The Best Apps for Rock Climbers
Table of Contents
Update 12/21/2020: Updated to include additions to the MyClimb app.
Technological breakthroughs of the 21st century have truly made it a wonderful time to be a rock climber. The proliferation of smart phones puts us right in a sweet spot-we have access to an infinite library of information, but the robots have not yet risen up to enslave humanity. For now, we can rest easy and climb to our content, free from our cybernetic overlords.
Along with the rise of the smartphone, an entire industry of app development has emerged. Of the many apps on the market, us rock climbers can enjoy many tailored to enhance our sport. Some climbing apps are digital guidebooks, while other are designed to improve your training sessions.
A few more will help guide you through tricky approaches. I have taken the liberty to narrow down the list, and help you find the best climbing app for your climbing needs.
1. Mountain Project App
The Mountain Project App is a great resource for climbers. With the “MoPro” app, climbers can download Mountain Project’s entire database of routes right into their smartphone, allowing them to access Mountain Project on the go. The app works offline, and can be used even in the most remote of mountain environments.
With built in GPS features, traveling climbers can find the locations of the closest crags. Climbers can add comments, upload photos, tick routes, and spray beta, just like on the website! The Mountain Project App is like having a collection of user curated guidebooks. Ever since Mountain Project was acquired by REI back in 2015, the MoPro app is frequently updated, and well maintained.
I find that the MoPro app is best used when combined with traditional guidebooks. When used in sync, the two compliment each other. Guidebooks are typically more comprehensive, while the Mountain Project App fills in the gap of route conditions, and approach beta.
The Mountain project app can be easily paired with guidebook apps like Rakkup or 27Crags to help you get all the beta. This app can safely rest on its laurels, and it may be the only climbing app that you will ever need.
Warning: The Mountain Project Forums, as useful as the may be, are a black hole of procrastination. Climbers find themselves stuck in a loop, re reading the same, rehashed threads about black totem cams and sport bolting ethics. Download at your own risk.
Price: Free!
2. Gaia GPS
Gaia GPS is easily one of my favorite apps. For only a fraction of the cost, GaiaGPS takes the power of a dedicated GPS device, and puts it into you smartphone.
Gaia GPS allows users world wide GPS functionality, supplying a variety of maps for use when climbing, hiking, and adventuring. Topo maps, shaded slope maps, land use maps, and more are all available to help you navigate the crags and trails of the world.
My favorite feature of Gaia GPS is it’s ability to let you create tracks and waypoints. I have used this feature to map tricky approach trails, hiking trails, locations of crags, and more general points on interest.
I have several folders in my Gaia GPS app, each dedicated to something I find interesting. Typically, I will record trail and crag locations, as well as points of interest I have come across. It makes for an interesting, geographic journal of my time spent outdoors. For me, that is worth the modest subscription price alone.
When you are finished recording your tracks, they can then be organized into folders, and viewed on the main map. The app allows you to view further detail, including elevation profiles, speed of travel, and the duration of your hike.
Better yet, the GPS data can be exported for use in other applications. GaiaGPS is available for free, but the true power of the app is unlocked when you purchase a yearly subscription, including access to hundreds of basemaps, and the ability to view your location offline.
Gaia GPS has proven to be very useful to me in the past. Whether I’m backpacking, climbing, or just walking around, I always have my Gaia GPS App ready to go.
I have used Gaiagps to great effect in the past, utilizing it to map hiking trails in Flagstaff, and Yosemite National Park.
Price: $20/year for standard, and $40/year for premium. A stripped down, free version is available for download.
Get a Discount on Your Gaia GPS Membership! By signing up through the links below, you can get 20% off your membership!
3. PeakVisor App
The PeakVisor app is the Augmented Reality app that I’ve been dreaming about. Compatible with both iOS, and Android, the PeakVisor app allows climbers to identify any mountain peak, high point, or even castle, in the world.
PeakVisor gives it’s users useful, identifying information about any peak within line of sight. Simply point your phone at a mountain range, and instantly get names, altitudes, and profiles.
