[HN Gopher] Mountain Project - Rock Climbing Guides: Routes, Pho...
___________________________________________________________________
Mountain Project - Rock Climbing Guides: Routes, Photos and Forum
Author : thunderbong
Score : 62 points
Date : 2022-07-22 05:51 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.mountainproject.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.mountainproject.com)
| vinkelhake wrote:
| Great resource. Also odd to see this posted today of all days. I
| just woke up at the crack of dawn to go try my first multi pitch
| route!
| vanattab wrote:
| Good luck and stay safe! You will have a blast.
| DougMellon wrote:
| The Mountain Project, MTB Project, and Gaia are three of my most
| used apps and I highly recommend them.
| aftbit wrote:
| On one hand, I have found so many nice spots thanks to Mountain
| Project and similar Hiking Project. On the other hand, I have
| found even better spots with fewer people by talking to people
| who hike/fish/hunt/climb, and all of them have acted as if they
| were letting me in on a secret, so I have never contributed the
| locations etc back to HP/MP.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Not sure why this was submitted here but not complaining!
|
| MP is nice, but lacking. Hard to complain when it's free and it's
| user provided data.
|
| One thing maybe more relevant for HN there is a new company doing
| 3d scans of sport crags.
|
| It looks really really cool. But I only boulder - would still be
| amazing to have.
|
| https://www.rockgarden.io/
|
| Way more helpful than user submitted photos and directions which
| are only half correct, and missing 70%
|
| MP also suffers from the most active climbers mot wanting to
| share their favorite place.
|
| This sport becoming too popular is a legitimate problem in many
| spaces - indoor and out.
|
| Guidebooks are still mostly a 1 person, small publisher thing.
| Which I love.
|
| Jamie Emerson is one of the fathers of CO climbing and is
| releasing 2 new books. MT Evans is out. I can't wait for RMNP.
|
| This is a hard space to scale as a free service. because like a
| lot of online things only like the top .1% are providing the bulk
| of the knowledge and content.
|
| History and stewardship are big problems too.
|
| Blasting music in the Park for instance. And then arguing flame
| wars on Insta between a teen and Jamie :)
|
| Access is constantly threatened and it takes outreach and
| relationships with land managers to keep open. Saving Little
| Cotton Wood is a big one that looks like they're going to
| literally be steam rolled and blasted apart.
|
| Though some of these 'old guys' used to stash pads themselves
| lol. Can complain about ethics but climbing has had a rebellious,
| anti-establishment streak. Losing the nicheness and seriousness
| of climbing is hard for me (gyms are filled with once in a while
| happy hour climbers and man-splanning dates)
|
| It would be awesome if RockGarden got some corporate backing or
| funding to expand. Only a few companies (red bull comes to mind.
| Yeti too.) that are willing to spend without an obvious direct
| ROI.
|
| Make DIY scanning rigs & send to paid locals across the world.
|
| ----
|
| Background: I'm a fairly serious climber, mostly gym rat trying
| to get outside as I can't keep up with the kids anymore!
| unixhero wrote:
| How many years will this stay online? What is the long term plan?
| bruncx wrote:
| All of the data submitted to Mountain Project was provided by the
| community for free through crowd sourcing. The owner actually
| bought the site back from rei and then sold it a second time to
| on-x. Two the owners started webshots back in the 90s. He and his
| partners are serial entrepreneurs that profited of the free
| labor.
|
| Current a lot of people in the climbing community are unhappy
| that the user submitted data is not available to use in other
| applications. As a result there is large effort in my local
| community to keep climbing areas from being added to the site.
|
| As mentioned above Open Beta is a better and more honest
| alternative since it's operating under a CC license. Mountain
| Project along with what has become Outside Magazine are two the
| most controversial outdoor apps in use. They are largely thought
| to increase crowding and other conflicts that come with managing
| limited resources. Mountain Project in particular is a good
| example of how to screw over a niche community for personal
| profit. At least someone in silicone valley got rich, right?
| asymmetric wrote:
| Do you have more info on the controversy surrounding Outside
| Magazine?
| bruncx wrote:
| Most of it has do with buying climbing and rock and ice
| magazines, then putting all of the previously free content
| behind a paywall. The magazine is trying to make money off
| selling NFTs, seems desperate and ironic.
|
| https://www.outsideonline.com/business-
| journal/brands/outsid...
