Cleaning up France

I've set myself a bit of work, I'll be working on cleaning up France on MP.
I'm not going to start adding new areas and routes for places I don't know but I am going to clean up some descriptions and mostly re-organizing all the crags and areas into regions, like that at least if you're looking at an area, you'll quickly see the other one's nearby.

I could use some help if people can add updates and corrections in the Improve this page and in the comments.

Thank you!

Stuff to do (help welcomed):
Work on descriptions for the areas
Northeast
Centre
Northern Alps
Pyrenees
Provence
Southern Alps

To Create: Northwest

Luc

Luc,

I have in the past made improvement suggestions to individual pages, but they have not taken place, not sure if you can see those old postings.

I started a Snow/Ice/Mixed section for France and it would be good to transfer some of the older pages (non-rock climbs) to this section.

The Arete des Cosmiques has two separate page entries, can they be consolidated to one and placed in the Snow/Ice/Mixed category?

Also the Ecrins area needs to be organized, I can enter a new Parc des Ecrins area and highlight which routes should be added there.

Thanks Rui, yes, I have a half dozen page improvements to go through.

When it comes to Snow/Ice/Mixed, I'm wondering about also including Alpine in that group.

For specific updates I'll need to look at them once I'm done the larger skeletal re-org.

For pure Alpine rock climbs, like for example those in the Argentiere Glacier of Mont Blanc it is best to keep them in the rock section as people will likely be looking for summer rock routes in the Alps (and not in the Snow/Mixed sections). I guess a similar structure that we have for Colorado on MP should work, even if we end up having distinct Alpine Rock and Snow/Ice/Mixed pages for the same location/region.

I think that the MP routes for France ought to fit with some strategy for how MP adds value relative to CampToCamp.org and UKclimbing.com

One idea is that MP allows users to vote on quality and difficulty. But since so few members contribute votes on routes in France, this is not very meaningful.

Another idea is that MP makes it painful for anyone but the original author of the route to contribute improvements (unlike c2c which makes it very easy). So authors who like to have eternal control might prefer MP. Myself I contribute mostly to c2c.

So I think really the value added of MP for France is that it's a place where Americans feel comfortable looking for climbing info.

Therefore MP for France ought to be organized in terms that most Americans will find understandable.

I do not think using the administrative Regions of France is helpful, because almost no Americans know what their boundaries are, or even which part of the country.
e.g. How many American visitors know that Chamonix is in the administrative region of Rhone-Alpes?

So here's an "American visitor" perspective on France:

• Fontainbleau + Paris + northern France
• Chamonix Mont Blanc - (with Aiguilles Rouges as a sub-Area)
• Alpes du Nord (ex Cham)
• Ecrins + Grenoble + Briancon - (including Presles)
• Massif Central + Lyon.
• Calanques + Marseille - (including Toulon crags as sub-Area?)
• Nice + Cote d'Azur - (or perhaps American visitors think "Riviera"?)
• SouthEast interior (including Verdon, Ceuse, Orpierre, and Alpes du Sud outside of Ecrins massif).
• Pyrenees.
• SouthWest interior + Toulouse.

A different perspective on France.

Ken

I was imagining a huge plastic garbage bag from the title. This sounds more manageable. Good luck!

Shawn Heath recently did this for Germany which was a terrible mess. There was also consideration of organizing it into states, but since Americans won't know them, it was decided to mirror the "official" breakdown of climbing regions used by the German Alpine Club (DAV) and do away with the political boundaries which also couldnt account for regions that spanned more than one state.

May worth be checking out as an example or contact Shawn

Colonel Mustard wrote:I was imagining a huge plastic garbage bag from the title. This sounds more manageable. Good luck!

You've no idea how long that would take, just to mention my backyard (Fontainebleau) I can point you to a couple of couches, a toilet and a printer among other things dumped in the forest!

Luc, I'd be happy to write a more detailed description for the whole Bleau area with things like ethics, parking restrictions, the hunting calendar, etc. Not to emulate bleau.info which is probably as thorough as it gets, but just to give people the basics for a trip there.

I agree with Ken that the overall hierarchy be based on something other than administrative regions and departments.

For the Snow/Ice/Mixed I simplified areas by main mountain ranges (Mont Blanc range, Ecrins, Belledonne, etc.) even though I have only entered routes for Mont Blanc so far

As a french using widely MP to prepare my US climbing trips, i can say the MP classification (more or less by mountain range) and the map in the search engine are perfectly convenient. The administrative classification being the best way to get lost. As example, how to find the needles when refering to Tulare county!

The C2C search engine use both entries, by mountain range and by administrative region. I never use the later.

Maybe a possibility is to use the C2C mountain range classification (d'nt know if there are copyright issues). Coupled with the interactive map, it will be a perfect tool. I can contribute if needed being at time a strong MP user but an unexistent contributor

Pierre

pierref wrote:As a french using widely MP to prepare my US climbing trips, i can say the MP classification (more or less by mountain range) and the map in the search engine are perfectly convenient. The administrative classification being the best way to get lost. As example, how to find the needles when refering to Tulare county! The C2C search engine use both entries, by mountain range and by administrative region. I never use the later. Maybe a possibility is to use the C2C mountain range classification (d'nt know if there are copyright issues). Coupled with the interactive map, it will be a perfect tool. I can contribute if needed being at time a strong MP user but an unexistent contributor Pierre

Ditto the above.

I have a fair bit of content for France.

I "build" areas based on the region I'm visiting or major city. I have no idear what admin class they're in. Nor do I really care. I use C2C just like the above poster does. Mountain range. Or specific objective (like seeing a photo of Mont Aiguille or Aigulle Dibona...and going...I gotta climb that!). What administrative district is either in? I don't really care or might not even want to know.

