Pisgah Climbing School Blog

Do you ever go to do a climb and spend too much time figuring out where it starts? What about when you go to a new area? Here is a tool and process that I use when trying to locate climbs and orient myself. 

The tool: 

Mountain Project. This is a crowd-sourced, free application that climbers use to share information.

The process:

Recently, I went to check out a route called Paradise Alley, a classic 5.8+ route at Shortoff Mountain in the Linville Gorge. Though I had been to Shortoff, I had never walked over to this area of the cliff, so I checked out the route’s page on Mountain Project for clues on where to find the route. 

One of my favorite features on the app is the ability to list routes in a certain order. For example, users can list the routes left to right or right to left. I knew where the popular “Supercrack” route was, so being able to see the routes in order pointed me towards Paradise Alley as I walked along the cliff. 

Mountain Project Shortoff routes, in order from left to right.

Once I got to the base of what I thought might be the climb, I pulled out the app again to check out route photos. Users often submit pictures of themselves on different parts of the climb. I find photos taken from the ground most helpful because I can match up features I see in front of me with the picture to identify the climb. This route begins with a prominent crack system that arches to the left. After matching up the large crack feature, I examined the smaller features to confirm this climb was Paradise Alley. Just left of the crack towards the bottom is an arrow-head shaped hole in the rock near the ground (pictured below). After matching this feature up with the photo, I knew I was at the right climb. 

Paradise Alley start, taken from the base by app user Barry Brown. 

Another place to look for location information is in the comment section. In the comments for this route, app user Jon Luers offers an explanation of how to find the route based on other nearby climbs. Since I had climbed these routes, I knew how to get to them and could simply follow the additional directions. He also offers a time estimate for the approach, which helped me anticipate how much further I should expect to walk past where I had previously climbed. 

Helpful location beta found in the comments under the Paradise Alley route description 

Together, these three features on Mountain Project help immensely in locating new climbs. Mountain project also downloads straight to each user’s phone, so you can access all this information without cell service. Next time you’re heading to a new spot, check out these features within the app to find where you’re going, and have a splitter day!