The app is free to download, but a premium version allows offline use. Since data can be downloaded offline, PeakVisor Pro can be used in remote, rugged areas without a data connection.
PeakVisor is very useful for navigating, finding approaches, or simply learning more about the mountains and crags surrounding you. With a stretch of the imagination, PeakVisor can be used to enhance your gym climbing experience. Point the app at a gym boulder problem, line it up with a nearby peak, and pretend that you are climbing in the alpine.
Download PeakVisor: iOS, Android
4. MyClimb App
The MyClimb app is one of the most popular climbing apps on the market. MyClimb combines two useful features to make a great app.
First, it is a tracking app. Climbers can use MyClimb to track their routes climbed, and their workouts. Second, it is a social app that climbers can use to meet climbing partners.
Created by climbers, for climbers, the MyClimb app provides all sorts of useful metrics for tracking your climbing progress. Users can log climbs by grade, discipline, and location. It is great way to visualize your progression through rock climbing grades, as well as to track your ticks at gyms and crags.
Better yet, the app is compatible with multiple international climbing grade scales, allowing climbers to easily convert their climbs to other scales.
The social functions of this app are where it really stands out. The partner finder feature allows climbers to find others in their area to meet up and climb.
With more than 2.5 million climbs logged by it’s users, and a catalogue of over 10,000 gyms and climbing areas, MyClimb is proving to be one of the most trusted social and training apps amongst rock climbers.
Climbers can even devise climbing and workout challenges for others, and leaderboards add a competitive appeal. It’s like Tinder, but for climbing.
For more information, check out MyClimb’s website.
Update: Since I first wrote this blog post, MyClimb has introduced some big changes! The app has been further optimized to aid in your climbing workout regimen, and has added more social features. Changes Include…
- Professional Workouts-Now you can train like a professional rock climber. Included with MyClimb are workout challenges custom made by the pros!
- Goals-Coming in 2021, MyClimbs new Goals feature will allow you to create and set climbing goals. The app will help you to stay motivated by tracking your progress, and keep you on course to climb harder routes.
- Free to Climbing Gyms- Due to the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic, many rock climbing gyms are struggling. To ease the burden, and help support the climbing community, MyClimb is making itself free to climbing gyms. Included is all of the usual features available to gyms, including climbing leagues, and setting management.
Price: Free!
5. Climbing Weather App
There are numerous weather apps available, all of which perform their intended function perfectly well. Truthfuly, the Climbing Weather app is not much different from the rest of the pack. It will tell you the daily highs and lows, the chances of precipitation, the wind speed, and everything else you’d expect to find in a weather app.
For rock climbers, the climbing weather app has one great advantage. Unlike normal weather apps, the Climbing Weather app will give you regular updates on weather conditions in the climbing areas themselves.
No more guessing the weather, where in the past you’d have to get the forecasts for the nearest town.
Hundreds of climbing areas from across the nation are available. Climbers can search by area, regions and state, and the databases are even synced with Mountain Project.
This app takes a lot of the guess work out planning your climbing trips, and will be a valuable resource to any rock climber.
Price: Free!
Download: iOS
6.Rakkup
Have you ever found yourself frustrated, trying in vain to parse some beta out of Mountain Project? Ever wandered aimlessly through crags and boulder fields, wishing that you had just invested in the darn guidebook? Have you ever purchased the darn guidebook, and quickly grew tired of lugging around a heavy paperback everywhere?
If, like me, you have experienced any combination of the above, then you wish that you could just find the perfect compromise. Luckily, the Rakkup App is here to help you get all the beta you need right onto your smartphone.
Using the Rakkup App, climbers can purchase and download published guidebooks right into their phone or tablet. He guidebooks can then be read offline, and you don’t have to worry about carrying around a heavy book.
It’s like an e-reader and mountain project joined forces, but without the attention sucking powers of mountain project.
