Climbing’s history and culture are based on a connection to nature and a minimalist approach to electronic technology––but that is changing quickly. Climbing is well on its way to becoming a more connected, more social, and more mobile-friendly activity. And we can expect it to continue growing in new and unexpected ways.
Team FrictionLabs has put together a review of useful technologies (mostly applications for your mobile device), in no particular rank or order, that aim to help you in your climbing. Whether you’re looking for an app to help you train, to build your social network of climbing peers, or simply guide you to the boulders, you’ll find it here.
Read on to learn about each app’s function and features, its design and aesthetics, and whether or not it’s worth downloading. We hope you find something here to help you find and climb your dream project!
Category: Guide/Logbook
Cost: Pay-per-guide. Get it on the App Store and Google Play.
The Vertical Life app offers mobile guidebooks for both outdoor crags and indoor gyms, published “in cooperation with local developers, authors and publishing houses.” It also allows the user to log ascents, complete challenges, follow friends and professional “heroes,” and more. Guides are available with in-app purchases with in-app c for climbing areas found mostly in Europe.
Pros: Vertical Life is the most well-designed app on this list. It’s pleasing to the eye, features inviting color schemes and photos, and is easy to navigate. Its guide topos (i.e. visual representations of the routes on a wall) are beautifully crafted and easy to follow. As opposed to Rakkup, in which only the entire guidebook is for sale, Vertical Life allows you to purchase guides to individual sub-areas at a lower cost.
Cons: This is primarily focused on climbing areas and gyms in Europe. However, they've expanded limited routes globally. However, the gyms and crag listed have limited or lacking information.
Overall: If you are a European climber, download this beautiful app now.
Category: Training
Cost: Free on the App Store and Google Play.
To use the Moon Board app you’ll need access to a Moon Board, which might not be possible for some. Still, Moon Boards are becoming more and more common in gyms––if you’re unfamiliar with how they work, check out our post, “Getting Started on the Moon Board,” on the FrictionLabs Blog.
Pros: Where to begin? How about here: the Moon Board app is home to over 32,000 unique boulder problems for you to try. Easily browse through problems set by others or create your own. Save your ticks in your Logbook and see how you stack up against other users. Use Bluetooth to connect your phone to the board and illuminate your selected boulder problem with LED lights (not available on all Moon Boards).
The training potential of the Moon Board and its app is vast. Many climbers have used the app to train almost exclusively on the Moon Board, and most have become stronger for it. The social aspect of the app is fun as well––climb classic problems set by Ben Moon himself and many others, or create your own and watch as they are climbed, graded, and rated by your fellow climbers around the world. It’s like a video game for climbing!
Cons: There are some minor technical issues with the app’s design, such as a muddled filter feature that sometimes makes it difficult to find problems, and slightly awkward navigation functions.
Overall: If you’re a fan and a user of the Moon Board, this app is stellar. It’s interactive, immersive, and well-designed. Once you figure out the setup, icons, and search features during your first session, it becomes a breeze to use.
Category: Guide
Cost: Free on the App Store and Google Play.
27 Crags helps you to find the most suitable climbing spot for you and your friends. 27 Crags has pictures, route descriptions, and topos from over 10.000 climbing places worldwide. It has 150.000 routes in it's public database. All contributed by 27 Crags users. The app has multiple filters, which makes it user-friendly. You can search by boulders, sport climbs, and trad climbs. A bonus is filters for travel information such as accommodations, climbing shops, climbing guides, and gyms. If you’re a newbie to an area, you may benefit from its gear recommendations for specified areas. You can create your own free climbing guide in-app or on the 27crags website. You can add map markers, upload photos, and draw routes.
A note from the 27 Crags crew: "The .premium subscription of 27 Crags gives you access to the pool of hundreds of high-quality .premium topos from popular climbing destinations. In addition, it will give you the chance for offline use!"
Category: Training
Cost: Free on the App Store and Google Play.
The Grippy App is meant to be used in conjunction with the Beastmaker hangboard, the training board of choice for many climbers the world over. The app is straightforward, offering a handful of pre-programmed workouts for both the Beastmaker 1000 and 2000 series of boards.
