New Kelowna Bouldering Digital Guidebook

The Okanagan region features some of the best bouldering in British Columbia. The Okanagan Boulderfields is the most famous destination in the region, containing thousands of problems from V0 to V14, many of which are world-class. The Okanagan Bouldering Society (OBS) just launched its first digital guidebook for the Kelowna area, featuring over 1,200 problems across a range of grades in 44 zones, including The Boulderfields. You can find the new guide here.

The OBS partnered with KAYA to create the Kelowna guidebook. In the near future, OBS is planning to bring other Okanagan areas onto the app, including Vernon and Penticton. “One of the mandates of the OBS has always been to promote bouldering and area-development in the Okanagan valley in an environmentally conscious and socially responsible manner,” said the OBS about the new guide. “We have partnered with KAYA to further the interests of the Okanagan bouldering community towards this end.”

Over the past weekend, OBS held the 10th annual Rock the Blocs bouldering festival in the Okanagan Boulderfields with record attendance. For the first time, participants were able to access descriptions, photos, and GPS data for all of the problems through the KAYA app. Over 350 participants gathered to sample the high quality bouldering and celebrate the local climbing community. A detailed summary of the event can be found here.

The KAYA App

Founded in 2019 by a group of climbers, KAYA started as an app for tracking your climbs and uploading send videos. In 2022, they grew into the world of digital bouldering guidebooks. They started with Joe’s Valley and now have guidebooks available for many North American bouldering destinations including Squamish, Red Rocks, Bishop, and Leavenworth, among many, many others.

If you’re not already familiar with how KAYA works, it has a free version and a subscription-based Pro version, which can be paid monthly or annually. The free version gets you basic climb info like grades, star ratings, and ascent history. You’re also able to log your climbs – similar in process to other platforms like 8a.nu or Sendage. KAYA also hosts a beta library for each climb. You can upload your own send videos and watch videos of others – no need to go to YouTube.

All of that comes for free, but you get many more features in the paid Pro version of the app. You get access to all the guidebooks on the platform. These guidebooks include detailed climb descriptions, topos, and verified GPS data of the boulders, trails, and parking. You also have the ability to store all this information in offline mode for use in areas with poor data connection. The Pro version also provides performance analytics of your individual climbing data as well as personalized workouts.

KAYA has made some big updates to their guides for other parts of B.C. The Godman Creek and Cypress Falls areas of Vancouver were recently added. Nick Viger also added the Hunter Creek boulders to the Fraser Valley guide. The zone is the largest in the Fraser Valley, which now houses over 500 problems on the app. KAYA says the Comox Lake area on Vancouver Island will also be added soon.

You can read our review about the KAYA Squamish digital guidebook here.

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