How far is too far to live from your home crag?

Michaela Kiersch lives in Chicago and seems to climb at the Red all the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2cO2cHHQKQ

But if you can work your work closer, why not live closer. I do Pitt to the New almost every weekend; wish it was closer all the time.

Er, guess I'm spoiled - I can go climb on gear at the birthplace of modern American climbing, Duncan's Ridge, 25 minutes from home in traffic.  Also, a little over 1hr to Eldo, Voo, Lumpy, and a few canyons full of crags.  I'd say further than that is a bit of a pain, that drive/climb ratio gets too big for my taste unless I'm staying there.

Robert S wrote: It's up to you, your time, and your budget. Personally, I wouldn't want to drive 8 hours every weekend.

That's also a lot of additional pollution and a lot of wear and tear on the car.

According to this very website, you have sport climbing an hour away. Why isn't that your "home crag"?

https://www.mountainproject.com/area/105994953/ohio

Mad River is pretty garbage climbing, I don’t bother going there any more

Drew S wrote: I live 4 hours from the New River Gorge and the Red River Gorge each way.  Do you think that 8 hours total drive for a weekend trip is too far to do a couple weekends a month?  I am starting to think long term I will want to be closer to one of those areas if I am serious about climbing every weekend.

Are these 3-day weekends? Is you job partly doable remote, maybe 1 day a week?

Just remember, Colorado is full, and you wouldn't want to be here anyways - the climbing totally sucks.

 Life is too short to spend hours a week in a car/traffic. 

I moved to a climbing Mecca...and now I wish I lived near better mountain biking...

30 min to multi pitch
15 min to mountain biking
90 min to good backpacking 

Tradgic Yogurt wrote:

Are these 3-day weekends? Is you job partly doable remote, maybe 1 day a week?

Just remember, Colorado is full, and you wouldn't want to be here anyways - the climbing totally sucks.

Yeah, my job is not one where I can work remote.  I have two day weekends currently, so it can be a hassle to get off work and drive 4 hours straight to the crag/set up camp/ etc.  

I am thinking more along the lines of living in Charleston or Lexington.

I'm one of those Chicago people who goes down to the Red all the time.  It's an even 6 hours for me, but I'm on the south side so never have to cross the city.  I go there a lot more than Devils Lake (I like sandstone more, and I hate driving across the city).  For a place like Chicago, "home crag" is relative, it's not like when I lived in Bristol, England, and could walk to my home crag from my apartment, but the Red was the place I was going most weekends and have climbed the most at from there. For what OP asked, 4 hour commute to crag is easy for any and all weekends, if you care about getting out. It's not ideal, but very readily done, and not all of us can have jobs in our fields right next to a good climbing area so some of us drive a lot.

I always drove with a full car of people, I made sure of it, to split gas (and carbon) among more people, but I will concede it's environmentally not ideal (though, it was somewhat balanced by never needing to drive in my day to day urban living).

Drew S wrote:

Yeah, my job is not one where I can work remote.  I have two day weekends currently, so it can be a hassle to get off work and drive 4 hours straight to the crag/set up camp/ etc.  

I am thinking more along the lines of living in Charleston or Lexington.

Do you love your job? Have kids? An SO? If it's time to move, and no real reason not to, just do it. You'll have plenty of stuff you can do nothing about in your life. This isn't one of them. Weigh it out, and decide. The choices we make, all have tradeoffs, of course, but most of the time, it isn't irredeemable. Tweaking is allowed, so is changing your mind, so is finding a different route, so is using your own judgement, ignoring what everyone else thinks you should do and doing what works for you. Gee, sorta like climbing, eh? ;-)

Make the choices that work best for you, and the parameters you have to work with. Beyond that? Enjoy your life, the one you have right now!

Best, Helen

Franck Vee wrote:

Not really. But MP has:

I haven't checked what's actually behind all those dots, but there is climbing. My closest crag is 30 minute drives, have ~20 routes all top ropes, although many can be climbed on gear if one is so inclined. I used to climb sport a lot more, but what's around here is more trad, so I've been switching to that lately.

I'd like to spend all my time in Rumney, but it's 3.5 hrs away and always crowded on week-end, so....

My point is only that while we would all like to be walking distance from world-class climbing, sometimes there are smaller alternatives that we'd be inclined to snob, but maybe shouldn't. If that fits where you live try to apply that & explore, if not well too bad for you, maybe you should move indeed!

Yeeeah, that's why you don't want to rely on mountainprodge for actual regional climbing beta. 

As someone who lived in Columbus for 6 years, I can attest that none of the Ohio rock is really worth traveling to. You either drive two hours to mediocre chossy cliffbands (Hocking Hills is the best, but not that great), or you can keep going another 2 hours to the best sandstone in North America.

For me, it was an easy choice to make; during Spring and Fall I made the trip to either the NRG or the RRG at least 3 times a month, and usually every weekend. My criteria for most climbing roadtrips is that you should roughly spend more time on the rock than you do in the car. 4 hours one-way is very reasonable for the weekend trip, and occasionally when I was in aggro-project mode, I would even make day trips to the New or the Red (leave at 6am, climb from 10am-6pm, be back home by 11pm.

Of course, the drive eventually got annoying, so I just went ahead and moved to the NRG. I can walk to the crag now.  Ohio sucks.

I've done it pretty much all ways- living close to my local crags and also living about four hours from suitable climbing, albeit world class suitable climbing.  In my opinion living close is the only way to climb long term.  The weekend strikes are sort of tolerable before kids and other adulting commitments but become increasingly hard to fit in.  Local cragging means you can slip in a sesh after work or for a few hours on the weekend and still appear to be an upstanding grown up.  Try telling your significant other that you'll be gone two weekends a month when there are soccer games to drive to, kiddie  b-day parties to attend and diapers to change!  Not having kids could change the equation but even then I couldn't imagine driving four hours to go climbing for more than a few years before burning out on it.

20 minutes from choss
1 hour to good climbing
2-2.5 to world class (Needles)
Great mountain biking and white water within an 1-2 hours as well. 

15 mins.

You should move or find a different activity.

Marc801 C wrote: I lived in Wallingford CT for 22 years. There are a number of crags within 30 minutes. I despised the rock, the poison ivy, and everything climbing in CT. My home crag was the Gunks, ~1.5+ hrs away. 

Ah, traprock - you either love it or hate it.  You drove right past excellent cliffs and boulders, without the dense and thorny underbrush full of poison ivy, in the northwest corner of ct on your way to/from the Gunks

There's an entire tribe of Valley Commuters here in the bay area; we drive ~3.5 hrs to the first view of El Cap in moon/starlight. Usually this is after work + peak traffic on Fri night, arriving 10 or 11pm'ish.

I wish it were closer. I've never regretted making the trip.

Once our daughter was born, I notched down from 2-day trips roughly twice a month, to 24–28 hr door-to-door trips, roughly once every 6–8 weeks. I've been doing that for 10 years and still never regret it.

For me it does mean I don't really go cragging anymore. I am always in the mood for big days after all that driving. Arch and the Cookie are exceptions, especially in winter.

Takes me 1 & 1/2 - 2 & 1/2 hrs each way to get to my local crag.. do that for daytrips. Not ideal and I'd like to reduce that time one day but more than that would suck.

Why not pick your fave and live closer? Do you really want to have to make it a weekend thing and rule out day trips? Day trips are great! Saying that.. not sure how good the job scene is in those areas..

or give yourself a consolation prize of at least living super close to your local climbing gym.. I did that recently and it's really a joy (if you like gyms)

[edit] just reread you post and I think you know the answer.. you've already said how you will probably feel so just go with that.