This may be of interest to some. The SMC have published their entire routes database, with all the guidebook route description text…
Many thanks, shame the search options are so limited but I guess they are the same as the indexes & contents pages of the books
Yeah, I’ve commented back to them that a scrollable map interface on the front page would be useful.
Huge debt of gratitude to everyone acknowledged here for years of volunteer effort that we all benefit from.
What a tremendous resource! Huge thanks for all the work involved and kudos for the decision to put the information out there!
Doug, what else would you want as search options. Searching for crag, route, region, FAist all get you straight there. For the Crag seach, it accepts any heading level, so Dunkeld for example takes you to the chapter, then drill down to required heading. Or go straight to Upper Cave. It's very flexible, just 4 letters required to bring up a suggestion list, accent, apostrophe and space independent.
Thanks, team effort, but special thanks to Nevil Hewitt for the brilliant coding software stack.
A map for the whole of Scotland would be somewhat crowded, with 7000+ crags. But, point taken. We'll see what can be done in the future about chapter or region maps. These exist in the core system, with interactive dots and colour coding, but not on the public page yet.
We are very happy to receive descriptions of routes that may be lacking, so please do send them in. Also we are making a big effort to improve the FA lists, by correcting mistakes and omissions, and including first names. Have a look at your personal list (menu item under the three lines) and please get in touch if you can add more detail.
A couple of sport routes were bolted during the pandemic at Dumbarton Rock, don't think they're in the new Lowland Outcrops or in the database. Between Tides (6a+) Grey Wall (6c+)
>”what else would you want as search options”
The text base search options kinda assume you know what you are looking for. The list of regions kinda assume you know the geography of Scotland, and more importantly the SMC area boundary lines, intimately.
If I find a bit of rock with a nice looking line on it and want to check if the crag has previously been developed, I would want to zoom into a map at the location and see either a marker on the map linking to the crag name and its routes, or no marker, which would tell me the crag has no properly recorded routes and in all likelihood never been climbed.
I can do this map based searching on UKC but as the UKC database isn’t as complete as that of the SMC, obscure esoteric crags with one route recorded in 1953 may not appear on the UKC database.
I’m not 100% certain but I think these sport lines may be old solos that got retro bolted…
> I’m not 100% certain but I think these sport lines may be old solos that got retro bolted…
That's what I heard when they were put up, AFAIK they got permission first though. Dollar was bolted around the same time and made it into the guide so it sounds like an oversight.
That is absolutely terrific. Hats off to the SMC.
I'll certainly raise this issue, it would be good to have an interactive map. There are various ways of doing it. It is though intended to complement the guidebooks, which do give overall maps etc. I've tried to use region names that reflect the geography rather than the demarcation of the 2001-2018 guidebook series, so for example Skye is all in one section, whether Cuillin or outcrop, and the Northern Isles have their own section.
Anyway, shown here I hope is the full map with all the dots. Apologies for the tectonic shift of the Northern Isles.
This is an amazing effort, well done to everyone involved! Developing these kinds of resources can be a bit of a thankless task at times.
To add another to the endless list of suggestions: If you're accepting corrections, a handy way to do it from an individual route page would be cool, so if a user spots an error there's a way to report it straight away.
>”sounds like an oversight”
Well it’s only an oversight if Andy actually registered the new bolted versions with the SMC. Otherwise, it’s just something nobody has told them about.
Thanks. We did consider that, but in the end in this version we decided just to provide a link to the comment section of the new routes site, accessed from the webpage or the Climbs menu on the SMC main website. Granted, it is a few extra clicks but then you can identify the crag and the route and link a comment direct to that. After moderation, the comment will appear on the public site after the route in question.
> Well it’s only an oversight if Andy actually registered the new bolted versions with the SMC. Otherwise, it’s just something nobody has told them about.
Could be the case! I did the Dumby routes for the new guide, and no record of these searching back through my emails. Och well, maybe next guide
Just send it in via the new routes site, very easy, and hey presto it will appear!
Worth having a look for the novelty of unpolished rock at Dumby.
Has anyone else tried this today (Monday 22nd) and can't get it to work? I tried it a day or two ago and found it worked excellently, but now I write a route name in the search box and there is no "search" button to hit. Just hitting return doesn't seem to do anything either. Tried on phone and laptop.
I'm getting the same ☹️
Seems to be back working now...
It is working again - great.
Now does anyone know how I go about correcting a mistake in a first ascent detail?
Or you can email me via UKC (I think, 'email user' option?) and I can send out personal FA lists for correction. The deal is, in return we'd like more info on FAists first names. That will help clarify lots of ambiguities.
Yes - doesn't seem to be working currently though. I also earlier tried the feedback link at the bottom of the page I think it was but again currently going to a blank page.
It's a very minor new route that I climbed with a friend did 30 years ago (Eeek! How did it get to be that long ago!?), but currently they have the wrong friend down. I did a couple of other new lines in that area the same year and they have the name of the partner I did the other routes with. Besides anything else my mate on this particular route was Alison, and I think it was still pretty rare for women to be doing new routes in winter back then so getting the historical record right would be nice just for that reason.
Got it, thanks. It'll be corrected in the next update, probably next week.
It's working for me just now.
> I can send out personal FA lists for correction. The deal is, in return we'd like more info on FAists first names. That will help clarify lots of ambiguities.
Just looking again at the FAs and FWA I was involved in. I can provide first names for my partners who you only have initials for if that's any help.
Thanks, that would be a great help. In time we hope to make the lists as accurate as possible. I'm away at present so can't send actual files, but it's easy to generate an FA list of what we have for anyone.
Please let us know if this happens again. Probably due to heavy traffic. It will restart itself if it does happen, but there are technical solutions too.
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