How many pitches of climbing are in the Boulder area?

I'm trying to more effectively and accurately brag to my friends on the east coast. MP says there are >5,000 routes in the Boulder area (Bocan, eldo, flattys, flagstaff). To me, that means at least 10-15,000 pitches, maybe a lot more. Is that way too low? Anyone have a better guess?

I think you're way too high. I used route finder to filter by pitches (i.e., 6+, 5+, 4+...) then did some math and I got 6,681. You can check my math here. Surprisingly, only 768 routes have 2 or more pitches, which means ~4500 are single pitch climbs. Obviously this is only for routes that are on MP, so I'm sure there are actually way more. Also, I didn't count boulders since those aren't pitches ;) 

Thanks for giving me something fun to do to procrastinate

i guess the first thing is to define "boulder area".  is it within 30 minutes of baseline and broadway? an hour? 2 hours?

@sam: wow that's waaaaaay fewer multis than I expected! sad. your math looks correct btw. next time you're looking for a procrastination activity let's go climb.
@slim: for simplicity I was just using MP's definition of Boulder and the areas nested within it

i would guess around 8,000 pitches. ask tony bubb, he would probably know.  my guess is he has climbed about 7,500 of them.

slimwrote:

i guess the first thing is to define "boulder area".  is it within 30 minutes of baseline and broadway? an hour? 2 hours?

Doesn't anyone read anymore before replying? In the OP he specifically says: "...routes in the Boulder area (Bocan, eldo, flattys, flagstaff)".

Sam Pughwrote:

I think you're way too high. I used route finder to filter by pitches (i.e., 6+, 5+, 4+...) then did some math and I got 6,681. You can check my math here. Surprisingly, only 768 routes have 2 or more pitches, which means ~4500 are single pitch climbs. Obviously this is only for routes that are on MP, so I'm sure there are actually way more. Also, I didn't count boulders since those aren't pitches ;) 

Thanks for giving me something fun to do to procrastinate

over 1000 are boulder problems too

Searched the Boulder section of MP for routes between easy 5th to 5.15d, to exclude scrambling and bouldering. Total was 4105 routes.  Filtered for each of 1-7 pitches, and then for 8+ pitches. Added all the pitches and got 5289 total pitches.  Math below.  This matter is somewhat arbitrary as plenty of Boulder climbers consider their catchment area to include the Indian Peaks and RMNP, where, for example, MP doesn’t specify the number of pitches on the Blitzen Ridge.

#routes/#pitches/running total

1P: 3124/3124/3124

2P: 428/856/3980

3P: 188/564/4544

4P: 72/288/4832

5P: 36/180/5012

6P: 21/126/5138

7P: 3/21/5159

8+P: 13/~130/~5289

Marc801 Cwrote:

Doesn't anyone read anymore before replying? In the OP he specifically says: "...routes in the Boulder area (Bocan, eldo, flattys, flagstaff)".

i figured he implied an "etc" at the end. for example, you have eldo and then you have eldorado mountain.  in bocan you kind of also have dream canyon, but a lot of people don't know it exists. sanitas has a few TR's. Lefthand definitely has more routes than listed.

rock climbing wrote:

5000. I think the first thing people do they post their new route here.

Beside if there are 15000 out there, 14000 are routes you don’t want to do. 

Adam Bloc wrote: over 1000 are boulder problems too

... and there we have it: 14000 nonsense routes and 1000 boulder problems. There's no roped climbing worth doing in the Boulder area.

Plenty of quantity, but severely lacking quality. Everyone and his grandma wants his name in the next guidebook (that is published semi-annually), so more mossy/chossy nonsense routes are added every year. There's only one (historical) reason why the Front Range is (was) so popular: CO was the first state to legalize pot. Now when 40 other states have followed, there's no reason to go to/stay in CO to climb. These days, it is all in CA, NV, UT, AZ. Better go there before global warming makes it impossible.

An honest quote from a Coloradan who recently climbed in CA for the first time: "I was a COMPLETE idiot for not coming out to CA to climb before this. Wow."

Patrikwrote:

There's only one (historical) reason why the Front Range is (was) so popular: CO was the first state to legalize pot.

Uh, it was super popular for many decades before pot was legalized.

Patrikwrote:

There's no roped climbing worth doing in the Boulder area.

i can't imagine not loving Eldo, but sometimes it is fair to say that the rope isn't doing much anyway

Bharath Twrote:

i can't imagine not loving Eldo, but sometimes it is fair to say that the rope isn't doing much anyway

I really dislike the place, that being the primary reason.