Mountains of the world

The Pamir Highway in Tajikistan near the Karakul lake. Credit: Hylgeriak, Shot on 2015-06-27 Photo taken in Tajikistan.(c) Hylgeriak, licensed under: CC BY-SA 3.0.

Good climbing is where you find it. Great number of good mountain climbing is to be found all over the world. Obvious place to look for mountain climbs are the highest ranges, but don't let the numbers fool you. Some lower ranges sport very big scale climbs because the valleys are also very low. For example, Southern Alps of New Zealand has a host of climbs that are as big in scale than many climbs on much higher mountains.

Climbing in the highest ranges (Himalaya, Karakorum, Pamir, Tien Shan, Kunlun, Hundu Kush, some Chinese ranges and Andes) typically require plenty of planning and time. Quite often there's also some bureocracy involved. Climbing in the lower ranges is often (but not necessarily) less complex in this respect. Also remoteness of range impacts the climbing considerably. Remote areas require generally more planning and longer approaches. Often these areas have few or no fixed huts. In return, they usually are not too crowded. In contrast, easily accessible areas, such as European Alps, make climbing logistically easier, but may sometimes be overcrowded in the high season.

• Africa When talking about Africa and climbing, most everyone think of Kilimanjaro at first. If anything else rings a bell, then it would most likely be sport climbing and bouldering in South Africa or Mount Kenya. However, there's much more to climbing potential in Africa. For example high peaks of and Ruwenzori, High Atlas and Ethiopia offer mountaineering challenges to those interested in treading the path less traveled while huge rock walls of Morocco, South Africa and Madagaskar offer extreme technical challenges on rock of very alpine proportions.
• Asia Asia is huge continent with great number of mountain ranges, varying a great deal in regards to location, character, altitude and mountaineering history. The area is very heterogenous in pretty much every possible way as language, culture, accessibility, weather patters etc. vary wildly between the areas. Basically, nothing in "in general" as far as climbing on the Asian ranges is concerned.
• Europe Europe has many mountain ranges in various parts of the continent. However, when speaking about Europe and mountains in same sentence, most people will immediately think about the Alps a vast mountain system in the Central Europe and the birthplace and mecca of mountain climbing. Perhaps the most spectacular, and certainly the highest, peaks of the continent are not part of Alps though, as mountains of Caucasus exceed the ones in the Alps in height by quite a margin. However, Caucasus is far lesser known, a lot more remote and access is order of magnitude more complex due to political situation.
• North-America North-America is after Europe the most explored continent as far as climbing goes. The highest peaks are located on the west coast where several ranges run all the way from Alaska through Canada and United States to Mexico. Alaska, Canadian Rockies, Cascades, Colorado Rockies and Teton range are best known alpine destinations. However, the best known climbing destination of North America is Yosemite valley in Sierra Nevada, arguable the best known climbing destination in the world and mecca for big wall climbing. Besides the aforementioned high mountain areas, there are plenty of other areas having high quality ice and rock climbing, such as deserts, NE USA and Baffib Island to name a few.
• South-America Southern America is dominated by the chain of Andes that stretches from the southern tip of Argentina and Chile to the northern part of Columbia. Best known climbing areas are the mountains around Aconcagua, Cordilleras Blanca and Huayhuash in the Peruvian Andes and Patagonia in the southern end of the range. Also Chimborazo and Cotopaxi in Ecuador attracts significant number of climbers.
• Oceania
• Polar Regions

