The guidebook is designed to share information on current or recent climbing and skiing conditions in the mountains, as well as providing descriptions of summits, routes etc. as necessary for planning your outings... This new version of the guidebook includes a mapping tool.

Which activities are included in the guidebook?
Each document can be associated to one or several activities. Each activity has a pictogram as illustrated in the image below

Ski, snowboard, snowshoes : ski or snowboard touring and mountainerring, snowshoeing

Alpine snow, ice and mixed climbing : Snow, ice and mixed climbing in the mountains (as opposed to waterfall ice climbing)

Alpine rock climbing : rock climbing in the mountains, including bolted multi-pitch climbs involving long approaches and/or glacier travel.

Rock climbing : bouldering, single or multi-pitch climbs, either sport (bolted) or trad. (not bolted), on lowland cliffs

Ice climbing : Ice climbing in lowland icefalls and road-side dry-tooling.

Hiking : Hiking in mountain or backcountry terrain, following marked paths or not.



How is information structured in the guidebook?
The guidebook is made of different types of document which can be linked together. These links will be called associations hereafter to avoid confusion with HTML links.

The different document types are:
Outing : created either through the assistant or through the route to which it will be associated. The outing can later be associated to other toutes (for example for a link-up of different climbs in a single day). An outing can be associated to a crag or climbing site but the assistant cannot yet be used for this purpose and the outing must be created directly from the site’s page (which can be found using the search function).
Route: created from a summit to which it will be associated, it can later be associated to several summit (for example for a traverse linking various high points) as well as several access points or huts. A route can be added to a summit without creating an outing.
Summit: created independently, they are automatically associated to the correct area (massif or administrative region) and the correct topographic maps on the basis of its lat./long. coordinates. If these are unknown, approximate coordinates can be given using the mapping tool. A summit can be created independently of a route.
Crag: works in a similar fashion to a summit. It is not possible to associate a route to a crag. For multi-pitch rock climbs, the standard combination of summit and route is required.
Access: works in a similar fashion to a summit.
Hut: works in a similar fashion to a summit.
Area: only guidebook moderators can create new areas and their contours but the text description of existing areas can be modified.
Map: only guidebook moderators can create new map and their contours but the text description of existing maps can be modified.
Book or paper topo: can be associated to a summit, a route, a crag or a hut.



How to add an outing to the guidebook?
To add an outing, you must be a member of the Camptocamp.org website.
Once identified, you can either:
* use the assistant (to the left hand-side of the homepage).
* click on the link "Add an outing" at the bottom of the page describing the route you took.

3 situations are possible:
  1. The summit and the toute you took exist. In this case, all you have to do is fill-in the description of your outing.
  2. The summit exists but not the route you followed. In this case, you must first create the route (see below How to describe a route?). Note that at first, you can create the route with minimal information (name, grade…) and once it is created, you can click on "Add an outing " at the bottom of the route page you just created.
  3. Neither the summit nor the route exist. In this case, you must first create a new summit ( “Add” in the menu at the top of the page or clicking on Add a summit in the menu to the left of the list of summits ). Once the summit has been created, click on "Add a route" on the left hand-side of the page and follow the procedure for the second situation (described above).

Contextual help is available for most of the fields you will have to fill-in. When reading or editing a document, click on the field name (the mouse cursor will change) and a short explanation will appear in a pop-up box. To close it, click anywhere in the box.

Two classic mistakes must be avoided:
  1. Creating a useless summit or route that already exists in the database. To avoid this mistake, use the already existing summits and routes if your outing took you there.
  2. Not creating a new route if it could be useful. If your outing followed an undescribed route, do not modify the existing route to reflect this. Rather, create a new route under a new name.

Note:
  1. Once an outing is created, it can be associated to multiple routes by clicking on the pictogram "+" under the route icon.
  2. An outing can be associated to a crag or climbing site in the same way as it can be to a route.
  3. To associate another website member who participated in your outing, once the outing is created, click on the pictogram "+" under the icon users.



How to describe a route?
Once identified as a user, you must go to Guidebook >> Summit >> Search and search for the summit to which you wish to associate the route. On the summit’s page, the menu on the left hand-side offers a link to "Add a route"

The best way to fill-in a route description for the interactive guidebook is to write it up directly after an outing while your memory is still fresh and using the map to pin-point landmarks and altitudes. Route descriptions are aimed at people with no prior knowledge of the area but who have the local map. When no maps are easily available, photographs can be added to the route description (see below for adding images).

Use simple (yet correct) language. Use accents (é, ü...) if your keyboard has them and use a capitals for the first letter for names.

