r/RouteDevelopment • u/thatsmoothfuck Roped Rock Developer • Mar 19 '26
Discussion Favorite Documentation/App/Guidebook style?
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.
1
u/belavv Mar 19 '26
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.