I'd like to see this added soon. I'm starting to spend more time on Mountain Project, because they have it. Red Rocksand the high Sierra were an examples of when I used it. I don't know what the code etc is to create it, but it'd be nice.

The descriptions there suck.

This is a great idea.

Thanks for mentioning it, ds.

How does it work?

Hmm, I use this feature rather rarely but that's only because I own guidebooks

If for example you go to the Lovers Leap page on MP and then click "Best routes for YOU in this area", you'll see a screen come up that allows you to select routes from the area that fall within certain criteria : rating (rock, boulder, aid, ice, mixed), quality, number of pitches, etc. You can also have the results sorted in various ways. Looks like a relatively straightforward database query type thing.

I can definitely see it being useful though for places I rarely visit or have never been like Joshua Tree or Red Rocks. For the former it seems less useful because we don't have too many Jtree routes, but I suspect that for places like Red Rocks or Canadian Rockies ice perhaps more so.

rhyang wrote:I can definitely see it being useful though for places I rarely visit or have never been like Joshua Tree or Red Rocks. For the former it seems less useful because we don't have too many Jtree routes, but I suspect that for places like Red Rocks or Canadian Rockies ice perhaps more so.

A fine point. Mountainproj is a great cragging resource and thus the "best routes for you" option works best there. I don't see the harm in having this option here though. Maybe even expand the range to include states, ranges, etc...

AlpineAffinity wrote:I don't see the harm in having this option here though. Maybe even expand the range to include states, ranges, etc...

We actually do have something similar -- see the Advanced Search under 'Routes'. You can search by YDS rock difficulty, commitment grade, state, continent, distance from (city, state, zip, coordinates), route type, etc. It doesn't restrict the search within areas/ranges though, and it doesn't include grades for ice or any of those furrin' grade systems

I remember a post from someone a while back looking for good third class scrambles in the Sierra. Well, we have a Sierra Nevada range object -- it would be nice to be able to just point someone to a convenient search tool.. though perhaps a 'High Sierra' or 'Eastern Sierra' grouping would make more sense for some kinds of searches.

rhyang wrote:

AlpineAffinity wrote:I don't see the harm in having this option here though. Maybe even expand the range to include states, ranges, etc...

We actually do have something similar -- see the Advanced Search under 'Routes'. You can search by YDS rock difficulty, commitment grade, state, continent, distance from (city, state, zip, coordinates), route type, etc. It doesn't restrict the search within areas/ranges though, and it doesn't include grades for ice or any of those furrin' grade systems

I remember a post from someone a while back looking for good third class scrambles in the Sierra. Well, we have a Sierra Nevada range object -- it would be nice to be able to just point someone to a convenient search tool.. though perhaps a 'High Sierra' or 'Eastern Sierra' grouping would make more sense for some kinds of searches.

I appreciate the discussion. I do think there are some great search options here. I think that adding a more specific/focused search engine would help for our road trips, would draw people into the site, and would help us direct our efforts to create more (and more thorough) route pages. Again, on Mountain Project, the descriptions are poor, and its one way SP stands out against the other sites, but there's no reason SP can't take over/adapt to how useful MP is... Seems to be a lot more subtle spray over there

...the Ship Rock controversy notwithstanding.

Montana Matt wrote:This sounds interesting. Can you give me a bit more information as to how the "Best Routes for you" are selected? Or at least how you think they're selected? Is it a geographical thing based on the location in your profile?

Also, on what page would make the most sense for them to be shown? Where would a link to the "Best Routes for you" logically be placed on SP?

Matt,
you can do the search on many levels over there: statewide, drag, mountain, etc. An great example here would be that the ice forum is all over the place, but what if I want to search for results just within the Colorado ice routes...

It might require some reorganization within the hierarchy or pages. I don't know. Just thought I'd mention it due to my preference for the SP model over the MP model. This is one part of their model that works for me, especially considering the rock climbing content they have there. I realize SP is more of a generalist's site.