Rakkup also offers a solution for climbers with a creative itch. Through their platform, anyone can create and publish a guidebook. Their guidebook can then be distributed and sold via the Rakkup app. They take a lot of the confusion out of the traditional publishing process.
Price: Free! Additional content can be purchased within the app.
7.BeastMaker Training App
From the popular Beastmaker Hangboards comes the Beastmaker App. The App is designed as a training aid to accompany your hangboarding sessions, working in tandem with a Beastmaker Hangboard.
The app comes with several pre-programmed workouts, each designed to accommodate the spectrum of climber skill levels. Though the app is designed to work with the Beastmaker 1000, and Beastmaker 2000 hangboards, it can really be used for any hangboard at your disposal.
This is a great app for the climbers looking to improve their climbing performance. The Beastmaker Hangboards are already a trusted training tool, but the app will give you solid, proven plans to help you make the most of them.
Price: $1.99
8.Pinnacle Climb Log
The Pinnacle Climbing Log App is a simple, easy to use iOS app for logging your climbing workouts. In just one touch, the Pinnacle App will log your climbs quickly and efficiently. You don’t need to mess with menus to add route.
This is a great little tool to log your training sessions. One tap will log a route, and a long tap will log an attempt. The duration of your sessions will be recorded, and all will be packaged and presented in clean looking graphs.
If you’re the type of person who will shell out the cash for an expensive smart watch to accompany your expensive smart phone, then you’re in luck. The Pinnacle Climb Log app is also available for the Apple Watch.
You don’t even need a smart phone to use this app. Better yet, the Apple Watch will monitor your heart rate, and other health metrics during your climbing workout.
Price: $3.99
Download: iOS
9.Crimpd App by Lattice Training
With the Crimpd App, Lattice Training has created what is arguably the best climbing training app on the market. The Crimpd App is more than just a training tracker.
With the help of world class climbing coaches Tom Randall and Ollie Torr, the Crimpd app brings you specialized training programs to help you focus on endurance, finger strength, technique, and footwork.
After each workout, the Crimpd app will ask you questions about the quality of your session. These will then be logged to give you some useful insight into your training progress, such as difficulty in relation to the intensity and duration of your workouts.
Price: Free!
10. Knots 3D App
The Knots 3D app is exactly what it sounds like. It’s an app that’s full of knots and hitches. This app is designed as quick reference material for people looking to learn to tie knots. Climbers can find all the knots they need, including bowlines, alpine butterflies, and friction hitches.
All the knots in the app are presented as beautiful 3D illustrations, and are designed with a high degree of interactivity. Users can tie and untie knots with their fingers, and can be rotated to be viewed from any angle.
The Knots are grouped by category, and the app includes a category for climbing knots. If you’re into macrame, fishing, boating, or any other activities that require knots, then this app is an even better investment.
Personally, I find it very difficult to follow the 2D step-by-step guides presented in traditional knot books. With the Knots 3D app, this is no longer a problem.
Cost: $4.99
11. 27Crags
Cut from a similar cloth as the Rakkup App, 27Crags seeks to create a resource of mobile climbing guidebooks. Where the Rakkup app allows users to download published guidebooks, the topos on 27crags are entirely user created.
27Crags provides another avenue by which climbers can publish their own guidebooks. Guides can be released for free, or a premium can be set. In my opinion, 27Crags has an edge over Rakkup, when you can invite others to collaborate on creating a topo.
This allows for a greater social and communal aspect to 27Crags. 27Crags also offers guidebooks for a wider geographic range. European and Asian topos are available, where Rakkup only has guides for North America.
Price: Free! Some topos may cost an additional charge.
Conclusion
The apps presented here are hand picked, and considered by many to be the best options available for smart phone wielding climbers. I have used every one of these apps, and I can vouch for the quality of their design, features, and ease of use.
Whether you use an iphone or Android, I hope that this list can help you find the apps you need to take your climbing game to the next level. If you have a suggestion for another useful climbing app, feel free to leave it in the comments!
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