The August issue of Climbing had an article highlighting some GIS mapping done by Tom Dilts to identify the best geographic areas in the U.S. to live if you're a climber. Using data from Tim Toula's Rock 'N' Road, he "calculated density points within a given radius" based on Toula's crag rating system. The maps below are the density maps for climbing areas within 100KM (day-trip), 200 KM (weekend trip) and 400KM (road trip) distances. He also used the data to put together a list of Top Ten Best and Worst Climbing Cities, which we broke out in a separate post. Moral of the story. Don't live in the South East or Midwest if you climb. Duh! Read about his methodology here. (pictures from Tom Dilt's web site).
