New River Gorge, West Virginia

The New River Gorge is a beautiful area, a deep river gorge lined with bullet sandstone cliffs. The majority of the climbs are 1 pitch trad climbs, but some areas are dominated by sport climbs. Approaches can be tricky, seems like every time we’ve gone to anyplace but the Bridge Area or Junkyard Wall, we’ve gotten lost.

My first trip to the New River Gorge was a 1 day stop en-route to a gathering in West Virginia in the late 1980s or early 1990s. We weren’t prepared, and didn’t know what to expect. I led a 5.4 in the Bridge Area in an offwidth too wide to fit any of my gear. It was damp and we weren’t impressed.

I went back in 2001 with a couple of friends and we had a great time, mostly doing sport climbs in the Bridge Area, Kaymoor, and Summersville Lake. I went back again a few times with friends, and trips with kids over Memorial Day weekends, mixing in some more trad routes.

In 2011 during Spring Break, we had a family climbing group trip to NRG with multiple climbing kids and their parents. I had my 2 young teen daughters, there were 2 more young teens from our usual posse, and 4 10 year old boys. It was fun climbing together, the kids giggling away in their own big tent, and the parents getting excited about how well the kids climbed.