search-routes

Mountain Project Route Finder Search

Purpose

Search mountainproject.com for rock/ice/boulder climbing routes and return structured per-route results — id, name, canonical URL, grade (raw + system), route type, pitch count, length, average star rating, vote count, area breadcrumb, and crag lat/lng. Read-only; never logs in, votes, or edits.

The entire query is expressible as a cookie-less HTTP GET against the Route Finder. No API key, no login, no cookies, and no anti-bot stealth were required in testing. Two surfaces back the same query string:

• /route-finder-export → CSV (up to 1000 rows in one request; has length + lat/lng).
• /route-finder → HTML results table (50 routes/page, paginated; the only surface that carries per-route vote counts).

When to Use

• "Find trad routes 5.8–5.11a in Boulder Canyon with at least 2 stars."
• Bulk export of every route in an area/state matching a grade + type filter.
• Building a climbing-trip shortlist filtered by grade, style, pitches, and quality.
• Any flow that would otherwise scrape Mountain Project HTML — the GET surface is faster, cleaner, and cookie-less.

Workflow

The Route Finder form itself is guarded by a reCAPTCHA and a winnie-the-pooh honeypot field on POST — never submit the form. Instead build the results URL directly: the complete filter set lives in the query string and is bookmark-stable. The GET path bypasses the captcha entirely.

1. Resolve the area to a selectedIds value

selectedIds is a Mountain Project area ID (the number in /area/<id>/<slug>). It can be any level of the hierarchy — country, state, area, sub-area, or crag — and scopes the search to that node and everything under it.

• If the caller passes an area ID, use it directly.
• If the caller passes a free-form area name, resolve it: open https://www.mountainproject.com/route/finder is not needed — instead fetch the area page via the site search (https://www.mountainproject.com/ajax/autocomplete?q=<name>) or navigate to the area and read the /area/<id>/ from the resulting URL. Known IDs from testing: Boulder Canyon, CO = 105744222; Colorado (state) = 105708956.
• Omitting selectedIds searches the whole site (very large; always pair with a tight grade/type/stars filter).

2. Pick the grading system with type, then the grade range

type selects which grading system the grade-range filter applies to — the grade range works within one system at a time, never across systems:

Grade labels map to internal numeric IDs, and the min and max scales differ for the same label (the min ID is the floor of a grade band, the max ID is the ceiling). Use these verified maps:

YDS — diffMinrock: 3rd=800 4th=900 5.0=1000 5.1=1100 5.2=1200 5.3=1300 5.4=1400 5.5=1500 5.6=1600 5.7=1800 5.8=2000 5.9=2300 5.10a=2600 5.10b=2700 5.10c=3100 5.10d=3300 5.11a=4600 5.11b=4800 5.11c=5100 5.11d=5300 5.12a=6600 5.12b=6700 5.12c=7100 5.12d=7300 5.13a=8600 5.13b=8700 5.13c=9200 5.13d=9500 5.14a=10500 5.14b=10900 5.14c=11200 5.14d=11500 5.15a=11600 5.15b=11900 5.15c=12100 5.15d=12400

YDS — diffMaxrock: 3rd=800 4th=900 5.0=1000 5.1=1100 5.2=1200 5.3=1300 5.4=1400 5.5=1500 5.6=1600 5.7=1900 5.8=2200 5.9=2500 5.10a=2800 5.10b=3100 5.10c=3400 5.10d=3500 5.11a=4800 5.11b=5100 5.11c=5400 5.11d=5500 5.12a=6800 5.12b=7100 5.12c=7400 5.12d=7500 5.13a=8700 5.13b=8900 5.13c=9300 5.13d=9500 5.14a=10500 5.14b=10900 5.14c=11200 5.14d=11500 5.15a=11600 5.15b=11900 5.15c=12100 5.15d=12400

V-scale diffMinboulder: V0=20000 V1=20050 V2=20150 V3=20250 V4=20350 V5=20450 V6=20550 V7=20650 V8=20750 V9=20850 V10=20950 V11=21050 V12=21150 V13=21250 V14=21350 V15=21450 V16=21550 V17=21650. diffMaxboulder shifts by one step: V0=20050 V1=20150 … V16=21650 V17=21700.

Ice diffMinice: WI1=30000 WI2=30750 WI3=31500 WI4=32500 WI5=33500 WI6=34500 WI7=35500 WI8=36500 AI1=38000 AI2=38100 AI3=38200 AI4=38300 AI5=38400 AI6=38500 (WI and AI share the ice system). Mixed diffMinmixed: M1=50000 M2=50500 M3=51500 … M16=64900. Aid diffMinaid: A0/C0=70000 A1/C1=70500 A2/C2=71500 A3/C3=72500 A4/C4=73500 A5/C5=74500; diffMaxaid A0/C0=70510 … A5/C5=75260.

The diff params for the other systems can be left at their full-range defaults (they're ignored unless type selects them). Safe wide defaults seen in the wild: diffMinboulder=20000 diffMaxboulder=21700 diffMinaid=70000 diffMaxaid=75260 diffMinice=30000 diffMaxice=38500 diffMinmixed=50000 diffMaxmixed=65050.

