Wanted: Topo Tool for making Bouldering Overview Maps

It would be great to have a tool to be able to make simple overview maps for bouldering areas that can be updated like the route topos. Google maps just don't work well for this (or even crags in areas with lots of trees) Even better would be to be able to embed links in the separately drawn boulders, and even to be able to make a small identifying photo pop up when you hover over landmark ones.

Bouldering areas are rather confusing to navigate without good overview maps as they are just listed alphabetically. Same goes somewhat with crag sub areas, but you can at least game the system by adding numbers before the names to order them.

I think eventually the best solution would be to just integrate a custom map of OpenStreetMap data into Mountain Project, and then have users enter boulder, crag, and trail info into OpenStreetMap. Using Google maps or Google Earth as a basemap will never cut it because they don't have trails to crags or boulders. The other limitation is that crags are currently overlaid as points which give you no sense of the size, shape or aspect of a cliff. To me, good maps are one of the primary advantages of guidebooks and something that MountainProject has yet to reproduce.

There is already a good system for collecting crags and boulders in OpenStreetMap. Create boulders as nodes or area features based on satellite imagery or gps data. Tag them as the following:
natural = stone
name = "the name of the boulder"
sport = climbing
boulder = yes (or the number of routes)
url = "the mountainproject website for the boulder"

See the sport=climbing tag on OSM for info on other possible tags including:
grade range, length/height, rock type, quality, orientation, etc.

There has been some recent progress on rendered maps that include rock features, but they are still in their infancy. Most of the development has been done by german users of OSM. Here are two examples: OpenClimbingMap and ClimbingMap . You may need to zoom in to view the climbing areas.

Other good outdoor oriented maps based on OSM data include OpenCycleMap and MapBox Outdoors, so the potential exists to create one. Perhaps we could simply convince one of these existing map providers to include rock features.

Better map and topo integration is something I really look forward to seeing in MountainProject. Since a good data collection system already exists I think we should start using it and hope that a good map system will soon follow. I intend to start adding climbing areas for the entire front range using lidar data (high res elevation models) that was collected after the flooding in 2013. Hopefully this will be a good start and encourage others to follow suit.