UKC

As those who've been lucky enough to visit Mount Arapiles in Australia will know, the venue is huge, with many many routes on what in France would be termed different sectors. To be quite blunt, the present representation of the Mount on UKC is a shambles. There are a couple of pages which look like they might cover the whole crag but turn out be just an introductory rave and then there are separate pages for different sectors, which make it a bit difficult for anyone who is unfamiliar with the crag. Maybe some kind soul with good computer skills and a bit of free time might volunteer to sort this out. I might even volunteer to do it myself but it would be much better for a local and/or someone good with computers to do it.

I am yet to buy the guidebook but in the event someone who never uses their copy donates one to me I will take on the task...

I think the majority of routes are on there in some form or another, I added a fair few when I was out there, but agree its very hard to navigate currently. It is a massive guide thought and not sure it would work when all on one page. My offer is there..!

I agree, having found it a pain finding the different 'crags' and logging routes. If I understand you, what it needs is for it all to be lumped into 'Arapiles' then divided into buttresses like other big crags. I think you just needs ask Paul to put them all under the one crag, then to get a moderator to put them in the correct L > R order. I've come across other crags that would benefit from exactly this treatment.

Hi Jon,

I was thinking of something like that. As an alternative (which would be quicker) the separate pages could all be entitled something along the lines of Arapiles: Tiger Wall or whatever. Tiger Wall on its own doesn't mean much to people outside Australia.

As I said, I could possibly do that myself as I do have the latest (I think) guidebook.

Good offer. Not sure if you'd need to have the guidebook or not, but I guess you'd never get them in the right order if you didn't.

Or fill in the gaps, which definitely exist. The most high profile example is Punks In The Gym, which isn't on UKC!

If you have the Mentz/Tempest Arapiles Selected Climbs Third Edition thats the most recent version. It has Into The Black on the front cover. The edition before that is still good (Open Season on the cover) and would probably do the job to be honest. One to thing to note if you do take it on is to make sure no routes are deleted...obvious I know but I would hate to lose the record of my time there!

Slightly annoyed my speculative punt for a free guide hasn't worked...never mind!

I moderate a bouldering area close to where I live with hundreds of routes in the database. It's a pain in the ass to moderate because the moderation page takes literally minutes to load every time, whether using a phone or laptop. I imagine Arapiles would have the same problem.

The thing is if you don't then it's a real nightmare especially if you're not sure of spellings or names of sectors/routes. With them all under one roof, as it were, and systematically ordered L > R it's relatively simple to locate just about any route with minimal info. Roger's suggestion of including the word Arapiles in the name goes a little way to helping but only if you know the name of the sector or of its location with regards to other sectors. If the database is just too big (and I don't know what the max/optimum size is) then why not split it into Arapiles E and W.

Yes to be fair I have an Aussie friend who uses UKC for this end of the globe and I think TheCrag for back home become the coverage is better. I don't know how the latter arranges everything.

When I lived in Oz l loved Araps. I would definitely recommend  you give it a good overview on UKC. Like how to get there, where to stay, how the crag is organized, recommend some routes. And for those that want to climb there, please buy the guidebook. Not only is it a complicated area, but  those that wrote the guidebook should get proper financial benefit I think.

Good suggestions. BTW I think there's an article about it on UKC, and a link to that would probably do.

Re the guidebook, I'd echo your comment. To be honest I don't think anyone visiting for more than a day or two wouldn't want it, and however good the UKC coverage was it couldn't help much with finding the routes!

Funnily enough I was going to start a thread similar to this the other week.  The UKC pages are a bit of a mess and need a revamp. 

If it wouldn’t take too long to load I think they’d be better as a single crag page, as the crag is small enough that you often climb on completely different ends of the crag during the day.  Perhaps separate pages for Mitre Rock, Bushranger and Declaration crags, and the bouldering would work though?

I’m not particularly local (Melbourne), not that familiar with the crag, or great with computers but I’d be happy to take on some of this as I hope to spend slot more time there in the coming future.  I’ve got the 2016 selected guide but happy to invest in the definitive! 

Absolutely. My suggestions were for the benefit of folks logging routes, not to try to replace the guidebook, something I'm 100% against. As you say of course, it's such a complicated crag the guidebook is just about essential. 

I've changed the names of all the individual crags so they should now come up when you search for 'Arapiles.' I do think that they should all appear on the same page, like many other places I've edited on the database. However, this will be huge - thecrag lists over 3000 climbs. I remember there were some issues a few years ago with Albarracin being too large with 1400 but this may have now been resolved?

And if you want a good database you have to rely on someone with a guidebook with plenty of time and patience!

Yes, it would be a massive job if done really thoroughly. I suppose you could just wait for people to add the routes they want to log, but then they need putting in the right order. I'm beginning to wonder if it makes sense for someone my age to take it on!  ;O)

The 2016 guide is all you need. The definitive is very out of date. 

I didn't realise there was a 2016 edition. Has it it got any new easy routes in it?

About 100 new routes according to this interview with Mentz and Tempest:

https://www.verticallifemag.com.au/2016/01/interview-simon-mentz-glenn-temp...

That's a real improvement, good effort. That will do for a start and may be all that is needed.

As for having all the crags on one page that might  be a bit unwieldy as well as being a massive task. A bit like having one page for all of Kalymnos.

BTW I did just notice the Bushranger Bluff has two pages, with slightly different spellings.

OK sorted out the duplicate. Let me know if you find more.

The database looks much better now.  I've volunteered to moderate a few and am trying to slowly work though them and tidy everything up starting with Central Gully Right Side.  I quite like the new feature that you can add information into the buttress divider tab and have been adding in descent details etc. for the particular buttresses.

Arapiles - Central Gully Right Side

That looks much better, thanks. Pedant alert though, can we remove the second 'Arapiles' in the title of the crag?

I've emailed the logbook editor to see if we can get the name changed.

Thanks for pointing that out.

For some reason the routes I've done in Australia come up as sport routes. Yes there are some sport routes but the majority of Arapiles is trad.

The Australian grading system is used for both trad and sport climbs, thus a sport 24 will be about F7a whilst a reasonably well protected trad 24 would be E4/5ish.  Bold trad routes will buck the trend obviously and this will be noted in the route description, but this is probably why they all look like sport climbs in your logbook.