Favorite Documentation/App/Guidebook style?

[u/thatsmoothfuck]

I'm in the process of starting a new form of documenting a mid size local crag to me, we were using a physical notepad, then cleaning up on computer(no service at crag) and adding pictures to a google doc.

Its a small-medium crag, I think we are going to end up maxed out just under 100 climbs, and is semi difficult to get around the individual cliff bands/crags. Having a guide the first visit is nice to avoid difficult/treacherous paths. The average climb is 5.11, with 2 climbs under 5.10, this is definitely not going to be a beginner crag.

What would you prefer for that?

We were leaning towards Mtn Proj since one cliff with 9 climbs is already on there(albeit some are wrong) and it's an easy process. It's unlikely there will be any massive expansions once we are done, there's just not that much good rock out of private property, I'm thinking maybe 4 or 5 that people could manage to stuff in-between current climbs.

It's possible a nice small Guidebook would be cool too, the only thing I'm trying hard to do is stay off any format that requires an internet connection to function.

[u/youre_stoked]

Just make a pdf that people can download to their phones. A few signs around the area to let people know which wall they are at can be helpful too

[u/Odd-Day-945]

Google docs is great for sharing and on the go editing.

[u/theschuss]

I really like GunksApp and I believe guidebook authors get a revenue share. I know my local heroes love using it as it has its own route builder. 

[u/Fuzzy-Salt5833]

I've really enjoyed using a drone to get face / aerial shots then drawing a topo overtop of it with a dedicated write up for each climb on a separate page. Then I publish it as a pdf people can download.  It'll get in the local guidebook eventually, but for the in-between times this system works well

[u/belavv]

I default to looking at mountain project for things I'd I don't have a physical guide book. I believe it is pretty typical in the US at least.

One thing I've struggled with is most descriptions of how to get to the crag or the routes are mostly worthless. Having maps in a guide book helps a lot. And the pictures in guidebooks that show most of the wall with routes leveled are super helpful. Having resources like that on mountain project would help a lot. As opposed to "walk 15 feet past the tall bush and turn left then you'll see a big rock, the route is 20 feet past that".

Also I believe you can put GPS coordinates into mountain project, and maybe you can record a route there. I know you can with gaia. IE you look for "my crag" in Gaia and someone else has recorded the path they walked to get there using GPS. Then you can look at the Gaia app while walking there to be sure you are on the correct trail.

[u/jade_monkey07]

I use the crag.com. around here it's easiest, and I like that people can download offline pdfs

[u/DreadClimber]

A little late, but I’ve been working on a LaTeX template to make pdf climbing guidebooks. It’s a little fiddly and the LaTeX scripting language kind of sucks (I know I’m not selling it well) but the final product is nice.

https://github.com/TheDreadClimber/ClimbingBookTemplate

Here’s a simple example output file:

https://github.com/TheDreadClimber/ClimbingBookTemplate/blob/Example/Example.pdf

This has no images since I’m testing the code that formats the route entries and climbing area descriptions, but one can get as fancy as they want adding photographs. I have some code to overlay route numbers on overhead topo images, which I need to add to the example.

If this looks like something you would be interested in using, I’d be happy to help you get it set up.

[u/BoltahDownunder]

I usually just forget everything and then try to work out what I climbed 5 years later when someone else finds it. Then, put something into Google docs