History
In the spring of 2007 a friend and I made our first foray into bouldering in the outside world.
Armed with the topo we printed from the internet we made our way to The Shrine, one of the local playgrounds outside of Ottawa.
We promptly got lost. Two years later, after hearing countless similar stories, I committed to improve the situation.
I was going to make
an updated topo for The Shrine.
Around the same time I started looking for information about other bouldering destinations
nearby. What I found was a lot of information spread out all over the internet: databases of problem names and grades;
snippets of information buried in forums and on websites; and even complete
online guides. Most of this information seemed all well and good while I was sitting in front of the computer,
but proved of little use when I was at the crag. Even some of the print guides seemed to lack
all of the information I was looking for. If I wanted to go somewhere I still had
to do a lot of legwork before hitting the road.
What I really wanted was a resource I could go to that would either have all the information I needed, or
if not could tell me where to get it. In addition, and perhaps most importantly, I wanted this information
in a form that was printable, so that I could easily and conveniently take it on the road with me.
And so the idea for Topout was born. This website is intended to be a hub of information for
bouldering destinations:
General Information
Our primary goal is to provide timely and accurate general information for each destination:
when to go, what to expect, how to get there, how to find the boulders, what the access is like, where to eat,
where to stay, etc.
Guides
For many destinations there are already excellent
guides that do a fine job of describing the problems. In those cases we will let you know where they are and how to
get them. In other cases we will provide our own print guides.
Problem Database
In order to support the other information we also maintain a database of problems in each destination. If you
register an account you will be able to comment, share photos and track you progress on these problems. | 