Skip to content
OpenBeta Forum

OpenBeta Forums
  1. Home
  2. Categories
  3. General News
  4. Your Guide to Climbing at The New River Gorge

Your Guide to Climbing at The New River Gorge

General News
1 1 115 1
  • American Alpine ClubA

    Originally published in Guidebook XIII
    If you haven’t logged some ascents on West Virginia stone, that’s a gap in your climbing resume that you should rectify immediately. You won’t regret making the trek to climb on the New’s tiered roofs and bouldery, sequency walls. The New River Gorge (NRG) is one of the few truly world-class destinations in the U.S., and a trip to visit in 2025 would be an easy way to ensure your climbing year is filled with unbelievable climbing— the kind that has you yelling, “WOW I LOVE ROCK CLIMBING” halfway up the wall.
    The NRG boasts miles of challenging climbing on ironclad Nuttall sandstone cliffs. Many routes overlook the stunning New River Gorge, or you can travel deep into the vibrant West Virginia forest and find hidden cliffs with stellar routes. The rock is composed of 98% quartz—some even claim it’s harder than Yosemite granite. With over 3,000 established routes, the NRG has almost every type of climbing: run-out and well-bolted, slab, overhangs, cracks, techy vertical faces, corners, arêtes, trad and sport climbing, and bouldering. Technical small holds, long reaches, big moves, and old-school bolting leave many shaking in their climbing shoes. You’ll never get bored if you love finding a sequence of moves that unlocks a climb. And you’ll never feel better than when you push through the mental challenge and pull off the move.
    “It’s a humbling place to climb, so you have to be willing to be humbled a lot,” said Jane Kilgour, the Community & Guest Services Manager at the AAC New River Gorge Campground.
    The caliber of climbs makes every fall and try-hard scream worthwhile.
    “[The New River Gorge] is the kind of place where people come for a week, and they end up staying for three months and then moving around their plans for the year so they can return again next season,” said Kilgour.
    The best advice for visiting the New: chase stars, not grades. The quality of lines and routes is why climbers can’t get enough of the NRG.
    As an AAC member, enjoy discounts at AAC lodging facilities and dozens of other locations in the AAC lodging network.
    Each membership is critical to the AAC’s work: advocating for climbing access and natural landscapes, offering essential knowledge to the climbing community through our accident analysis and documentation of cutting edge climbing, and supporting our members with our rescue benefit, discounts, grants and more. 
    The New River Gorge National Park is on the land of the Cherokee and Shawnee, among other tribes. We acknowledge their past, present, and future connection to the land. To learn more, visit the Sandstone Visitor Center on your trip.
    In the 1970s, West Virginia locals began developing the New River Gorge, focusing on what would become the Bridge Area before the NRG Bridge was completed in 1977. Classics like Chockstone (5.9), Jaws (5.9), and Tree Route (5.10) were climbed in the Bridge Buttress area and graded initially as 5.7. Locals continued to put up more routes, moving on to the Junkyard Wall.
    Whispers of amazing climbing at the New River Gorge spread, and the 1980s brought a new wave of climbers who pushed grades and technical difficulties in the area. Rapscallion’s Blues (5.10c), Leave It to Jesus (5.11c), and Incredarete (5.12c) were put up, and with every season, more climbing areas were discovered. In the late ‘80s, sport climbing and Lynn Hill came to the New. Eric Horst put up the first 5.13 in the New, Diamond Life, and Lynn clinched the first ascent of the Greatest Show on Earth (5.13a), setting a new standard for women in the New River Gorge.
    Hard sport climbing ruled the early 1990s. The late Brian McCray put up difficult lines on overhanging walls, including the first 5.14a, Proper Soul. Development plateaued in the late ‘90s, as the NPS acquired most of the climbing cliffs, and a power drill ban was enacted in 1998. Currently, the NPS accepts permit applications for new routes. In the 2010s, many 5.14s were bolted and sent, including Trebuchet (5.14b), Coal Train (5.14a), and Mono...

    Link Preview Image
    Your Guide to Climbing at The New River Gorge — American Alpine Club

    Your guide to climbing at the New River Gorge! Find information on classic climbs, easy lodging, and rest day activities.

    favicon

    American Alpine Club (americanalpineclub.org)

