Customer Reviews

Virginia Climber's Guide

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Is this book a masterpiece that is a must have? No. Is it a good guide that give the more adventurous climber some places to climb out of path of thousands of weekend climbers flooding from the gyms with their special chalk and fancy lycra tights? Yes. Watson did not include photos and topos, or detail every step of the way from armchair to crag. His drawings are basic, but with just a little patience they are understandable. I am not suprised that some climbers are not happy with this book. People these days expext to drive to the trailhead and walk to the climb with a guide held up to their nose the whole way. I for one have visited several of the sites listed in the book. Sites I didn't know existed as well as sites I had visited before only because I had heard a rumor about it, which was the only way to find most of these sites, and as anyone who has ever asked a Pennsylvanian climber about their favorite spot knows, locals usually don't talk. I enjoyed many of the areas in this book. There may have only been two unrated climbs worth climbing after a half day of hiking, but I don't mind that, that is what climbing is for me. Anyone can pick up the new Great Falls guide and follow it's anal retentive path pictures to the 5.10b climb they read about last night so that they can wait for Inner Quest or some other guided group with twenty reborn Bill Gates look alikes to take down their ropes that have been there unclimbed all day. This book is for climbers who aren't afraid of a four mile approach, bees nests, or the dark. Enough ranting and raving. I liked the book. Mr. Watson if you read this, Thank You. If you come out with another book check out the extreme southwest of VA there is some great climbing there. Also the base of the top section on olr rag next to some bolted sport routes is a good roof to practice aiding if one was to CARRY their rack up there. The bottom line -- the information you need to climb in the best areas in Virginia is in this book. If no topos and photos makes you mad, good, climb at Carder rock then and leave the wild places for me.

The author clearly spent a lot of time driving and hiking around VA, but the actual climbing content is basically useless. For example, the Old Rag information is impossible to decipher. Crag photos and overview topo are a must in a climbers' guidebook, but there is not a single photo in the book. I think the publisher is to blame for printing an "unfinished" book. Certainly NOT worth $22...

This book is only useful for pointing someone in the direction of rock to climb on, BUT this guide is basically useless. Several of the areas that I know well are very poorly described and even contain errors.

Climbing in Virginia is predominately done by locals and this book does nothing to bring many of the obscure crags to the attention of local climbers. Many good areas in the southwest portion of the state were not even mentioned, which is sad because some of these areas are the best in the state. It is obvious that there was not a great deal of research done in the creation of this guide and its diagrams of the individual areas published leaves much to be desired. Line drawings can create confusion for the reader which is not a good thing for a guide, however topographical diagrams in conjunction with the line drawings could have made this situation better. Yet the best alternative would to be to combine the drawings with actual photos of the cliff line. Due to the lack of information and poorly designed maps I cannot recommend that anyone buy this guide. They would be better off asking a local climber and saving the money for gas.

Not a very good guidebook. Watson only uses line drawing to describe climbs, which according to him are much better than photos. I have to disagree with him. I've always found photos easier to decipher than any line drawing I've ever seen, especially of the type he uses. I think the real reason he doesn't use photos, is because it's easier and cheaper to publish. One doesn't have to expose hundreds of frames usually in Winter to get a good shot, at the right time of day. He doesn't give any protection ratings in the guide, presumably because everything is top-roped or a boulder problem. Glancing through the book, there doesn't seem to be much worthy of a road trip. I bought the book because I was intrigued to know if there was other worthy climbing nearby. But with the Gunks, North Conway, Seneca and New River, I think unless you're a local Virginian, I wouldn't bother getting this guide. You can top-rope anywhere in your own state usually at high quality. But what do I know? Being a Pennsylvanian climber, I usually threaten the life of any author who has the gall to write a guidebook.

Reading some of the other reviews, I almost wondered if this guide book would be worth the price. I decided to read it however after glancing in the introduction and seeing what was the basic intent of the book. Jeff Watson clearly states that the purpose of the book is to provide a listing of areas and routes for climbing in Virginia. I found the overall map on pages 6 and 7, as well as the opening paragraph in each section to be very informative. This book is only a guide and does not have all the information for each area because it covers many sites in Virginia. Climbing is an adventure and many of the answers are discovered along the way. This book is helpful in knowing where to start the adventure in the beautiful state of Virginia.

this guidebook has absolutely no info on trad lines and contains little detailed info besides driving directions to an area. plus the cliff drawings are either incomplete, too sparse or generally unuseful in orienting yourself. there are no topos, little indication of bolt lines or anchors but if you just want an idea of where a few climbing areas are go ahead and buy it.

General information is bland. Descriptions of routes sketchy at best. The parts dealing with 'ethics' and 'accessibility' are potential entries to a yet unwritten history of content-dodging.
There are standards to how climbing routes are described in sketches and diagrams. This book ignores them. It will be a miracle if you find your way based on this information.
As someone that wants to *actually* climb in VA, I simply had to toss Watson's book and get another one.

This guidebook is the product of a small mind. It's about
toproping on crappy boulders. Why would someone waste time
to go to some 20 foot chosspile and climb some nameless
route? This guidebook sometimes lists routes that are
22 feet long - did he go out with a ruler and measure the
height of the route as 22 feet? What if he went one foot
to the right or left - would that make it 21 feet or 23 feet?
I cite this merely as an example. This book is dry, uninspiring,
and has no vision or aesthetic sense. After looking at the
guidebook, it made me think that there was no worthwhile
climbing in Virginia, and Jeff Watson has a very small vision
and extremely low level to mediocre taste in climbing.

My climbing partner and I decided to go out to the Shenandoah to hike and do some toprope climbing. We figured we'd head out to White Oak Canyon based on some of the climbs that were described there, completely unaware of the ambiguity of this guide. We couldn't find anything. We had a much easier time finding climbing without it just by following the trail and using intuition than by finding it with the guide. Bizarre landmarks like "at the first bridge, with the northwest facing boulder" (there was no boulder at either of the first two bridges), and the lack of a general area map (climbing areas are listed in A, B, C, etc...but there's no actual map to get you to them in most cases) led us to abandon any hope of climbing in the canyon, even though there were some beautiful spots near the first set of falls. Too bad the guide doesn't make use of such an obvious landmark as the 60 foot waterfall.

After hiking a mile and a half back up and out of White Oak Canyon, we decided to go to Blackrock, which according to the guide was "the only place where you could be clutching for your next fingerhold and hear 'Johnson, party of five, your table is ready'". Apparently it was located on the Appalachian trail directly behind a resort lodge. The guide couldn't possibly screw this up, right? We found the Appalachian trail fine. There was no climbing to be found anywhere near the lodge. The guide didn't tell us which way to turn onto the trail. It gave the impression that it would obviously visible from the trail, but walking a half mile in either direction from the lodge with significant bushwacking in topographically curious areas turned up a single 18' cliff that didn't resemble any of the diagrams in the book.

Don't buy this guide. It will only get you lost, frustrated, and angry at Jeff Watson.