Pros: Along with the timed workouts already offered, you’re free to set up your own custom workout timer as well. Choose hang times, rest intervals, reps, and more, then apply the plan to any holds on the board. The timer interface itself is simple and the clock is easily readable from a distance. The background color even changes from green (for hanging) to blue (for resting), while the seamless transitions flow into the hang-rest intervals. Helpful!
Another feature of Grippy is climbers can reach out to coaches to book a boot camp, order a training plan, and do specific workouts made by coaches.
Cons: Like the Boulder Trainer app above, Beastmaker offers no supplemental content on the app itself. It’s basically a purpose-built timer with some hangboard workouts programmed in.
Overall: If you're an expert, or just getting into hangboarding this app is for you! It’s extremely simple and easy to use, with a range of hangboard workouts.
Category: Logbook
Cost: Free on the App Store and Google Play.
MyClimb allows users to log climbs, track progress, and find climbing partners. The app also features in-app competitions/challenges, a workout logbook platform, and a leaderboard. Further, the app can double as a guide, sharing climbing area information, photos, and videos from around the world through other users. Community is the emphasized aspect of this app: it connects climbers globally through comments, live updates, and climbing partner requests. Users have logged almost two million climbs in over 100 countries. The app caters to all types of climbing both indoor and outdoor. MyClimb also has a grade conversion feature, supporting 12 different grading systems worldwide, which is more than some purpose-built grade conversion apps offer.
Pros: MyClimb is extremely well-designed and easy on the eyes. It’s a fun way to keep track of (or to show off) the climbs you’ve completed and see what your friends are up to. It’s very similar to the social media platforms we already know––you can build a list of friends, “Like-Comment-Share” any post you come across, and scroll endlessly through a landslide of interesting social stats a la Facebook’s News Feed. Build your social profile and become a part of the growing online climbing community.
Cons: Unlike other climbing apps, MyClimb doesn't hone in on one particular area (guidebook, training, community). If you want a guidebook for one particular area, this may not be your app of choice.
Overall: MyClimb covers a broad range of content. It's definitely worth a download, and a great way to connect with other climbers!
Category: Training
Cost: $2.99 on the App Store.
Boulder Trainer is a customizable hangboard app. Choose your hangboard of choice, select a pre-programmed workout or create your own, and train your fingers into oblivion.
Pros: Boulder Trainer has a clean, aesthetic design. There’s no clutter, the fonts are big and readable, and the colors are attractive. The exercise timer’s clock numbers are large and easy to see. Most importantly, Boulder Trainer makes it easy to create your own customized hangboard plan.
Cons: The app is pretty bare-bones. Besides the solid hangboard training features, there is very little else on offer. No informational resources to offer context for training, no instructions on proper technique. But hey, if you’re an experienced climber looking for a simple, clean training app, this is worth the $3––but it might not be the best option for beginners.
Overall: If you’re looking for an easy way to customize your hangboard routine, Boulder Trainer is for you.
Category: Informational
Cost: Free on the App Store and Google Play.
The Climbing Weather website has always been clutch for climbers who want to pinpoint weather conditions at their crag of choice. Its convenience lies in avoiding the hassle of generalizing your search: instead of searching the nearest town or wilderness area, Climbing Weather has all the major climbing areas ready to go in its database.
Pros: The CW app is a very simple extension of its parent site. Using your phone’s GPS feature, the app can pinpoint your location and show you weather conditions in the surrounding climbing areas. Perfect for a quick search if you’re wondering about weather conditions at your home crag.
Cons: Simply put, it’s a weather service. You have to take its forecasts with a grain of salt. Additionally, the information offered in the app might be too vague for some users who want an in-depth forecast. Climbing Weather offers the essentials (temperature, precipitation chance, wind speed, and humidity), but only in three-hour increments. If you want a detailed forecast of precipitation and barometric pressure on a meticulous hour-by-hour line graph...this is not your app.
Overall: Useful for a quick, general overview of the weather. Although the app is made specifically for climbing areas, it’s a non-essential and easily replaceable tool.
,three-hourCategory: Guide
Cost: Pay-per-guide. Get it on the App Store and Google Play.
