what can you tell me about Asheville?

What’s Climbing like in winter?
How long does it take to get to all the climbing spots from downtown?
How long are approaches to popular climbing spots? How cold does it get? How far to the ocean? How much snow? I definitely have more questions, so any additional info probably helps. 

Here's

another one.

https://youtu.be/wC6bo3XJnVQ

 
I know she's somewhere in the Smokey mountains range!

Seriously tho winters in the Smokeys are very wet. It snows some but you will see more days of rain than snow in that area.

It's full of people that aren't from Asheville...

M. Morley wrote: This is a good place to start.

Hi, M. Morley. 

I just clicked this and it led me to google. I don’t know if that was intentional or facetious, but I don’t like when people do stuff like this. Don’t you think you have some valuable input if you live there? Anecdotes are useful information; it’s not just the objective that helps.  “Oh I was really cold last winter! Definitely atypical of N.C.! But usually we’re able to climb through the winter with some difficulty!”... just an example of something you COULD have said instead of that unproductive rhetoric (if it could even be called that!!!!!). Obviously I’ve read about the area quite a bit. Right now I live by Smith, and all of the resources online stated that this area doesn’t get much snow in town (as compared to New England). Well guess what!! It had record snowfall and record low temps. I just wanted to know your experience! I think the climber’s experience in areas is often built around climbing, much different than non-climbers. Seems like Mp is a good place to start. Do you not want me to move there? Are you messing with me? Is it a joke? Are you annoyed with my questions? Do you hate me? I don’t understand! Help me to understand why people respond to honest forum posts like this, M.Morely! Help me!  It’s really not an absurd thing to ask.

Ben Pellerin wrote: https://youtu.be/wC6bo3XJnVQ
 
I know she's somewhere in the Smokey mountains range!

Seriously tho winters in the Smokeys are very wet. It snows some but you will see more days of rain than snow in that area.

Thanks, Ben!!!

"That escalated quickly" - R. Burgundy 

Asheville has lots of good beer. 

you'll want to polish up your kayaking, mnt biking, and hiking as fall-back

bernard wolfe wrote: you'll want to polish up your kayaking, mnt biking, and hiking as fall-back

Why’s that?

There is climbing available year round. Winter means the south faces of everything and Rumbling Bald are prime. Summer means the north faces of everything and heading toward Boone for places like Ship Rock where I’ve left in July due to not having a warm enough jacket

Looking Glass, Corner Rock, Rumbling Bald, and some others are 45 minutes, unless traffic slows you. Lots more is within an hour. High Country stuff near Boone (warmer weather mostly) is 1:30. Hidden Valley is 2 hours. NRG is 4 hours, RRG is 4.5 hours. 

Approaches are all over the place. Rarely more than 45 minutes unless you’re headed to Laurel Knob. 
Asheville gets a couple inches of snow several times a year. Your bigger concern is that it rains all the time. All the time. Though it’s very location dependent. 30-90 inches a year, depending on what town you’re in. The town of Asheville is on the lower end of that. Head toward Cashiers or Grandfather Mountain and the chance of rain is much higher.
It’s NC, so it doesn’t get very cold at all by NH standards. We get about 4 weeks of ice climbing per year spread between late November and the end of February.
The ocean means Charleston/Folly to me: 4:15

I think the annoying part is how many components there are to your question.   You are asking for a voluminous essay.   Let me just say-  This town is awesome, the climbing is really really nice, it's not too far away, it's gorgeous, the climbing season is 10 months, and the summers are tough.

M. Morley wrote:

Hey Adam, sorry to have hurt your feelings. I'm just goofing with you a little bit. Several of the questions you asked are easily answered with a cursory Google search in less time that it probably took you to post the reply above. I took your initial post as one of the many "Please do my research for me" variety that we see so much of here on MP.

Thank u 

Brian Abram wrote: There is climbing available year round. Winter means the south faces of everything and Rumbling Bald are prime. Summer means the north faces of everything and heading toward Boone for places like Ship Rock where I’ve left in July due to not having a warm enough jacket

Looking Glass, Corner Rock, Rumbling Bald, and some others are 45 minutes, unless traffic slows you. Lots more is within an hour. High Country stuff near Boone (warmer weather mostly) is 1:30. Hidden Valley is 2 hours. NRG is 4 hours, RRG is 4.5 hours. 

Approaches are all over the place. Rarely more than 45 minutes unless you’re headed to Laurel Knob. 