Books

• Bell, Steve: Seven Summits - Auf den höchsten Gipfeln der sieben Kontinente. Isbn: 3905111578. As Verlag, Zürich, 2001.
• Bass, Dick; Bass & Ridgeway, Rick: Seven Summits. Isbn: 0446385166. Warner Books, 1988.
• Bonington, Chris & Salkeld, Audrey: World Mountaineering - The World's Greatest Mountains by the Worlds Greatest Mountaineers. Isbn: 1845331427. Miller's Publications, 2006.
• Kelsey, Michael R.: Hiker's and Climber's Guide to the World's Mountains and Volcanos, 4 Edition edition. Isbn: 9780944510186. Kelsey Publishing (Utah), 2001.
• Gardien, Claude: Les Plus Belles Montagnes Du Monde. Isbn: 9782723479318. Glénat, 2010.
• Gogna, Alessandro: Cumbres Míticas - Cumbres míticas es una selección de las cimas más bellas del mundo.. Isbn: 9788408073529. Fecha publicación, 2007.
• Wolfe, Frederick L.: High Summits - 370 Famous Peak First Ascents and Other Significant Events in Mountaineering History. Isbn: 9781936449354. Hugo House Publishers, 2013.
• Hattingh, Garth: Top Climbs of the World (Top Series). Isbn: 9781859740859. New Holland Publishers (UK) Ltd, 1999.

Links

• Grading. Climbing world is full of different systems, with which it is possible to evaluate the difficulty and seriousness of a given route. This document aims to ease figuring out how hard is a given grade in a given system.
• Highest mountains. List of highest mountains with some additional information. Also includes some other remarkable hills.
• Alpinist. Alpinist Magazine is an archival-quality, quarterly publication dedicated to world alpinism and adventure climbing. The pages of Alpinist capture the art of ascent in its most powerful manifestations, presenting an articulation of climbing and its lifestyle that matches the intensity of the pursuit itself.
• American Alpine Journal. Published since 1929, The American Alpine Journal is the premiere annual record of significant mountaineering and long rock climbing ascents worldwide. Some content and complete index available online. Search feature seem to lead complete pdf articles. At American Alpine Club.
• Mountain Info. Mountain Info is an international mountaineering information service which has been in existence for over 25 years. When Mountain Magazine ceased publication, High took over this important reporting duty. And again when High was finished, Mountain Info was took over by Climb. They have Mountain Info available as pdf files (requires free login) since it was taken over by Climb (starting from #483, Climb #1 (March 2005)). At Climb Magazine.
• Die Berge des Himalaya. Lot of information about the highest peaks and several areas. By Guenter Seyfferth.
• Peakware. The idea for Peakware.com was spawned in 1994 on the summit of Mount Elbert, where Peakware founder Terrill Thompson and friends were discussing future climbs. How much higher could they climb with minimal technical alpine skills? Where could they go for a summit hike in Winter? Terrill descended from Mount Elbert that day with a goal of creating a database of prominent world mountains so he and his friends could easily explore the options for their next outing. He spent the next few months collecting and synthesizing data from a variety of sources. By June 1997 his database included over 400 peaks, plus an easy-to-use interface for searching for peaks that matched his hiking and climbing preferences. He briefly distributed all this on CD-ROM, but by June 1998 he had moved it all to the web, thereby making it easily accessible to people worldwide, and opening the door for users to contribute content, including new peaks, summit logs, and photographs. The community of active users grew rapidly, and by 1999 there were hundreds of users, and new content was being added daily.
• Mountain Project. Beyond the Guidebook - The Premier Resource for the Climbing and Mountaineering Community. Load of info about US climbing areas (some info about few other areas well).
• SummitPost. SummitPost.com is a "self-adaptive" mountaineering information website. Its content is supplied and moderated by the mountaineering community. In time, the best information will filter to the top, and the crap will go away. Initially, this site will provide information on and photos of some of the more popular peaks around the world. Eventually, the site hopes to become an all-encompassing online source of mountaineering information.
• worldtopo.com. The website collects basic information about climbing areas worldwide. On the moment you can find basic information of more than 1500 areas.
• Peakbagger.com. Peakbagger.com is a non-commercial web site that presents information and statistics about the mountain peaks and mountain ranges of the world. In addition, registered peakbaggers can log thier ascents, post trip reports, and track their climbing activity. The site is based on a large dynamic database of peaks, lists, ranges, and climbers.
• CampToCamp.org. Le Topo-Guide interactif pour l'alpinisme. Multi language website containing topos and route descriptiio, trip reports etc. Most information is available oly in French.
• Peakbook. Peakbook is a great resource for peakbaggers and those with an interest in mountains.
• MountWiki.

