New River Gorge, Meadow River and Summersville Lake Rock Climbers' Guidebook Paperback – March 10, 2006

Yes, the other book by Wolverine publishing is out of publish but it's SO much better than this one. Descriptions in this book are almost non-existent and actual route photos are sparse making routes more difficult to find. The topos are however decent.

We borrowed this book from a friend and used it on our trip with great success. The unique graphics (Aerial Photos and simplified rock face topos) make deciphering approaches easy and route finding pretty simple. The star ratings were dead on and we enjoyed the climbs immensely. I was able to hand the book to a novice and ask them to tell me where we needed to go, what we needed to take, and they were quickly able to answer. All bolt counts for our routes were spot on as well.

This guide is cheaper than the Wolverine one and for good reason. There just isn't much information. I ended up having to buy the other book upon arriving.

I'm not very impressed by this updated guidebook. While the new guidebook does include the Meadow river climbing areas (incredible climbing there), it's hardly an improvement over the contents of the old version. Very brief descriptions, inexact topos, but worst of all mistakes from the last version are still present in this book. On a trip to Fern Buttress my friend and I found inaccurate bolt counts as well as incorrect grades for more than one route. My suggestion is that if you have the older version, don't bother with buying this unless you plan to visit the Meadow river.