Route Names
SICA encourages route and boulder developers to use appropriate route names. Route naming should be a creative, hilarious, and/or even celebratory act. Route names can highlight the uniqueness of a climb, entice others to test their skills, hint at the movements required for success or allude to a funny story. Ideally, route names will encourage folks to climb them, not present a psychological obstacle.
Following is our advice to you if you think you've encountered a harmful route name on Southern Vancouver Island.
Contact the FA directly and ask them to change the route name.
Identify the FA. Look in relevant guidebooks, online forums, and online resources ie. Mountain Project and Sendage.
Use google, social media, community resources or the greater climbing community to find their contact information. Connect as you feel comfortable (i.e. in person, message, email) to request an upgrade to the route name.
If you are comfortable to do so, explain the impact(s) you have experienced or observed the route name cause. If applicable, describe any access issue that the route name has created for yourself or others.
Offer to assist the FA with the name-changing process.
Follow-up with guidebooks, online resources to ensure that the route name is changed in all sources relied upon by climbers.
If unsuccessful in contacting the FA, reach out to the relevant guidebook author(s) and ask them to address the route name in some way (e.g. use an abbreviation).
If you have been unsuccessful in reaching a FA, ask for guidebook author’s assistance, as guidebook authors often liaise with FAs to gather or verify information.
If the FA has declined to change a route name, ask the guidebook author to consider addressing it in another way such as using an abbreviation or acronym. Be open to the possibility that the author might have their own solution for addressing harmful route names.
South Island Guidebook information:
Guidebook authors are only in control of the text on their pages. They influence the way route names are shared within the climbing community, but they don’t have control over the route names themselves. That control is ultimately held by the climbing community collective which is typically quick to defer control to the FA out of respect for the amount of time and resources that go into route development.
Here is a helpful list of guidebook authors and their policies:
The Duncan Bouldering Guide bauchgreg@gmail.com and seanathon10@gmail.com
Greater Victoria Bouldering Astrocuriosity@gmail.com
Vancouver Island South Climbing Guidebook adequateguides@gmail.com
Vancouver Island South Select Climber’s Guide mr-al@shaw.ca
Policy: “Trigger words or route name changes are by permission of the FA. This is a record of the past and, good or bad, names can be seen as a teaching moment or as a window into the lives of those who came before you.”
Policy: Using browser, click “Improve This Page”, Flag Discriminatory Name