  Mount Wiki is a collaborative project on hiking & mountaineering. We at Mount Wiki aim to make this site the ultimate mountain guide, which guides you through your preparation process when you are preparing a mountaineering trip. The long term goal is that a visitor comes to the sites and leaves the site with all the info he needed and can start his trip immediately.

  To serve this goal, Mount Wiki contains information on mountains, passes, huts, villages, climbing technique and a lot more.

• PeakList. This website has lists of over 10,000 mountains worldwide. The website is designed to provide definitive lists of summits organized around the concept of topographic prominence. Peaklist does not attempt to list every mountain in the world; rather it introduces original and complete research in specific geographical regions, contributed by a wide number of researchers. To get started, you should browse the main lists page with lists and maps from around the world. In particular, peaklist.org holds four large bodies of original prominence data; the Ultras project, which catalogs all 1524 worldwide summits with 1500 meters of prominence; the US P2000 project, which developed the first ever dataset of 1234 summits in the lower 48 with 2000' prominence; the California Mountain Atlas, with all 4106 summits of 500' prominence; and the Spire Measure section which develops a rigorous methodology to describe the impressiveness of a mountain. Peaklist also extensively links to other prominence-derived research being conducted around the world.
• Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a multilingual, web-based, free-content encyclopedia project operated by the Wikimedia Foundation and based on an openly editable model. The name "Wikipedia" is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a technology for creating collaborative websites, from the Hawaiian word wiki, meaning "quick") and encyclopedia. Wikipedia's articles provide links to guide the user to related pages with additional information. Wikipedia is written collaboratively by largely anonymous Internet volunteers who write without pay. Anyone with Internet access can write and make changes to Wikipedia articles, except in limited cases where editing is restricted to prevent disruption or vandalism. Users can contribute anonymously, under a pseudonym, or, if they choose to, with their real identity.
• Top 10 Extereme Icicles. Defy nature by climbing ip ephemeral frozen cascades, as we bring you the world's top ten icefalls. At Katy Dartford.
• A tease of list from AJ: The worlds highest unclimbed mountains. By Adventure Team at Get Out and Travel.
• The AJ List: The Highest Unclimbed Mountains In The World. In August 2011, Americans Steve Swenson, Freddie Wilkinson, and Mark Richey reached the summit of 7518-meter Saser Kangri II, then the second-highest unclimbed peak in the world. The Saser Kangri II climb left only three of the world’s highest 100 mountains left to await first ascents — but the big mountains of the world are far from climbed out. Plenty of big, scary summits remain, some named, some unnamed, some too close to neighboring summits to catch the attention of mountaineers. By Brendan Leonard at Adventure Journal on 2013-07-30.
• Highest Unclimbed Peaks. The following is a list of unclimbed 7000 meter Himalayan peaks. The list was prepared by Simon Perritaz, and was provided to Peakware by the UIAA (Union Internationale des Associations D'Alpinisme) in 1997. This list has not been updated or maintained, and Peakware makes no guarantee of its accuracy. For more current information, consult the UIAA website. At Peakware.
• World's Most Beautiful Mountains. Photos of the most beautiful mountains in the world. A mountain has to be tall and triangular and sharply profiled to be truly beautiful. This group is a collection of photos of only the most beautiful mountains in the world. Mountains like Ama Dablam, Shivling, Aretesonraju, Macchapuchre, the Matterhorn, Petit Dru, Ranrapalca and Alpamayo. At flickr.
• The Most Beautiful Mountains in The World. By Worldin1001view at Worldin1001view on 2012-12-26.
• 14 Most Beautiful Mountain In The World. At Boutique Tourism.
• 11 Of The World’s Most Beautiful Mountain Ranges. By UnofficialNetworks at UnofficialNetworks.com on 2013-12-04.
• 10 Most Beautiful Mountains in the World. The earth is packed with spectacular mountains – some iconic, some obscure, but all beautiful in their own way. Whether you’re a photographer, geologist, mountaineer or simply a curious traveler, there’s bound to be a mountain on this list that will blow you away. From Antarctica to the Alaska, we present to you our list of the ten most beautiful mountains in the world. By Kayla Frost at WildJunket Magazine on 2013-03-12.
• Most Beautiful 10 Mountains in the World (Photo Gallery). Our planet is scattered with spectacular mountains – some worldwide known, others obscure, but all beautiful in their own way. Specialists from the travel publication “Wild Junket Magazine” have compiled a Top 10 of the most beautiful mountains on Earth. At Discovery Zone.