Asheville gets a couple inches of snow several times a year. Your bigger concern is that it rains all the time. All the time. Though it’s very location dependent. 30-90 inches a year, depending on what town you’re in. The town of Asheville is on the lower end of that. Head toward Cashiers or Grandfather Mountain and the chance of rain is much higher.
It’s NC, so it doesn’t get very cold at all by NH standards. We get about 4 weeks of ice climbing per year spread between late November and the end of February.

The ocean means Charleston/Folly to me: 4:15

This is super helpful and I appreciate you taking the time to write it out

My most active period of climbing was when I lived in Asheville.  Of course, I was also much younger, single, and in way better shape than now.

Very nice town,
Lots of traffic, trendy, great food and beer.
Expensive with relatively low wages.
A good paying job and I’d live there.
Good climbing, kayaking and mountain biking.

​Here​​​ ;)

Ky Dame wrote: Here ;)

You absolute son of a bitch

Brian Abram wrote: There is climbing available year round. Winter means the south faces of everything and Rumbling Bald are prime. Summer means the north faces of everything and heading toward Boone for places like Ship Rock where I’ve left in July due to not having a warm enough jacket

Looking Glass, Corner Rock, Rumbling Bald, and some others are 45 minutes, unless traffic slows you. Lots more is within an hour. High Country stuff near Boone (warmer weather mostly) is 1:30. Hidden Valley is 2 hours. NRG is 4 hours, RRG is 4.5 hours. 

Approaches are all over the place. Rarely more than 45 minutes unless you’re headed to Laurel Knob. 
Asheville gets a couple inches of snow several times a year. Your bigger concern is that it rains all the time. All the time. Though it’s very location dependent. 30-90 inches a year, depending on what town you’re in. The town of Asheville is on the lower end of that. Head toward Cashiers or Grandfather Mountain and the chance of rain is much higher.
It’s NC, so it doesn’t get very cold at all by NH standards. We get about 4 weeks of ice climbing per year spread between late November and the end of February.
The ocean means Charleston/Folly to me: 4:15

Good info here. I would add that the weather is a huge factor for climbing. Factor that out and it would, IMO, be one of the best areas in the country. Winter is the season as the weather's most stable then and there tends to be many more (south facing) crags to choose from. Summers kind of suck but you can chase shade, and most importantly, rain-protected cliffs.

Hundreds of miles of trails in the forest around town but the city itself has done very little, parks wise. The BRP comes right through town, as does the Mountains-To-Sea trail, making it a very nice and convenient place for afterwork/lunch break trail runs, etc.

Job situation sucks unless you work in healthcare, are independently wealthy, or self-employed. Good luck!

Housing is expensive if you truely live in avl all the cali trash is washing up and jacking the housing prices way up, IMO
There is a fairly large homeless/meth head population that moves into down town for late spring to fall, and the churches down town feed them so it gets real bad and stuff gets gone at night. I dont drink so i find the breweries annoying and kinda dangerous.  Lots of fantastic trad climbing in the area but a shocking number of people (redacted) out each weekend and drive to the new or red to climb.  Linville is super special. Kayaking, and mountain biking in the avl area are Supurb and if you arent cross training you are missing out on a lot. I would say we get 1 to 2 weeks of ice climbing per year, brian is at higher elevation in Celo ;) avl has three skate parks if you are into that stuff, foundy skate park isis super cool. City and road planning seem to be non existant.
SO MUCH RAIN :(
Personally this has been a huge mental drain and has kinda drowned my flame for avl recently

. wrote: I would say we get 1 to 2 weeks of ice climbing per year, brian is at higher elevation in Celo ;)

Well if we’re being town-specific, Asheville hosts approximately zero days of ice climbing per year

:)

Here’s a yearly average rainfall map for Western NC. 
Asheville gets 35-40” on average every year while places like Lake Toxaway get 95”. In 2018, however, Asheville got over 80” while many places south and west of Asheville and in that penis of green in Yancey County on the map (where I live) got well over 100”. The Black Mountain Range (Mount Mitchell, Celo) here got 140”
And it continues. This past weekend we had a storm that brought 4-10” of rain in a day, depending on your location. Flooding, landslides. It’s stupid

That is the French Broad River in Asheville Friday in front of Smoky Mountain Adventure Center, the climbing gym

Having said all that, the rock quality on average here is truly world class compared to, say, Colorado. Lots of our easy longer routes do tend to be slabby, but that reputation isn’t very fair. If you can climb 5.10/5.11, there is lots of steep stuff, and there is big steep stuff at places like Whiteside. And if you boulder, places like Rumbling Bald, Grandfather, Bonas Defeat, and the Linville River in Linville Gorge are amazing. Corner Rock in Big Ivy is one of the single best boulders in the Southeast