Whippoorwill is an excellent cold but sunny day destination. The martian landscape of the lake bed is a surreal place to explore in the otherwise densely wooded New River Gorge area. The rock here does not lend itself to much above the V5 range, but provides many tall, proud, questing faces with easier climbing for your highball aspirations. The rock mostly dries within just a couple hours after rain, melts out quickly from snow and is a great place to try if the rest of the area is blanketed in white. It often feels like the desert, chasing the shade on warm days and basking in the sun deep in the winter.
🚶♂️ Approach summary - Rugged Approach. 7 to 15 minutes.
💎 Notable problems - "Hueco Ladder" V1, "Decompression" V1, "White Wine Arete" V2, "Scoliosis" V3, "Girl's Day Out" V3, "Fistful Of Figs" V5
💧 Dry time - Hours to 1 day.
🍂❄️🍃 Seasonal Beta - Only climbable mid fall through early April, see water level information below.
🌊 Water Level Beta - SEE BELOW
🚗 Drive from downtown Fayetteville - 15 minutes
🚗 Drive from Summersville - 40 minutes
🚽 Bathrooms - No bathrooms available here, please use the facilities before
📶 Cell phone service - 4/5, good.
🐶 Dogs - Dogs are allowed.
Water Level Dependent
Whippoorwill is only in season in the winter. The US Army Corps of Engineers manages Summersville Lake, and every fall they release the dam (causing the Gauley River to rage and an influx of boaters to the area), and every spring they stop up the dam. In the summer Whippoorwill is deep underwater, but in the winter the alien landscape of the dry lake bed is yours to explore. And you should explore it. There are many, many more boulders at Whippoorwill than documented here, but be warned: due to the fact that it spends lots of time submerged, this sandstone is more porous, and therefore more prone to breaking, than most sandstone in the New River Gorge area.
At 1612ft, all boulders but Brianna's Jugs Boulder, Fistful of Figs Boulder, and Calling Card Boulder are out of the water and all of the described boulder problems are climbable by the time the lake level is down to 1586ft.
Use the following website to find the current lake level:
https://www.lrh-wc.usace.army.mil/wm/?basin/kan/sug
**Note: Unfortunately all lake bed boulders will need to be re-scrubbed once a year when they come out of the water. Fortunately this is a fairly easy task and you'll be doing a good deed for everyone! Consider wearing boots and bringing a tarp to place your stuff on, as the ground is often muddy or snowy.