Info

One of the roadblocks in migration from static mountain pages into data driven pages has been my inability to decide on data model that is flexible enough for mountain pages yet does not make it necessary to add plenty of information just to keep the data model intact.

My original idea was to use physical mountain groups as grouping criteria, but the more I thought of it, the less sense does it seem to make. This structure when used alone makes it very difficult to place cities, valleys etc. that lie between mountain groups correctly. This problem is especially present when dealing with more detailed descriptions. Perhaps more importantly, regions are usually explored from a certain base (city or village), from where access to mountains is usually done through valleys (and huts, camps or bivouacs in them). Once you are in the valley, the climbs on the other side of the mountain (and thus inaccessible) are of very little relevance. Thus linking peaks directly to the valleys in a meaningful manner is pretty much impossible, whereas linking mountain features to valleys is very much possible and meaningful. Because of this, my current plan is to go into direction where I have separate area pages and mountain pages.

On the plus side, this will keep the actual page size rather reasonable and page structure complexity should remain manageable. Furthermore, this should make it far easier to use mountain and route data elsewhere (such as grading page). On the other hand, this will require some recursive processing to be able to create those links automatically (I have made a successful proof of concept of that sort though), so I should have some idea how to achieve this.

I figure xlink and xpointer might be the ideal solution for my need to include parts of the other document in the document, typically ingress paragraph and paragraphs of individual area or mountain page on the parent page. At the moment this is done by manually copying the information but obviously this is very primitive solution.

Area pages

Main area info

• Location information consisting of location in relation to countries, major cities, seas, lakes and rivers and neighboring mountain ranges.
• Mountain groups and most notable peaks including list of peaks (linked, of course)
• Logistical information including access, convenient centers, accommodation and oernmissions.
• Climbing information consisting of weather and seasons, types of climbing, grading and classic climbs.

Valley info

• Access
• General description
• Available features and climbs (linked)

Mountain pages

mountain level data, such as:

• name
• height
• summits
• location
• climbing history
• information such as description, possibly some information about the features and most popular climbs
• mountain references (such as topos, articles, web links etc.)

features, such as faces

• name or some form of identification (eg. north face, east side etc)
• feature level info such as access, starting points (huts, bivouacs etc)
• climbing info such as most popular routes, classics, conditions etc
• references (mainly topos)

Routes

Route name

usually this refers to geographical name of the route. If is is not sufficient to identify the route, name of the route is added, for example North Face "Welzenbach". However, when the route has well established name like Hörnligrat on Matterhorn, it may be used. Then the geographical name is added in parenthesis. Some cases the opposite direction might occur. If a route does not finnish on a main summit, the summit is listed.

First ascent info

date and first ascent party.

Brief info

Basic info of a climb consisting of:

• Brief character of a route.
• Bried description of a route, at least a starting point.
• Difficulty, both overall and appropriate technical difficulties if known.
• Effort, altitude gain (usually only the route, especially on more technical routes) and time. Possibly separate info for approach and descent.
• Possibly info about conditions.

Detailed route description

Detailed route description for:

• approach
• ascent
• descent

References

References in guidebooks and/or online route descriptions. However, only actual route descriptions are listed here, ascent stories etc are listed under route links.

Grading

Climbing world is full of different systems, with which it is possible to evaluate the difficulty and seriousness of a given route. This document aims to ease figuring out how hard is a given grade in a given system.

Effort

Length (both in terms of distance and time). Altitude gain (usually only the route, especially on more technical routes) and time. Possibly separate info for approach and descent.