UKC

Hello everyone,

I'm going to be very lazy and basically copy and modify what I said in the Mountain Conditions post, here!

We've been thinking about creating a page similar to the very popular winter conditions page for Alpine climbing. This is what we have:

http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/alpine.php

The main things I'd like some feedback on are:
1. Do you think this would be useful?
2. Do you think this covers the crags you would expect to see.
3. Does this format work for you? You can filter by country, so if your going to the Dolomites etc, then you can exclude other crags outside Italy for example.

After that just some general feedback would be good.

There may well be the odd crag in here that is more a low level "cragging" than alpine north face, so point them out. They may be hard to exclude without some explicit rules, something we can add if its a very popular crag that is going to be popping up all the time.

Thanks

In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:

Top work

In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:

This is brilliant thanks, I'll make more of an effort to leave info after logging routes.
While lower crags (Aiguilles Rouges etc.) might not be so conditions dependent right now, they can be at the start of the season so having them included is worth while. Cheers guys!

In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:

Excellent idea and will definitely be very handy. Shame I'll have to wait until next year to get back to the Alps!

In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:

In order:

1. Very useful.
2. Would it make it too unweildy to include alpine expedition areas too? Like south America (Patagonia, cordillera blanca, real, etc) Himalayas, US alpine, etc?
3. Yes.

In reply to jonnie3430:


I'll have a think about that. We could possibly have it so they are by default filtered out but you can filter them in if you like. I don't really know how much data we have though for these regions though. It might not be very useful.

In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:

Great idea - looks ideal!

In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:

Very useful, thanks.

In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:
Great idea martin. Looks good as u have it.

In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:

very bad idea.

In reply to Andy Clarke1965:

The same thing already exists on camptocamp.org and has done for many years. I don't think this new feature will lead to more honeypotting than camptocamp does.

In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:
Looks good, thanks.

In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:

A great idea. I've used the UKC Scottish winter conditions to get an on the ground feel for what's 'in', see no difference for utilising the system in the Alps.

In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:
Seems well implemented but... what does it add that isn't available on Camptocamp? It would be unfortunate to make finding reports harder by having them spread over another database. Also there aren't that many alpine routes in the UKC database, camptocamp (and guliver.it) are much more comprehensive. Is there anyway of linking to these existing sites rather than duplicating?

In reply to MG:


Good idea!

In reply to MG:

From a technical point a view at best it would be a massive pain in the ass and at worst impossible. Also I think you'll find there isn't much duplication. People will probably either be logging their ascents on UKC or camptocamp.


Basically what I've just outlined. A different set of data to base a decision on.


We have 141,143 alpine routes.

In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:

That's my point. C2C is pretty good and has route reports going back a decade or so. Wouldn't it be better from a user point of view (I see commercially things might be different) to add to this, rather than start a new database? If your primary aim is to compete with C2C (and Gulliver, Summitpost etc.) then what you have is good - go for it. However, it will take a long time to accumulate as many reports as these other sites, even just in English, and therefore to be as useful IMO.


I suppose it depends what you are aiming at. Whatever the number, C2C and Gulliver are more complete from the point of view of mountaineering routes - they have whole massifs fully documented that UKC barely knows exist!. I don't know about pure rock routes.

In reply to MG:


Ah, so I think you might be misunderstanding how the Alpine Conditions page actually works on UKC. We haven't started a new database or anything like it to list conditions reports. We use the logged ascents over a number of days to report what has been done and the user comments provide feedback. Technically in that sense you could go back X number of years and have a look at comments on ascents, although I'm not sure how useful that would be.

It looks like C2C have users submit reports more similar to a trip report or something (I might be wrong. I've never used it before and have just had a brief look). The 2 systems seem very different to be honest.

In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:


The C2C system actually does both detailed ‘trip reports’ and a summary on the homepage of most recent ascents so that you can see what’s in condition at the moment (that you can narrow down to a particular country or area or even type of activity).

It’s useful on the individual route pages to be able to see all previous ascents, especially on the less popular routes that might only be logged once a year.

In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:

Are you going to keep it going all year round? I hope so.

Conditions for the Alps are actually reasonably hard to find for anyone with time flexibility rather than abundance. Great innovation.

In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:

This is good. Maybe on alpine crags and winter routes there should be a conditions box as well as the comments so people can give advice on cornices, crevasses etc. For example on my recent traverse of the breithorn I could write:

Bergshrund crossed with ease. Higher tracks cross crevasses and so an icy route directly up to the col is advised. Cornices on central breithorn are currently undermined and a lower path than the established track should be considered.

This kind of information is really useful for beginner alpinists and those who don't have guides.

In reply to Martin McKenna - Rockfax:

Looks excellent. A similar sort of page for water ice would personally also be really useful.