca, 5.2) to Ride The Lightning(NRG, 5.13b/c). There is something for every climber in West Virginia.
The best times to visit are Spring(March-May), and Fall (September-November)
Come for the climbing, bring a banjo and a book for the weather.
Getting There
As far as getting to West Virginia...It shouldn't be hard to find. It is West of Virginia.
Tim Toula's Rock and Road Provides comphrensive directions to get you pretty close to most all of the climbing areas in the state. Most of his advice for classics and locaions to visit is still true even though this book is badly outdated.
Rick Thompson's New River Rock Most of the Information is good, and most climbers that have been clibing here for a while use this guidebook, althought it does not have the most current information, and doesn't include al the areas that Steve Cater's newest guidebook does. The upside to RT's book is that his route descriptions are better and he includes FAs and route history.
Steve Cater's New River Gorge, Meadow River and Summersville Lake Rock Climbers' Guidebook This is the most up-to-date climber's guide out there for the NRG, Summersville, and Meadow River areas. Cater doesn't always know how to count bolts(I know he doesn't personally do it) and he doens't include much(if any) history or FAs. He does include more than RT's book, and the directions to get places are better. The maps and topos are awesome!!
Eric Horst's Rock Climbing Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland Is better than nothing and if you are familar with this style of book, then you should know what to expect. Some areas are included, some maps, some directions, but not all you want. Better for WV than the Rock and Road but not as good as others.
Franklin Guidebook. Doesn't exist outside of Eric Horst's book, his descriptions, and topos are less than acurate. Try the above listed online guidebook.
The Incomplete guide to Cooper's Rock Never really panned out.
Remember to never underestimate the importance of having a local along with you if you come to visit. A local might be able to save you many hours of wasted approach time/climbing bad-routes time. Don't be scared by the locals, ask one to come with ya' for a day, it'll help you get the most bang for your time.
The Classics
Mountain Project's determination of some of the classic, most popular, highest rated routes for West Virginia:
Tattoo starts 20 ft to the right of The Undeserved. It is an obivious bolted line up beutiful streaked sandstone. Start off climbing from a block at the base to gain a series of crimp moves up the heavily chalked face. The crux come up high right below a small roof. After a shake traverse out left making 5.10 moves a little ways off your last bolt. Now stick the deadpoint crux with the bolt even a little more further below. It is a clean fall non...[more]Browse More Classics in WV
By Dave Fiorucci From: Boulder, Colorado Nov 23, 2007
Just for the record Deliverance was not filmed in West Virginia and has nothing to do with West Virgina. According to the plot it was filmed along the fictional "Cahulawassee river" which was actually on the Chattooga River in Georgia. Never-the-less great write up Ladd.
Description: "Due to rainy weather, crazy locals, a depressed economy, and Deliverance most climbers don't ever consider West Virginia much of a climbing destination. However, West Virginia has some of the best climbing on the east coast and is definitely worth a visit, if not a stay." :-)
We just came out of a three-month dry spell which began to border on last year's drought. WV, lke most other places on earth, gets a lot of rain in the spring and pretty dependable precip in the winter. It is steep and rocky, so it doesn't dry out as fast as the desert, but I climbed on dry rock for the last two days after a week of rain every day (which was the end of the dry spell, and not a routine event).
"...crazy locals..."
Trying to remember the last time one of our crazy locals killed a large chunk of his high school or college classmates, blew up a vanload of explosives under a federal building, or collapsed a global economy with alternative-reality banking and stock-trading practices. The per capita level of crazy is actually lower in WV than in the rest of the world... don't kid yourselves.
"... a depressed economy..."
Which comes mainly from the fact that D.C. and NoVA climbers will readily pony up thou$sand$ to fly to Viet Nam or Costa Rica (where it DOES rain all the time and the locals ARE crazy) but can't be bothered to buy gas, groceries, or local crafts and goods when they're three or four hours from home.
"...and Deliverance..."
See notes above... people who think Deliverance was filmed in WV need to watch the cradits at the end of the movie... it tells you all the locations used and none of them is in WV.
"... most climbers don't ever consider West Virginia much of a climbing destination."
Which would suit us local climbers just fine- nothing like a lifetime supply of untouched new rock- if it weren't for the fact that, despite what Dubya said, the state of our economy is NOT strong, and hasn't been, locally, for a looooong time. Funny how you folks in the other 49 are panicking now that your world has started to look a lot like the view from most WV front porches. Help yourself and help WV... forget the airport and the West Coast... come climb WV!
"West Virginia has some of the best climbing on the east coast..."
Talk about damning with faint praise... I've spent a week or two at most of the major crags in the country and I can state this without reservations- WV has some of the best climbing in the United States. Come, enjoy, and discover a forgotten gem of nature and stone in your back yard, within easy reach of hotels, airports, convenience stores, satellite TV, crime, streetlights, gridlock and all that other stuff y'all seem to need to survive.
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