Vaso Island Climbing

Vaso Island is an island on the Potomac River, within the C&O National Recreation area. The island itself is part of the recreation area, of which climbers know as Carderock (aka, grease of the east). There has been some inaccurate information posted on the Internet in recent years about the climbing on the islands of the Potomac River adjacent to Carderock. Herein, is accurate information. There are a number of islands that have cliffs, the largest island and largest quantity of climbing is at Vaso Island. The cliffs are south facing. These are nice, large cliffs that make for good cool weather climbing. It is often too hot in the summer to climb. This area is predominately top roping, along with a limited number of sport routes. Trad climbing is not recommended here as the rock does not hold gear well and can fail under full loads.