Glossary

Terms as they are used in this codebase, with the field or table they map to where relevant.

Places

Crag — a place you go climbing. A named piece of rock with a car park and a walk-in. Table: crags.

Sector (also area, buttress, wall) — a named part of a crag. Ordered by the order you walk past them, not alphabetically. Table: sectors.

Topo — a photo or drawing of a piece of rock with the routes marked on it. The core artefact of a guidebook. Tables: photos + route_lines.

Approach / walk-in — getting from the car to the crag. Recorded separately from the crag's location, because parking is often nowhere near the rock. Fields: Crag.parking, approachMinutes, approachNotes.

Aspect — which way the crag faces. Determines sun and drying time, which determines whether the day is worth having. Field: Crag.aspect, Sector.aspect.

Route types

Route — a specific named line up the rock. Table: routes.

Sport — bolts are already in the rock. You clip them. Graded in French or YDS.

Trad (traditional) — you place your own protection as you climb and remove it afterwards. UK routes are graded with two numbers; see grading systems. Field: Route.gearNotes carries what to bring.

Boulder / problem — short, hard, no rope, a mat on the ground. Graded in Font or V.

Top rope — the rope is already anchored above you. Safest, least committing.

Deep water solo (DWS) — no rope, sea below. The fall is into water.

Multi-pitch — long enough to need stopping partway to belay. Field: Route.pitches.

Highball — a boulder problem high enough that falling off is a serious matter.

Doing the route

Ascent / tick — a record that you climbed something. Table: ascents.

Onsight — first attempt, no prior knowledge of the moves. The purest style, and the hardest. AscentStyle.onsight.

Flash — first attempt, but you had information: you watched someone, or were told the sequence. AscentStyle.flash.

Redpoint — led cleanly after practice. You had fallen off before, or worked the moves. AscentStyle.redpoint.

Pinkpoint — redpoint, but the gear was already placed. Increasingly considered the same as a redpoint; kept as a separate value because some people record it.

Headpoint — a trad route practised on a top rope first, then led. Common on bold routes where onsighting would be dangerous.

Second — climbed after the leader, with the rope above you. AscentStyle.second.

Attempt — you got on it and did not do it. Recorded because trying counts and because attempt counts are how a project gets tracked.

Dogged — got to the top but rested on the rope. Not a clean ascent; recorded honestly.

Project — a route you are working on that you have not done yet.

Send — to complete a route cleanly. Not a stored value; you will hear it constantly.

Beta — information about how to do the moves. An onsight is invalidated by having beta.

The rest

Grade — how hard. Stored as published, in the system it was published in. See grading systems. Fields: Route.grade, Route.gradeSystem.

Stars — quality, 0 to 3, the guidebook convention. Three stars means "do this one". Field: Route.stars.

First ascent (FA) — who climbed it first, and when. Climbing cares about its history; the guidebook records it. Fields: Route.firstAscent, firstAscentYear.

Belay — holding the rope for the climber, and also the place you do it from on a multi-pitch route. Field: RouteLine.anchors marks belays on a topo.

Rack — the gear you carry for a trad route. Route.gearNotes says what to bring: "small wires, cams to #3".

Wires / nuts — passive metal wedges slotted into cracks.

Cams — spring-loaded protection that expands into a crack. Sized by number.

Arete — an outside corner of rock. Crack, slab (less than vertical), roof (horizontal overhang) — the other common shapes, all of which appear in route descriptions.

Gritstone — the coarse sandstone of the Peak District. Grips well when cold and dry, greasy when warm. Field: Crag.rockType.

Access restriction — a reason you cannot climb here right now: nesting birds, private land, a seasonal ban. Safety- and access-critical, so it is surfaced prominently and dated. Fields: Crag.accessStatus, accessNotes.

RAD — the BMC's Regional Access Database, the UK's authority on crag access. Where access information ultimately comes from.

Partner — who you climbed with. Recorded on the ascent, because climbing is not a solo activity and a logbook that pretends otherwise is recording it wrong. Fields: Ascent.partnerUserIds, partnerNames.

Wishlist / hit list — routes you want to do. Table: wishlist_items.