This comprehensive country-wide climbing guidebook covers the sport climbing, Deep Water Soloing (DWS), Trad, and bouldering found in Vietnam. The guidebook describes over 500 routes across a wide variety of grades from F4+ to F8b, on excellent limestone rock.
Ha Long Bay is by far the largest climbing area covered in this guidebook detailing sport climbing, Deep Water Soling (DWS), and Trad climbing. There are over 350 routes around the Cat Ba Island archipelago, with:
- Sport climbing at 5 crags on Cat Ba Island.
- Sport and some Trad climbing at 13 island crags in Ha Long Bay.
- Deep water soloing climbing at 20 island crags in Ha Long Bay.
In the Ha Long Bay area, the guidebook describes 184 sport routes from F4+ to F8a, and 174 deep water soloing routes from F4+ to F7c+.
The other 3 areas covered in the guidebook are Huu Lung, Quoc Oai, and Mai Chau that are inland, dotted around the capital of Hanoi. Huu Lung is Vietnam’s second largest climbing area with 122 routes ranging from F4+ to F8b. There is also a brief overview of the granite bouldering found around Nha Trang in the south of Vietnam.
All the routes are shown on colour photo topos, along with a description. There are detailed location maps, and access information for all the areas. In addition, there is extensive information on how to access the routes in the Lan Ha Bay area, as they are only accessible by boat.
Published in February 2023 (revised 2nd edition) this guidebook is in English text throughout. It also includes information on staying in the area, including hotels, restaurants, and bars plus places of interest and activities to do on rest days. Each guidebook has a unique code to download an App (iOS or Android) to the full guidebook that is free of charge.