For instance, you've added an area in front of Grenoble. Vercors is a huge area that could be a stand alone for France.

The map works great and is probably the most useful tool when looking specifically at a region for a climbing roadtrip.

Anyhow, appreciate the dialog. And, nice to have an engaged admin for France.

Now, how about Austria...

mountainproject.com/v/tztal…

Ugh...

C2C has French areas listed under administrative regions, the FFM has them listed under Departements which are even smaller regions.
whith C2C and UKClimbing, working with a map is the key.

I added the area map in the description and will build on the description to better direct users to the popular areas.

I'd nearly throw most of the south of France in the same area due to the similarities of cliffs along the southern coasts.

I'm looking at the future and trying to build something which can grow, finding areas to climb out of a list of all the cliffs/mountains in the country isn't helpful at all.

C2C area aren't easy to navigate either without using the map:
camptocamp.org/summits/list…

Luc wrote:I'm looking at the future and trying to build something which can grow, finding areas to climb out of a list of all the cliffs/mountains in the country isn't helpful at all.

Disagree. Say I want to climb Mt Blanc. I go to the France section...and, I don't see it. Now I gotta fish around in a bunch of areas that don't make any sense to me, the user.

"Mt Blanc region"....if that was an area under France...voila. Now I can base out of Cham, hit the local crags, climb Mt. Blanc...

Same with, say, Ceuse. Look at what the users are asking for. Do you ever see someone ask, "hey, I'm going to be in the Occitanie district this fall, could anyone recommend some areas to climb?" No, they ask about Ceuse. Or the Calanque. Or, they refer to a city or region.

Now, looking at the current France page, I like the organization of it and the overview with the map on the districts. Helpful.

But if I'm geographically challanged (like most, ahem, Americans), I wouldn't know even from the map where Mount Blanc was in the country. I wouldn't know it was in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. Maybe I should, but, I wonder if that puts off a general user looking for a popular area?

One way to look at it, is, how to folks pick places to travel to for climbing? For me, word of mouth from friends, social media, books. See a cover shot in a magazine or an article.

I think the route database would be more useful if the major climbing areas, cliffs and/or mountains, mountain regions or ranges were listed. Ceuse. Buoux. Ecrins. Or at least by a more common name, like, Provence. General travel guidebook to the region? Lonely Planet Provence. Not Lonely Planet Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur.

Seems like adding an unneeded area but, now looking at it, yeah, there's a lot of areas. Ok, I'm warming up to it...ha ha.

Someone moved my Bleu du Vercors-Sassenage!

Thanks for your efforts!
I dunno. Random thoughts.

How about having the tourist popular areas listed right under France but still keeping the larger areas where to stick the rest so it doesn't become a massive list?

I can list Les Calanques under France but within les Calanques I can direct people to look up Provence/South of France area to find the rest of the areas

Provence/South of France could list everything stretching out but not including from the Pyrenees to the Alps along the Mediterranean coast (picking up Occitanie and PACA areas)

So for under France we could list:
Calanques de Marseille
Ceuse?
Fontainebleau
Gorge du Verdon
Mount Blanc

Larger areas would be:
Pyrenees
Provence
Southern Alps
Chamonix/Haute-Savoie
Center (including ile de france)
North-West (Bretagne, Normandy, Loire, Haut de France)
North-East (Grand-Est, BFC)

Luc wrote:How about having the tourist popular areas listed right under France but still keeping the larger areas where to stick the rest so it doesn't become a massive list? I can list Les Calanques under France but within les Calanques I can direct people to look up Provence/South of France area to find the rest of the areas Provence/South of France could list everything stretching out but not including from the Pyrenees to the Alps along the Mediterranean coast (picking up Occitanie and PACA areas) So for under France we could list: Calanques de Marseille Ceuse? Fontainebleau Gorge du Verdon Mount Blanc Larger areas would be: Pyrenees Provence Southern Alps Chamonix/Haute-Savoie Center (including ile de france) North-West (Bretagne, Normandy, Loire, Haut de France) North-East (Grand-Est, BFC)

I like that!

That kinda punches the best of what folks look for, I think.

See if other folks weigh in...

Thanks!!

the way that Rock climbing areas get organized are not necessarily the best way to organize the Snow/Mixed/Ice destinations. For one there are less areas and the climbs are far more concentrated.

For the Snow/Mixed/Ice I would recommend keeping it by mountain ranges. As Brian indicated people will be looking to search Mont Blanc or Ecrins and go from there.

I do not know what to do if someone cannot associate Mont Blanc with Chamonix and vise-versa...

Rui is right, mont blanc and Chamonix are like LV and RR. Moreover Chamonix Valley means both Mont Blanc range & Aiguilles Rouges as already mentioned in MP.
Luc your last proposal is a good approach. For the large areas, i suggest
- Northern Alps (including chamonix valley but also Ecrin, Vercors, and a number of already existing MP entries)
- Southern Alps (including ceuse, Orpierre, saint Julien, ..)
- Provence (including verdon, calanque, buoux, ..)
- and Pyrenees, NE, NW, and Center

In the hot spots, Presles could be mentioned too.

Pierre

pierref wrote:In the hot spots, Presles could be mentioned too. Pierre

Should be! But, its not on the radar of most American climbers. Nor is St. Victoire. Amazing.

The Vercors is fantastic.

Little question approving all the routes entered, does it matter if there's no FA listed? are they even listed in the guidebooks?

AND PLEASE!

MountainProject routes require a Description and Protection at a minimum, I'll accept a minimalist description if there's a picture.

If possible make an areal picture (Google Map screen capture) to explain the areas and trails.

Thank you!