The Climb It Blog

Climb It 1.3 Just Released

Climb It version 1.3 just hit the app store and this is a great new version.

First off, we've added over 450 new routes in Québec, where once were none.

After the Gripped mention came out, we were so inundated with requests for routes in Québec that it was impossible to resist, and based on my research, I now really regret that I never did any climbing there while I lived back east. Québec looks awesome.

Many locations now have GPS information. If we have co-ordinates, Climb It displays a small inline map in the detail view of the location that can be clicked through to Google Maps. It's perfect for finding driving directions to crags you've never been to before or seeing how far you are from the one you're going to.

We don't yet have GPS co-ordinates for everywhere in Climb It, but the list grows daily.

We've also added guidebook versions and pages for areas and crags that we have that information for.

For instance: if you're thinking of climbing at Mota Wall in El Potrero Chico and you take a look at it in Climb It, you'll now easily see that Mota Wall is on page 19 in Magic Ed's "Rock Climbers Guide to El Potrero Chico" and on page 97 in Dane Bass's "The Whole Enchilada". Flip there in your paper-bound guidebook and you're set. Basically, we're aiming to let you search the indexes of your guidebooks from within Climb It.

And finally graphs got a whole bunch of love in this version. Clicking on the small graphs in a locations detail view now displays a larger full-screen graph of the route distribution for that place. Bigger graphs means better resolution when trying to figure out where to climb next.

This version literally could not have been made without the great feedback we've received from users. Please keep it coming.

Posted by Chris Cummer 

GriGri 2 Recall

Just a head's up that Petzl has issued a recall for all Grigri 2's that have serial numbers with the first five digits between 10326 and 11136, inclusive:

Petzl has discovered that exerting excessive force on the fully extended handle of the GRIGRI 2 can cause internal damage, such that the GRIGRI 2 handle may become stuck in the open position.

When the handle is stuck in this position the assisted braking function is disabled.

Nonetheless, I still want one.

Posted by Chris Cummer 

Climb It mentioned in Gripped Magazine

I should mention that the price discrepancy in the Gripped mention is my fault, not theirs. I changed the price of Climb It in the app store to $4.99 awhile ago to promote things and people seemed to like that price so much that I just left it there. Alas that price change happened after Gripped went to press but before it hit the news-stands.

Posted by Chris Cummer 

First Day Out - Area 44

Yesterday marked my first day climbing back outside this season and what a good day it was. Rather than hit up the usual crags along the Squamish corridor we decided to head up to Area 44, an incredibly accessible set of crags currently under active development by Don Cann and André Lechner. So under development, in fact, that half the area was closed while they trundled rock and cleaned routes on the other half. So new, in fact, that on some of the routes we were cleaning rock as we climbed. From what I saw yesterday Area 44 has great potential. 

Needless to say Area 44 it will be available in the next version of Climb It. I've already added the routes per Don and André's topo to the database.

We also ran into Marc Bourdon up at Insite Wall and heard some exciting news: he's actively researching the next edition of Squamish Select, though no word yet on when it might be published. If you climb on the lower mainland, Squamish Select needs no introduction.

Pefect weather, an incredible view of the Tantalus Range, and good climbing. Not a bad first day back.

Posted by Chris Cummer 

The Next Step

I don't usually talk about future features for Climb It because, in my experience, that leads to a lack of flexibility. People treat them as promises rather than points on a map. But I'm going to make an exception this once, because it's pretty exciting. My new iPad just showed up so some time soon Climb It will be coming to the iPad as a native app. I don't know when yet, since I still have to figure out what's required to make that happen, but it's coming.

And it'll be a universal app. If you've bought Climb It for the iPhone, you'll get it on your iPad for no additional cost.

Posted by Chris Cummer 

Climb It on sale: now just $4.99

To celebrate the start of the spring climbing season we've put Climb It on sale in the iTunes App Store for just $4.99. That's 40% of the regular price!

If you climb in Canada, the Red River Gorge, or El Potrero Chico, now's the time to buy Climb It.

Posted by Chris Cummer 

Website Status

If you've tried to get to the Climb It or Gearkata websites in the past twelve hours you've probably noticed that they don't work.

Both our sites are hosted on Heroku. Heroku runs atop a bunch of Amazon EC2 instances, and Amazon EC2 is currently experiencing failures and errors. I'm sure this is as frustrating for everyone at Heroku and Amazon as it is for us and you. Hopefully we'll know more soon.

Posted by Chris Cummer 

The Chipping Controversy

Rock and Ice has a great debate section going at the moment about the ethics and propriety of chipping holdings. I highly recommend all climbers head on over and give it a read.

Personally I think a quote, ascribed to Dave Graham in one of the letters, best sums up my feelings on the issue far more eloquently than I could: "theft from the future". I like that phrase a lot; I like the breadth of responsibility that it implies.

Posted by Chris Cummer 

The iPhone and Ontario

If you're a climber in Ontario and you've got an iPhone or iPad, it's a good time to be you. Of course you already have Climb It, which covers Ontario rock climbing routes extensively, and now you get can your ice climbing fix too. For those of you crazy enough to think frozen water is a stable medium, Joe Stubbs has just released the Ontario Ice Climbing iPhone app. It catalogues dozens of routes in southern and central Ontario as well as providing in-app mapping directions right to them.

I've only been playing with it for a little while now, and I live in BC which makes it hard to really take advantage of the app, but it looks pretty sweet. And it's only $0.99 to boot.

Posted by Chris Cummer 

Climb It 1.2.1 released

That's right, mere days later another new version. While 1.2 still remains my favourite release it turns out that all those new buckets of awesomeness it contained had some unintended side-effects. Namely that some parts of the app felt just too damned slow. Stuttery even, if you will.

1.2.1 fixes that in most places (though not yet in the place the effect is felt most direly: in The Works screen) and in general improves the usability experience. And from my perspective, though perhaps not noticeable to you, it contains some greatly simplified internals that now lay the groundwork for the next set of featured.

Last but certainly not least, it also fixes a few of minor bugs that slipped through the 1.2 release. Good night bugs, good night.

(And yes, there's a spelling mistake in the 1.2.1 release notes in the app. I am reminded once again why one should never release at night).

Posted by Chris Cummer