    0

Suggested topics

  • American Alpine ClubA

    The Fluidity of Grief and Beauty: A Story from the McNeill-Nott Award

    General News climbing
    1
    0 Votes
    1 Posts
    44 Views
    American Alpine ClubA
    I move, therefore I am. I reminded myself of this throughout the journey to and from Arviqtujuq Kangiqtua, formerly known as Eglinton Fjord. Throughout our five-week, multi-sport, primarily human-powered expedition to Baffin Island, in the Canadian Arctic, Kelly Fields, Shira Biner, Natalie Afonina, and I continued to move. We skied over 100 miles across the sea ice in order to get there, and we slogged for another 100 miles over moraine fields, loose talus, sinking meadows, a frozen lake, and a partially frozen river to get out. Movement was our rule, our rhythm. And as a team of three women and a non-binary person, we were motivated to define this movement on our own terms. Kelly, Shira, Natalie, and I met for the first time in person at the Ottawa Airport en route to the Arctic. Only a few of us had tied in together before this trip. Prior to our real-life introduction, we spent months exchanging messages, photos, screenshots, videos, and group calls on WhatsApp. Now, past the logistical chaos of prep for this expedition, we still had a lot of learning to do about each other. I’m lucky in that I know an abundance of female, non-binary, and queer people who are incredible climbing partners. I prefer to rope up with them because of my ongoing struggles with self-confidence and self-trust that I learned in the shadow of my male climbing partners. Here was an opportunity to move toward my goals and the style of climbing that most inspires me, alongside a group of people who uplift one another. When we received our first grant—the McNeill-Nott Award from the American Alpine Club—I started to feel that other people believed in us, which gave me more belief in myself. Representation is important, and the organizations that supported us believed that too. It was coming together all too perfectly. I stared at the vast ice and seascape before me: Circles of white interrupted the piercing blue water that settled up to a foot deep in some places. We were leaving the bay in the small Inuit community of Clyde River. The gray sky let go of gentle snowflakes that melted on my sunglasses, making my surroundings appear as if I were looking out a window on a rainy day. “So...how thick is this ice?” I asked, my voice wavering. The last time I had put skis on was a number of years ago. On snow, on solid ground. However, I was soon submerged within and captivated by the ice’s symphony as we glided, heaved, soared over, walked, and trudged—depending on the conditions of the sea ice—over a hundred miles on a seascape that was constantly changing. Moving through that environment was dictated by the wind, temperature, snow, and our bodies’ needs. One moment, we would be trapped in a cloud, the snow absorbing the sound around us and sticking to our ski skins so thick that we had to take them off. Moments later, after turning a corner, the winds had blown the clouds and snow off the surface, and we found ourselves flying over the best ice conditions we had yet experienced. That landscape spoke to me, telling me that it, too, exists in states of movement and change. I often look to the natural world to find my own sense of belonging. Being a non-binary person often means that I don’t always find a type of belonging that is representative. I struggle in groups of men. In groups of women, I push back on the definitions and create an exclusionary space for myself. Asking for a non-binary category creates the exact thing I don’t want to exist within: a category. One day, I hope I can exist in a way that is outside the confines of man or woman—that I can exist as myself without needing to choose between explaining and educating, or quietly disrespecting myself. The thing about gender, being non-binary specifically, is that it’s simultaneously the most painful and most beautiful experience one can have. There is a deep gratitude in being the truest form of yourself; there is a wholeness in accepting one’s authenticity. It can also often be painful to a core level. My relationship with gender is like the Arctic wind: always present, sometimes gentle and caressing, other times a chaos that threatens to knock me down. I felt the spirits skiing into Arviqtujuq Kangiqtua. Finally, among those great walls, exhausted, hungry, sore, and cold, we debated where to set up our base camp and had a hard time getting anywhere productive with it. I remember feeling confused about how I could be in the greatest place I’ve ever stood, a place that made my soul feel so full, yet in conditions that m... https://americanalpineclub.org/news/2025/11/4/guidebook-xvigrant-spotlight
  • IFSCI

    From setbacks to the spotlight ⭐️ The inspiring COMEBACK story of Sarah Larcombe #Shorts

    Videos climbing ifsc
    1
    0 Votes
    1 Posts
    50 Views
    IFSCI
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTtkxXSzW08
  • GrippedG

    Climbers Return to America’s Highest Peak

    General News climbing
    1
    0 Votes
    1 Posts
    102 Views
    GrippedG
    Nearly 1,000 people have registered to climb Denali this year The post Climbers Return to America’s Highest Peak appeared first on Gripped Magazine. https://gripped.com/news/climbers-return-to-americas-highest-peak/
  • GrippedG

    A Mountain Climber Was Rescued Twice in One Week

    General News climbing
    1
    0 Votes
    1 Posts
    113 Views
    GrippedG
    He nearly died, was rescued and then returned for a lost cellphone only to nearly die again The post A Mountain Climber Was Rescued Twice in One Week appeared first on Gripped Magazine. https://gripped.com/news/a-mountain-climber-was-rescued-twice-in-one-week/
  • GrzegorzS

    Climbers' paradise in the "Saxon Switzerland", Germany.

    Pics and trips mountains climbing rockclimbing
    2
    3
    0 Votes
    2 Posts
    135 Views
    GrzegorzS
    Climbers' paradise in the "Saxon Switzerland", Germany. #mountains #climbing #rockclimbing
  • HowNOT2H

    Rams horn

    Videos climbing hownot2
    1
    0 Votes
    1 Posts
    101 Views
    HowNOT2H
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B87sCqWAvWI
  • GrippedG

    New Moderate Mixed Route Above Chamonix

    General News climbing
    1
    0 Votes
    1 Posts
    179 Views
    GrippedG
    Climbers found good conditions on a new line in the Mont Blanc massif The post New Moderate Mixed Route Above Chamonix appeared first on Gripped Magazine. https://gripped.com/uncategorized/new-moderate-mixed-route-above-chamonix/
  • HowNOT2H

    What even is this?

    Videos climbing hownot2
    1
    0 Votes
    1 Posts
    99 Views
    HowNOT2H
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU3e8UCmesk