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Wow I had no idea REI owned the site at one point. That's a
| shame they dumped it, and I bet they're regretting that
| decision.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| "All this info should be freely available" and "all this info
| increases crag crowding" are both common complaints about
| Mountain Project, but they're mutually exclusive. A person who
| is angry about crowding is not likely to support Open Beta
| either.
|
| I will say that the idea that route info should be freely
| available is not rooted in history of the climbing community.
| For many decades the primary way to get info (aside from asking
| around) was to buy guidebooks that other climbers researched
| and published. Making money off route info has a long
| tradition.
|
| And the core tradition of climbing competence is to just show
| up and climb what you see. This is why flash and onsight climbs
| are highly regarded even on sport routes with permanent draws.
| Free access to route beta is not essential for climbing.
|
| I certainly don't object to Open Beta but I think some of the
| complaints about MP are a bit overwrought.
| enraged_camel wrote:
| I've been a climber for six years, and I resent using Mountain
| Project. It's so incredibly slow and clunky on every device I use
| it on, and the UX is pretty terrible. It takes forever to find
| the types of routes I'm interested in, and even then finding
| which route is which, and where it lies in relation to others, is
| a fool's errand because you need to read poorly written
| descriptions and browse through bad photos uploaded by users.
| This is basically why I buy guidebooks for climbing spots I go to
| whenever they are available.
|
| At this point the comments on routes are the only thing I find
| value in. When you figure out what you want to climb, browsing
| through two decades of comments can be useful for figuring out
| things like how to approach it, what to pay attention to, etc.
| racnid wrote:
| I like Mountain Project sitting at my desk but physical
| guidebooks lend themselves well to the half hiking involved in
| most climbing expeditions (despite the weight of a physical
| book). There's just something about being able to tick off
| routes and hold the book upside down to orient yourself that I
| don't think translates well to an app still. The book writers
| seem to put more effort into good maps and diagrams too.
|
| They're fascinating, for a good utilitarian example check out
| The Dixie Caggers Atlas by Chris Watford. For pure art Southern
| Nevada Bouldering is just beautiful. I'm sure others may have
| some good recommendations.
| dangerlibrary wrote:
| Aaron Huey's Ten Sleep Canyon guidebooks are a lot of fun. I
| have an older version - Lies and Propaganda from Ten Sleep
| Canyon - that was invaluable when I was climbing there but is
| likely now hopelessly out of date.
| vanattab wrote:
| Do you cache the data? I don't find it that slow as long as I
| have download the area data before hand. I have pretty spotty
| cell coverage at RRG where I typically climb so I download all
| the route data in advance and it seems fine to me?
| falsenapkin wrote:
| Generally agree. The books are better to have anyway for no-
| battery access and to financially support the community. MP is
| important for last minute access/safety info though.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| Likewise. I tried using the Mountain Project a few times and
| just gave up due to the clunkiness.
|
| I now use a combination of the RockFax app and printed
| guidebooks. The latter are generally a better experience but
| comments on the app sometimes come with up-to-date info that
| helps (a foothold that cracked and raised the grade, a rusty
| bolt, whatever).
| snowwrestler wrote:
| The sale forum of MP is good for folks looking to build a rack or
| gear up for alpinism. Useful stuff in condition from good to
| brand new is posted there constantly.
|
| Also because the route info is user-generated, I have found
| little niche areas no one would have ever bothered including in a
| printed guidebook, like a few boulders under a highway, or a
| couple sport climbs on an island.
| [deleted]
| foobarbecue wrote:
| Check out https://rockgarden.io . I slapped together something
| similar and half finished back in 2013 (https://cli.mba) but rock
| garden seems to be getting it right.
| aix1 wrote:
| Is this US-specific (in terms of coverage and availability)? I
| got curious and tried looking at it, but it's not even listed
| on the UK Play Store.
