Can Gravsports-Ice Forum Survive With Facebook?

Nearly 20 years ago, Gripped had one of Canada’s most popular climbing forums. Climbers from across the country would share stories and fight over ethics. Today, climbing forums have all but disappeared. At one point, registered users visited sites like Live the Vision and Supertopo as much as they’d check their social media these days.

There are pro and cons to social media, but forums were searchable, organized and easy-to-use and stayed on topic. While many forums in North America have been closed for good, one is still being used by ice climbers to record conditions and new route information.

Despite the Rockies Ice Climbing Facebook page being so popular, it’s worth checking out Gravsports-Ice for conditions because some climbers only post there.

There also seems to be a movement to, at the very least, keep new route information on Gravsports-Ice. New ice climbing route information can only be added to the ice climbing app and future guidebooks if it’s recorded somewhere that it can be found.

Already this year, a number of new routes have been added to the forum, see here for more. However, some new route information has only been added to Facebook, so the information might get lost deep in the feed. If you climb a new routes, or think you have, be sure to add the information to Gravsports-Ice.

While Facebook will continue to be a place where conditions reports and discussions are posted, it seems that forums like Gravsports-Ice will continue to be a site for climbers to communicate.