About this site
Deep Cut Guide is a one-person project in Colorado. It's free, it has no ads and no account, and it says how sure it is of every route it shows.
Why it exists
The big route databases will put a pin on a map for any route you ask about. Most of those pins are the crag's point copied onto every route under it, and nothing on the page says so. Standing under a wall with three cracks that all look like the photo, that's the one thing you need to know.
So every route here carries a label saying where its location came from and how far to trust it. Right now 1 of 30,089 routes have a start measured by two independent sources, and 4,657 are known only to the crag. Those numbers are counted from the current build, not typed in; How sure are we? shows all five labels and what each one means.
What it's built from
The route catalogue is OpenBeta's open data. Sun and shade come from the wall's aspect and the shape of the terrain around it, measured from the USGS elevation model. Weather is Open-Meteo's. Guidebook facts — a bolt count, a length, the order of routes along a wall — are cited to the book and page they came from, and the book is linked so you can buy it. We take nothing from Mountain Project or theCrag; where a route exists there we link to it. Sources & licences has the full list and what each one allows.
What it doesn't know
A lot. There are no route descriptions here, and no topo copied from a book — those are the guidebook author's work, and the book is the place for them. Where a crag has a photo topo it is our own: our photograph, with the lines drawn from the wall itself by a named person on a named day, and given back under a licence that lets anyone reuse it. That is a slower way to get one, and it is the only honest one. Approach times, descents, anchor types and pitch counts exist for a small fraction of routes. Closures show only once a person has read the land manager's page and put their name on the entry. The footer says it plainly: climbing is dangerous, this site can be wrong, check the rock and the guidebook yourself.
How it's paid for
Hosting costs a little and the time costs more. It's covered by donations and by a few affiliate links: if you buy a guidebook or a piece of gear after clicking one, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. This never affects which facts we show or how routes are ranked. There are no ads, no paywall on any route or location, and nothing about you is sold or shared, because nothing about you is collected: your tick list stays on your own device, and a pin, a photo or a report carries no name and no address.
Write to us
Wrong facts, a closure we're missing, a guidebook you'd like cited, or anything else. This is the one place on the site that takes free text, and it goes to a person, not to a page.
Nothing else is kept with your message: no address, no browser, no device. If you leave a reply address it's used for a reply and nothing more.