Rock Climbing Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland

This FalconGuide is one of the better ones available, and for the travelling climber, or the DC-centric climber, probably THE book to have (there are non-Falcon guides that specifically cover Virginia and Maryland in more detail, but are only really useful if you primarily climb in those specific states). Eric Horst worked long and hard, contacting a plethora of local climbers at the various crags noted within these pages to get route information, do photo shoots, and be given tours of the area to get a general feel of the land. He covers some of the more or most popular areas in Maryland/DC/Virginia (Sugarloaf, Rocks State Park, Great Falls, Crescent Rocks) as well as *the* two big weekend destinations in West Virginia (Seneca Rocks, New River Gorge), but interspersed are numerous "local" crags that you might never have known about otherwise (short of locating one of the state-specific or crag-specific books that might or might not exist). This serves to give you options to go elsewhere when you can't make it to one of the more popular climbing spots, or if the weather is entirely TOO nice and hordes of people have descended on the main crags, alternate places to go and get vertical. Also, the number of small climbing areas gives the travelling climber options for places to go when they simply cannot get out to, say, Seneca when on the road down around, say, Charlottesville. Crack open Eric's guide and see what's nearby! The route descriptions are pretty good, and nicely supplemented with a mix of topo photos and drawings (if you're not an artist and you've tried to draw a topo to a crag, you can appreciate how difficult it can be to get it just right!). Eric successfully treaded the fine balancing act to not reinvent the wheel for places that already havae extensive guidebooks (e.g., Great Falls, et al), but at the same time, adequately cover crags that have or had absolutely no guidebook at all. More than just a simple guide, Eric's book also gives you a little bit of climbing history to many of the crags, details travel/trip information, has nice readable maps. He spends 18 pages on a general introduction, then devotes the next 380 pages to the various crags. Even if you only climb in Virginia, Maryland, or West Virginia, and already have one of the state-specific or area-specific guides, this is still an excellent book to have for the day when you might want to step across the border. :-)

Very detailed, professionaly written, accurate. In fact provides more information on a given area than other publications. I climbed using this book as a guide.

This book provides accurate access and route information for over 25 climbing areas in the mid-atlantic region. And contrary to the previous review's comments (obviously "gabriel3493" has some personal issues), this book provides directions and route info only for OPEN climbing areas. In fact, the author spends a lot of time discussing access considerations and climber advocacy, and he definitely does not even encourage trespassing. Read the book, use the book, and you'll see it's "right on."

This book has all the crags I climb at. Only guide to several area with photos/topos. While you really need the PATC:MS Guides for Carderock and Great Falls if those are your primary climbinng areas, this guide is nevertheless very helpful. While written guides for Annaplis Ricks and Sugarloaf are online, the visual clues make the difference.Just too heavy to carry in whole book, but a quick editing with an Exacto knife gives you several smaller sections for easy carry.

This new guidebook is the best single guidebook for any DC based climber - Horst covers all of the major area's within range of Basecamp (Seneca, the New, Great Falls) and some of the other areas which currently don't have good guidebooks(chief among them Old Rag). While the individual guidebooks for the major areas are certainly much better(neither Seneca, and especially the New don't condense themselves well) - if your passing through the DC area, or getting a feel for the DC climbing scene, this book will point you in the right directions, and save you both space and money. Just buy it at a local store.