THE SELF-COACHED GUMBY
What the Crux?
Avoid these logistical snafus at all costs
On weekends with good weather, the park gets extremely crowded. By noon you can expect the line of cars to get in to be up to a mile long and take over an hour. If you go on a nice weekend, get there early (or bike in, which is free).
Each sector has its own access challenges - descent difficulty, route find-ability, and whether the base floods during high water. See Crag Info below to check these challenges for each area.
Getting There
The easiest way to get into Great Falls is driving. It is around $10 for a day, or $30 for an annual pass. You could bike in for $5, but the roads leading in don't seem very bike-friendly. The best parking area is located at (38.993494, -77.254080) - see the pin below.
Rock Type(s): Schist
Route Grading: Very Sandbagged
Recommended Sub-Sector: Romeo's Ladder. This area has a distinctive face making it easy to find, good trees and visibility to set up top ropes, and a relatively easy descent.
This is a top-roping and trad area - there are no bolted routes. Trees and rocks for setting up top ropes are plentiful at most of the cliffs, but a couple areas (e.g. Microdome) do not have straightforward anchors.
Depending on the water level, the bases of some climbs may be partially or fully underwater. In the crag notes below, I'll try to denote which areas are lower elevation at the base and more prone to flooding.
A climb on the Seclusion sector
There are two guidebooks I know of that cover the area: Climbers' Guide to the Great Falls of the Potomac (~$20 on Amazon) and Rock Climbing Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland (~$35).
The Climbers' Guide book is a much more complete guide with far more routes listed for this specific area and has detailed birds-eye maps that make finding the cliffs and the descents much easier. On the other hand, Rock Climbing is a great guide for areas in multiple states so it is a great purchase if you climb in the VA/WV/MD area. It also has better full color images of cliff faces.
Mountain Project has most of the routes at least listed, but decent pictures and descriptions of them are few and far between. I think someone relying on Mountain Project would have a hard time finding routes.
In researching this page, I was shocked to realize how detailed the Google Maps satallite view is of this area. You can pick out individual cliffs quite easily if you have some points of reference:
Romeo's Ladder (38.989943, -77.248100)
Aid Box (38.989138, -77.247814)
The climbing is located in Great Falls National Park, which is open from 7AM-sunset year round. The day pass for a car is $10, or an annual pass is $30. Climbing is generally permitted, but there are certain areas that are off-limits - just stick to areas listed in guide books - and no permanent anchors or bolting is allowed.
As mentioned above, be sure to get to the park early on nice weekends! The line to get in can stretch for literally a mile and take up to an hour.
There is a restroom facility near the parking area. There are also water fountains, but don't count on these to be on because occasionally they seem to shut off.
You will need gear to build top rope setups using natural anchors. There are plenty of trees and rocks to use as anchors, mostly within 10-20 feet of the cliff.
About 100ft of static rope will be enough to build anchors for the most part. A longer static rope, or even two of them, will allow you set up multiple top ropes at once which can be a huge time-saver and help you get more climbing in. The highest cliffs are about 60ft, so a 50m or 60m climbing rope would work best. Aside from that, bring some solid locking carabiners and a few slings.
Each section below contains basic info about the sub-sectors of Great Falls that we have some experience with, as well as thoughts & recommendations. They are organized from upstream to downstream.
All the cliffs face ENE, so they are sunny in the morning and shady in the afternoon. As mentioned in What the Crux, there are some particular access challenges for the Great falls cliffs.
Descent Difficulty: Many of the descents to the base of the cliffs are not trivial, some involving 4th-class scrambling or rappelling.
Route Find-ability: At some sectors it is easier to pick out the exact spot to drop a top rope down than others, usually based on visibility from the cliff top or distinctiveness of cliff features. "High" means that it is easy to see exactly where the rope should hang from, and "Low" means you may need someone at the bottom directing you.
Flood Likelihood: The base of some cliffs are underwater during high water, while others rarely flood. "High" indicates areas that are often flooded, "Medium" areas may flood at high water levels, and "Low" means the sector doesn't tend to flood.
Try using the search bar above to find desired grade (e.g. "5.10")
Coordinates: (38.994720, -77.251181)
Approach: 7 minutes (off-trail)
Descent difficulty: Medium
Route find-ability: Low
Flood Likelihood: Medium
Thoughts:
There are no good natual anchors at this area, so you'll have to use gear to build top rope anchors. For this reason I haven't personally climbed here. Also it requires a little bit of trailblazing to get to and is tricky to pick out from the top.
Coordinates: (38.993392, -77.249632)
Approach: 5 minutes
Descent Difficulty: Easy scramble
Route find-ability: Easy
Flood Likelihood: Medium
Thoughts:
This is the closest area to the parking lot, has an easy descent, and it is easy to find the routes, so this is probably the best sector to try if it is your first time in Great Falls. Downsides are there are only a few routes that are not that challenging, and classes often use the area on weekends.
Coordinates: (38.992652, -77.248784)
Approach: 7 minutes
Descent Difficulty: Medium
Route find-ability: Difficult
Flood Likelihood: High
Thoughts:
While guidebooks claim this a popular area, I've rarely seen other climbers in this area. We've found it challenging to find routes from the top because the cliff face is quite long. It can be tricky to get to the base of the climbs, and floods when the water level rises a bit. I would not recommend it unless you know the area well.
Coordinates: (38.991182, -77.248361)
Approach: 10 minutes
DescentDifficulty: Unknown
Route find-ability: Unknown
Flood Likelihood: Medum/Low (top half above the balcony doesn't flood)
Thoughts:
No personal experience at this one yet - I'll update this when we check it out.
Coordinates: (38.990248, -77.248111)
Approach: 11 minutes
Descent difficulty: Medium (the easiest way is downstream of Romeo's Ladder)
Route find-ability: Medium
Flood Likelihood: Medium
Thoughts:
This is good spot to find a variety of introductory Great Falls routes (5.6-5.8), as well as some tougher ones fairly close by each other. It can be a bit tricky to see where to drop the rope from the top, but there are some obvious crack systems that you can use to be sure to hit a route.
Coordinates: (38.989937, -77.248068)
Approach: 12 minutes
Descent Difficulty: Medium
Route find-ability: Easy
Flood Likelihood: Low
Thoughts:
This is one of my higher recommended areas because it is easy to find routes and is never flooded (probably). However, it is always popular and there aren't many routes so if you get there late there might not be room. If this is the case, Seclusion is a good option just upstream.
Coordinates: (38.989158, -77.247822)
Approach: 13 minutes
Descent: Easy
Top Rope Set-up: Easy
Flood Likelihood: Low
Thoughts:
Another good area, but this is another popular one with not a huge amount of route availability - probably 4-5 top ropes would cover most of the routes. Definitely recommended if you can find a spot, since it is very easy to get set up and get to the base (it is one of the few areas that doesn't even involve scrambling).
Coordinates: (38.987361, -77.246924)
Approach: 15 minutes
Descent difficulty: Medium-Low
Route find-ability: Medium
Flood Likelihood: Medium
Thoughts:
This has perhaps the most fun easy climb at Great Falls (Cornice 5.7), and a couple other routes worth doing. This is a good spot if other areas are more crowded.