Some additional points:
Cardinal points : All cardinal points must exclusively be included using their international initials, in capital letters: N , E , S , W , NW , NE , SW , SE. The only exeption is for the name of a summit when terms such as “oriental” can be used.
Numbers and units: Numeric data must be included as numbers as much as possible. Units are metric and must be included following their standard abbreviations::
- m , km : metre , kilometre
- h , mn , s : hour, minute , second
- m/h , km/h : metre per hour , kilometre per hour
- kg : kilogramme
- °C : degrees centigrade
- ° : slope in degrees
Numbers and units must not be separated by a space to avoid going to the next line: 100m, not one hundred metres, -15°C, not - 15 °C.
Abbreviations: Only use the most common abbreviations and those used in the map.
Internal links: The "wl" button allows you to create an internal link to another document in the guidebook, as such:
  - name of the link
  - name of the link for routes
  - name of the link for summits
  - name of the link for articles in English
  - etc.
Thus, you only have to copy the last part of the URL which mentions the "document type /  number / language".

Note:
  1. Once the route is created, you can associate it to multiple summits using the “+” icon below the pictogram for summits at the top of the route page.



What are the main mistakes to avoid when writing up a route description?
- Existing routes must not be duplicated. If your route already exists in the guidebook, any changes you wish to make must be made to the existing route description or for associating an outing. Once you have chosen a summit, the website will show the complete list of existing routes associated with the summit. Read through the list and select the route corresponding to your outing. Only click on "Add a new route" if you are sure your route does not exist in the database.

- The route description must not contain changing information (such as snow conditions, weather etc.). For the guidebook to be useful to its users, information concerning summits and routes must be generic and perennial and therefore independent of the conditions or the specific events of your outing. Information concerning a specific date or outing must be included in the description of the “outing”.

- Copy and paste is forbidden. A route description copied entirely from a copyright-protected source (book, magazine, CD-ROM or website) is unacceptable. In case your route is described in an existing publication, you can mention this publication in addition to your own description of the route. In some cases, short citations can be included if sources are well acknowledged.

- A route description which only refers to a description published elsewhere (such as see guide XX, page YY) is unacceptable. The interactive guidebook must be stand-alone.

Please note that the moderators may have to delete your contribution if you do not respect these rules.




Can images be inserted into a route description?
Yes, it is possible! For example: routes/53937
Only images from the Album can be inserted in a guidebook document (summit, crag, route or outing).

To insert an image, copy the insertion code of the image into the text. The code is available in the image’s information page. The image will be inserted (200px maximum length or width) with a permanent link to show the picture at 600px on a black background.



How to modify an existing route?
It may be that the existing description of a route you followed isn’t satisfactory. Two cases are to be distinguished:

- If you opted for a slightly different route, it is best not to modify the existing route description. You can however mention the variation you followed in the comments regarding your outing.

- If you believe that the existing route description is incomplete or deserves to be modified you can modify it, if you are identified as a user. There is no need to add an outing for this, as was required in the previous version of the website. You can modify a route from the route’s page by clicking on the "Modify" tag on the left of the page.



How to add a multi-route raid or a link-up of several summits?
The possibility of adding several summits to a route makes adding link-ups, traverses or raids very easy. It is nevertheless advisable to separate the various legs of a multi-day raid to facilitate subsequent use and new combinations.

Similarly, the possibility of including various routes to a single outing makes it easier to add link-ups, traverses and the like!!



Which grading system is used on the Camptocamp.org website?
The grades page summarizes everything one needs to know on this never-ending topic of the guidebook.



How to create a summit? a crag or climbing site? An access point? A hut? How can these documents be modified?
Once identified as a user, go to Guidebook>>Summit (or climbing site etc.)>>Add. Fields marked with an asterisk (*) must be filled-in.
Any user can now edit a description. For this, from the document’s page (summit, climbing site…), click on the "Edit" tag on the left of the page.

For a document to be georeferenced (and to thus appear on the mapping tool or be assigned to an area), its latitude and longitude must be given, in decimal degrees. Decimals are separated by a point (.) not a comma (,). W longitudes and S latitudes are in negative.



How to georeference documents? How to visualize documents on the mapping tool?
The cartography & georeferencing page summarizes all there is to need to know concerning this central component of the guidebook.



How to look for information in the guidebook?
A global search engine is available at the top of the page. A search can be restrained to a single document type. Be careful that in a search on a document name, the exact word is searched. For example looking for "aiguille scolette" will not give any results whereas "aiguille de scolette" or "guille de scol" will produce documents relative to the Aiguille de Scolette.
This search tool can be installed on the search bar of some web browsers and will be detected on all the pages of the website. For example, with the Firefox browser, you only have to access the list of installed search engines and click on add "camptocamp.org".
A detailed search engine for each type of document is accessible via le guidebook menu and on the pages of the guidebook.

For a particular geographic area, on the search page, unfold the interactive map and zoom so as to only show your area of interest and then select “restrain search to the map” before clicking on the search button. The search results are modified dynamically and are up-dated each time you modify the map’s limits. By unselecting the “restrain search to the map”, you can zoom in or out at leisure while conserving your search results. In the results lists, the link “locate on the map” enables you to zoom directly onto the document (summit, route…).