Rakkup gives its users what they want the most: guidebooks available for download onto your mobile phone. Buy, rent, or sample any of the guides available on the app on a pay-per-guide basis. Access your downloaded guides whenever you need them, with or without cell service. The majority of the guides are for areas within the U.S.
Pros: Unlike Mountain Project, which features user-generated and sometimes unreliable content, Rakkup gives you the comfort of a pro guidebook in the palm of your hand. These are the same guides that have been researched, crafted, and published by dedicated climbers. The only difference is the guide exists in your phone. Additionally, the app’s interactive map feature has an advantage over any map printed in a book.
Cons: At this point in the life of Rakkup, there simply aren’t enough guides available, though this will surely change over time. The app’s design is also a bit bland, with a dark blood-red strip at the top; it leaves a bit to be desired. Some users may also find the guide prices too steep for their taste. Keep in mind, however, that these prices are on par with the cost of any physical copies you’d find. And as any experienced climber knows, the price of a good guidebook is well worth it.
Overall: The thought of having the Red River Gorge, Joshua Tree, or the Southern Nevada Bouldering guidebooks inside of your phone is so enticing.
Category: Informational / Guide
Cost: Free / Pay-per-guide. Find it on the App Store.
Climbing Away offers general information about thousands of climbing areas around the world. It also sells a handful of digital guidebooks for sport climbing areas mostly in France.
Pros: Climbing Away is informative, if basic information is what you need. Each listed climbing area is pinned on an interactive map, lists a few aspects of the area (such as grade ranges, rock type, approach, etc.), and includes links to any additional resources, such as guidebooks. The app design is simple and the interface is relatively easy to navigate.
Cons: Despite having thousands of areas across the world listed on the app, there isn’t much depth. If you’re looking for specific route information for any given area, you won’t find it on Climbing Away. However, if you’re psyched to browse an extensive world map and check out all the different climbing spots, look no further.
Overall: If you’re curious about exploring the basics of a ton of climbing areas around the planet, you might as well download Climbing Away. It might even help you plan your next trip!
Did we miss your favorite app? Let us know which one and why you love it!
Category: Guide
Cost: Free on the App Store and Google Play.
Mountain Project is the quintessential free online guide for rock climbing. The website has been around since 2005 and has since undergone some serious upgrades, including a significant investment (re: purchase) by REI in 2015.
Pros: Like its parent website, the MP app contains user-generated information for hundreds of thousands of routes and boulders around the world. You can find general information (directions to the crag, route info, a star rating system, comment section, etc.) for virtually every developed climbing area the world over. The app and site also host a massive forum section with a lifetime’s worth of helpful posts about gear, climbing areas, climbing types, training, and more.
Cons: As we noted above, the MP app is entirely user-generated. Though by and large, the quality of information on the app is outstanding, some issues arise concerning the minutiae: trail directions to the crag might be shoddy, area closure information might not be updated, some areas might be totally neglected or misrepresented, etc. But again, this isn’t a huge deal. Issues like these are often addressed and resolved in the comments section anyway, so make sure to read what others have to say if you’re confused. Besides that, there are some minor issues with clutter and app navigation, but nothing that’s going to distract you or hinder your experience.
Overall: Mountain Project is a must-have app. As far as free online climbing guides go, there’s nothing that even comes close.
Category: Logbook
Cost: Free App Store and Google Play.
Build your ascent pyramid, and review your past climbing sessions. KAYA is loaded with over 200 gyms and 100k outdoor climbs.
Dive into the beta video feed or check out your gym or local crag’s page to watch the latest classics and popular reels. Find your perfect project with grade and style filters.
New set notifications launch as soon as the route setting teams finish up for the day. Preview the set and make the most of your next session.
Pros: KAYA worked closely with expert climbing coaches to develop personalized session-intensity metrics with the data you log. The app delivers real-time visualizations of your sessions. With this, you can finally know how much of your session you’re spending in warmup, your optimal intensity zone, and limit projecting.
Cons: Beta both written and video can be missing from your particular project. Indoor routes aren't always up to date. Climbers can rate what they think the accuracy of the problem is, so it could be skewed.
Overall: The versatility of this app allows climbers to not only log their sends, receive beta, and build community, but also to optimize their time spent in the gym, along with learning how to push their limits.
