[.ca] Rock Climbing Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland (ISBN 1560448121)

great book:
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.

\oSkip\c this book:
Eric J. Horst violated local land owners by publishing their private properties against their expressed wishes not to. In the climbing world access is always a big issue, and Mr. Horst is \omessing\cit up for us all. Help keep our area's open for business, and \oskip\c this bood. If you need help in virginia, try Virginia Climber's Guide. It is a good enough substitute, but please support our community by finding a substitute for this book.

Must have for area climbers!:
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.

Best General Guidebook for DC climbing:
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.

Accurate and Useful:
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."