How to contribute to openclimbing.org
Disclaimer: The openclimbing.org application is still in beta, and some essential functionality is currently missing. We’re continuously improving it, though, so you can look forward to many new features. If you’re curious about what’s in store, check out our roadmap.
We use the OpenStreetMap (OSM) database to store all climbing data. This has one huge advantage: the database is community-driven, so anyone can use or edit it, and the data will never be locked behind a paywall. By adding content to OSM we are improving data also for other map apps like Mapy.cz, Maps.me, OsmAnd and hundreds other apps.
It works much like Wikipedia, except instead of editing articles, we edit geographic and climbing data.
Anyone who wants to use OSM data can do so freely, and nobody can restrict their access. By design, OSM data isn’t — and won’t ever be — monetized.
We believe that information about climbing routes — which are part of the public space — should be freely accessible, just like street names. That’s why we designed a way to store these details in OpenStreetMap.
We decided to create a tool that supports this data format and lets anyone map climbing routes. We call it openclimbing.org, and it’s entirely open source.
In this article, we’ll explain how to build a climbing guide for a crag and draw specific climbing routes.
The Schema
OpenStreetMap supports many ways to record information, relying on the community to converge on the most practical solutions over time. In openclimbing.org, we’ve built on a partially existing schema for climbing areas, crags, and routes. It looks something like this:
When creating climbing guides (topos), we distinguish three entities:
- Area — A broader climbing area, typically containing multiple crags.
- Crag — A specific sector within the area, usually containing several routes.
- Route — An individual climbing route.
In OpenStreetMap, every node must have its own coordinates. That’s why in openclimbing.org each route must include a coordinate. Meanwhile, crags and areas don’t have coordinates themselves, because they’re just abstract groups (relations) of the individual routes. The coordinates for these areas/crags are automatically calculated based on their routes.
Although this might seem reversed compared to traditional climbing guides — where the area or crag is mapped first rather than each route — there’s a practical benefit: sometimes it’s incredibly useful for climbers to know the exact location of each route.
For a detailed description of the tags you might need when entering climbing data, see the OSM Wiki — Climbing.
How to Add a Climbing Area to OpenStreetMap
Enough of boring theory! Let’s move from theory to practice. Here’s how you can add a new crag and climbing routes to OSM using openclimbing.org. While it’s possible to use general editors like iD or JOSM, they’re more complex and don’t let you overlay routes on a photo as conveniently.
- Login/register
If you want to add content to openclimbing.org, you need to log in to OpenStreetMap. Registration is quick and free.
2. Creating a Climbing Crag
On the map, click the location where you’d like to add a climbing area, then click “Add a place.”
3. Choose “Climbing crag”
4. Provide the crag’s name.
5. (Optional) Add a photo by entering its title from Wikimedia Commons (including "File:"
) into the “Wikimedia commons photo” field. You can also add photos later.
Note: In the future we are going to add support for uploading photos directly from the app. We are working on it!
6. Convert the node to a relation.
Under “Members,” click “Convert to relation.”
It's here because it reflects how OSM works. In the future, we might abstract this functionality into the code, but we don't want to have too much of magic here for now.
7. Create a climbing route:
Under “Members,” click “Add member,” then type the route name.
8. Set the route’s location.
Click “Position” and drag the pin to the correct spot on the map.
The more precise, the better but it doesn't have to be 100% correct. Future contributors are going to improve it.
9. (Optional) Specify other route properties, such as grade, length, authors, or a description. You can add any new tag to All properties.
Additional details can be found in the OSM Wiki — Climbing.
The most used tags for climbing routes are:
- climbing:grade:uiaa — Grade system used by the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation (UIAA).
- climbing:grade:french- The French numerical system (Fontainebleau scale) rates a climb according to the overall technical difficulty and strenuousness of the route.
- description — Description of the entity (climbing route in this case, but in general you can use it for any OSM entity)
- author — Author of the route, it can be also enhanced with year of creating the route
- climbing:length — basic info about the length of the route. Please use some units.
You can find more info about climbing grades, types and conversions here.
10. Add more routes if you need to: return to the main crag entry you just created and repeat the process.
11. Save to OSM to upload your changes to the main database. The changes are instantly available to everyone, this is not a playground.
You can then review your changes in OSM on provided link:
Drawing Climbing Routes on Photo
Now we have added crag and routes and we are going to draw climbing routes specificly on the photo:
- Display the crag and open crag detail.
It may take some time until the changes are visible on openclimbing.org map.
2. To draw routes on a photo, click the pencil icon
4. Select a route and click “Draw route”
5. Map out the route by clicking on the photo following the route on the crag.
5. Click on “Done” when drawing is finished.
You can extend it anytime.
6. (Optional) You can also click on the point and add annotations.
You can mark bolt, anchor, piton, sling, etc.
7. Click “Save.”
You can anotate multiple climbing routes. They can be also variants. And that’s all!
Summary
If you have any questions or suggestions, don’t hesitate to send us an email, open an issue on GitHub, or leave a comment under the article. Your feedback is very important to us.
Enjoy creating your climbing guides!