| oftenwrong wrote:
| This community might be interested in OpenBeta, a project to make
| something similar to Mountain Project, but with open data.
| Mountain Project asserts exlusive rights to all user
| contributions.
|
| https://openbeta.io/
|
| https://github.com/OpenBeta
|
| https://www.climbing.com/news/mountain-project-openbeta-and-...
|
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/free-climbing-rock-cli...
| tunap wrote:
| OT, but, I've often wondered why 'Beta' and not 'Meta' is the
| informal lingo for minutia in outdoor activities. A quick
| search of Wiki & TIL:
|
| >The original use of the term Beta in climbing is generally
| attributed to the late climber Jack Mileski. "Beta" was short
| for Betamax, a reference to an old videotape format largely
| replaced by the VHS format.[3] According to some sources
| Mileski would record himself on tape while completing routes
| and then share these tapes with friends. According to other
| sources, it was actually a play on words, as Mileski would
| often ask, "you want the beta, Max?"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_(climbing)
| falsenapkin wrote:
| Why would you assume meta? Genuine question. I see "meta"
| used a lot in gaming and I always assumed the etymology for
| that was like it became shorthand for "meta discussion" and
| then the intention of "meta" became less about general
| discussion and more about whatever strats are most
| effective/popular, thus "the meta". I have no idea if that's
| accurate. Do other communities say "the meta" like that? If
| it is just a gaming thing then I can see why climbing would
| have a different word given the respective ages of the
| activities.
| tunap wrote:
| The granular data that is derived from usage in a digital
| world is what I likened it to. I had no idea if beta was in
| long term usage, as my AZ climbing circle never used the
| term in the 90's.
| multjoy wrote:
| Something https://www.ukclimbing.com have been doing for
| literally decades.
| georgyo wrote:
| Mountain Project started in 2000, so also has been doing it for
| literally decades.
| tjr225 wrote:
| Love to see poorly placed smugness.
| micro_cam wrote:
| Outdoor sports forums/guides is an interesting area from a
| startup perspective. Lots of segmented players with pretty clunky
| UI, issues with data ownership and founder exits that end up
| killing the sites.
|
| There was rac.climbing on usenet in the long long ago and some of
| the users have moved from site to site and are till around.
|
| rockclimbing.com was pretty popular at one point but got bought
| by a publishing company who initially wanted to invest in its
| growth but quickly put it on life support.
|
| Mountain project started as colorado specific but quickly
| expanded...with a suspicious amount of overlap with the
| rockclimbing.com route data base. They expanded into skiing and
| mountainbiking etc. A few years ago they sold to rei who ran them
| as a public service for a while. During the 2020 economic worries
| REI sold them to onx maps, a montana based company that got its
| start doing land ownership maps for hunters before expanding into
| more sports.
|
| Some of their competitors on the mountain bike side sold to
| outside magazine at the same time along with gaia gps. Outside
| was clearly gearing up for an IPO but now has laid a bunch of
| people off.
|
| There have been a bunch of other regional or international sites
| (8a.nu, cascadeclimbers.com, ukclimbing, turns-all-year, telemark
| talk). A lot of these regional discussion forums have been
| replaced by facebook groups now which aren't nearly as good for
| like finding all the old trip reports for a particular route you
| want to do.
|
| One interesting aside was the supertopo forums which started as a
| Yosemite specific forum associated with a guidebook company it
| attracted a ton of older climbers and turned into an add money
| maker for its creator. They eventually pivoted it to gear
| reviews/affiliate links and became outdoorgearlab before dropping
| the forum due to threats of copywrite lawsuit as people kept
| posting scans of old photos, magazine articles etc in an effort
| to preserve climbing history.
| ISL wrote:
| Is the supertopo forum gone? There was a ton of climbing
| history in there.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| The text is still up but the images are gone.
| tunap wrote:
| >During the 2020 economic worries REI sold them to onx maps
|
| This explains why, after a decade since using or thinking about
| the site, I have been seeing it pop up regularly over the last
| few months. New owners = new marketing campaign.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-07-23 23:01 UTC)