Author: Nat Bailey
I spent most of April 2025 in the New River Gorge, on a climbing trip with my friends Matt and Tyson. It was a nice time of transition: I left immediately after finishing my last semester of university and had enough student loans remaining to not work—or study—for a month.
This was my third trip to The New, and we ended up renting rooms from a friend of a friend, who in turn became a new friend. If you’ve read my writing before, you know that I can go on and on with platitudes about gratitude, my friends, and the privilege of it all (I once had an editor—rightfully—call me out for typing that I cried “tears of the human experience” at the age of twenty). I’ll spare you, and instead—like any White guy that climbs—share some unsolicited stories and advice. You’re welcome.
First, I think The New is my favourite single-pitch climbing in North America. The only drawback is that it is super reachy. I found that frustrating when it occasionally affected my medium-height ass. It’s a bit of a bummer to watch shorter people have to do V7 boulders on 5.12- climbs, or get shut down and be unable to do certain climbs or moves. The New’s reachiness is certainly an argument against intelligent design, considering it’s in the most pious state in America.
Seriously though, if you haven’t been—and you can—you should go. The sport climbing is off the hook and has the full gamut: steep jug-hauling, technical slabs, death crimping—you name it. The trad climbing is unique for North America and features face climbing complemented with bomber horizontal gear, as well as some classic splitters. The bouldering is also good, but the weather was hot and it literally would’ve hurt to go bouldering.
Indeed, this year’s April was rather hot, and meant that Matt and I spent a bunch of the second half complaining about conditions (of course this complaining helped—it totally helped and made things better). In the years to come, we’ll be going earlier in the season to satisfy our Canadian cold-weather tastes. I’ve also heard late fall can be amazing. Whenever you go—just go to The New. If you’re like me and your self-worth rides the rollercoaster of how far you get up the rock before you fall, you may find comfort knowing that cigarettes are cheap and the locals, despite their massive biceps and weird accents, are mostly very nice.
Some Highlights From the Month:
Climbing is still awesome…
Less awesome in sweltering humidity (there was a lot less flow, and a lot more profanities), but still awesome.
I was keen to try hard on a trad climb (which is code for mostly top-roping—now you know) and checked out a Matt Wilder line called *Eye of The Beholder*. It’s a nice line that breaks away from a classic 5.11 called *Welcome to Beauty* via a thin seam and sparing face holds. For a little while, I think it was the hardest trad climb in The New (5.13d). After five or six days on it and a hot forecast, I still didn’t have the crux boulder consistent at all—let alone feel confident trying to redpoint.
I’m not sure if it’s height-dependent (I’m not really short nor tall), but I found the crux to be absolutely desperate and a fair bit harder than others I’ve tried or done around the same grade. If you’re reading this and you’ve been on it, I just couldn’t quite find a way to make the very first crux move feel repeatable—I’m all ears! Alas, another ass-kicking.
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Aside from checking out *Eye*, it was a pleasure watching my old friend Tyson Martino flow through some of The New’s finest: *Greatest Show on Earth* (which I also managed to squeak out—and I’m not even being humble with my verb choice, I had to find an emergency arm-bar at the top I was so pumped!), *Gun Control*, and an all-gear ascent of *Just Send It*. I hope the two of us make it back there at some point. It’d be cool to see what Tyson could do in The New if he focused on a project. And climbing with Tyson is just so, so much fun. Our friendship is tried, true, and is one of the best constants of my life.
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This was also my fourth spring trip in a row with my friend Matt Sourisseau. I can’t say enough good things about Matt. He’s an excellent climber, always has a pun at the ready, and is a nice steady yin to my emotion-riding yang. I feel really lucky we’ve gotten to spend so much time together over the last few years—from climbing, to getting his car stuck in the snow, to getting way more into popsicles and Spindrifts than climbing—I’ve always been glad Matt has been there.
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**Oh, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell a story about me punting.**
This time it was on this trad route called *Acharya*. Matt and I tried it in the heat once, and I was pretty sure it would go if it was colder. We got one cold day, and hell yeah baby, I stuck the crux first try from the ground.
All that stood between me and a humble-brag Instagram post was 50 feet of 5.11 slab. But boy, was I flash-pumped. And boy, the rain sure did wash away my tick marks. And boy, those trees behind the route sure looked closer and sharper than they did on top rope.
I’ll spare you most of it, but I tried to recover for what might’ve literally been an hour, got to near the top of the slab, almost peeled off matching a crimp (my elbows were UP), made some survival shrieks, and then emergency-downclimbed to where the gear was closer and jumped off.
Matt expertly quoted Mikey Williams’ *Astroglide* video (which, if you can find it, is an amazing climbing video. I would attach a link but I cannot find one!) and we had quite a laugh.
**F**K.** One of these days I’ll send something.
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I wish I had the poise and emotional maturity to act more like how I write, but I appreciate trips like this more and more. I’ve known Tyson since I was 17 and Matt since I was 20. They’re two of my best friends. It’ll be cool to be at the crag with those guys in another ten years.
Our landlord on the trip, Haley, also became a friend to all of us. There was also the joy of running into friends we’d met on previous trips and seeing what had changed with the time: homes, engagements, babies, somehow even bigger biceps, home-brew side hustles, lovers in a faraway land, etc.
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I’m back home in Squamish now, and it's nice to be home. Hopefully I can put the West Virginia fitness to good use!