3. Add the remaining filters

• Route style (rock only): is_trad_climb=1, is_sport_climb=1, is_top_rope=1 (multi-select; omit a flag to exclude that style). These only apply when type=rock. Boulder / ice / mixed / aid route categories come from the type selector itself.
• Min star rating — stars: a discrete set whose values are offset from the label — pass the value, not the label number: 0=All, 1.8=1+, 2.3=1.5+, 2.8=2+, 3.3=2.5+, 3.8=3+ (out of 4). I.e. to require "≥2 stars" pass stars=2.8.
• Pitches — pitches: 0=any, 1=exactly 1 (single-pitch only), 2=at least 2 (multi-pitch only), 3=≥3, 4=≥4, 5=≥5, 6=6+. There is no max-pitch cap.
• Sort — sort1 / sort2: popularity desc=Popularity (default), rating=Difficulty, title=Name, area=Area. Use a two-key sort, e.g. sort1=popularity+desc&sort2=rating.
• Pagination — page=N: HTML returns 50 routes/page; increment page for more.

4. Fetch and parse

Primary (CSV, up to 1000 rows, cookie-less HTTP GET):

GET https://www.mountainproject.com/route-finder-export?selectedIds=105744222&type=rock&diffMinrock=2000&diffMaxrock=4800&diffMinboulder=20000&diffMaxboulder=21700&diffMinaid=70000&diffMaxaid=75260&diffMinice=30000&diffMaxice=38500&diffMinmixed=50000&diffMaxmixed=65050&is_trad_climb=1&is_sport_climb=1&stars=2.8&pitches=0&sort1=popularity+desc&sort2=rating

Returns text/csv with header: Route, Location, URL, "Avg Stars", "Your Stars", "Route Type", Rating, Pitches, Length, "Area Latitude", "Area Longitude". Map columns → output fields. Location is the area breadcrumb most-specific-first ("Bell Buttress - Main Crag > ... > Boulder Canyon > Boulder > Colorado") — reverse it for a broad→specific area_path. Extract id from the /route/<id>/<slug> URL. Avg Stars is the 0–4 rating; Your Stars is always -1 cookie-less (ignore). Unrated routes sort last with Avg Stars = -1.0.

Vote counts (HTML only): the CSV has no vote count. If you need it, also fetch the same query string at /route-finder and read each route row's trailing grey number, then join to the CSV rows by route URL/ID. Per-route HTML row lives in table.route-table.hidden-sm-up tr.route-row: <strong> = name, .rateYDS (+ .rateFrench, .rateUIAA, .rateEwbanks, .rateBritish, .rateZA) = grades, count of .scoreStars img (starBlue.svg=1, starBlueHalf.svg=0.5) = rating, the <span class="text-muted small"> number after the stars = vote count, the Trad N pitches line = type+pitches, /area/ anchors = breadcrumb.

Vote-count gating: Mountain Project's Route Finder has no min-votes filter — passing minVotes is silently ignored. Gate on vote_count client-side after fetching.

Browser fallback

Only if the HTTP path is ever blocked. Create a Browserbase session (a bare session sufficed — no --verified/--proxies needed in testing), browse open the same /route-finder?... results URL, browse wait load, then read route rows from the HTML. Do not browse open the /route-finder-export URL — in a browser it is a file download, so the page just re-renders the finder HTML (it does not display the CSV). Route IDs live in anchor hrefs, not the rendered text, so browse get text alone is insufficient — read the snapshot's urlMap (or browse get html body) to recover /route/<id>/ links. Never click "Change Settings" / submit the form (captcha) — always rebuild the URL.

Site-Specific Gotchas

• Grade range is single-system. It works only within the system chosen by type (rock=YDS, boulder=V, ice=WI/AI, mixed=M, aid=A/C). You cannot ask for "5.10 OR V5" in one query — run one query per system and merge client-side.
• Min vs. max grade IDs differ for the same label. 5.8 is diffMinrock=2000 but diffMaxrock=2200; 5.11a is min=4600 / max=4800. Use the two maps above; do not reuse one ID for both ends.
• stars values are offset from their labels. "≥2 stars" is stars=2.8, "≥3 stars" is stars=3.8. Only the six discrete values exist in the UI. (Passing an arbitrary float may work but is unverified — prefer the documented values.)
• No min-votes filter exists. minVotes is accepted but ignored (verified: identical row counts for minVotes=0/50/500). Filter by vote_count client-side.
• No max-pitch cap and a limited sort set. Pitches only supports "exactly 1" or "at least N". Sort offers only Popularity / Difficulty / Name / Area — there is no "highest-rated" or "recently added" sort. Sort by star_rating or recency client-side if needed.
• CSV is capped at 1000 rows. Larger result sets are truncated — narrow the filters or paginate the HTML (page=N, 50/page) to get everything.
• CSV vs. HTML field split: CSV has Length + Area Latitude/Longitude (the crag's coordinates, not the exact route) but no vote count; the HTML list has vote counts but no length or coordinates. Neither surface returns first_ascent — that requires the individual /route/<id> detail page.
• /route-finder-export is a download in-browser. It returns the CSV only over plain HTTP GET; navigating to it in a real browser yields a file download, and the page shows the finder HTML instead. Use an HTTP client for the CSV.
• The results URL is fully bookmark-stable. The whole filter set round-trips in the query string (verified: the URL after navigation still contains every diff/stars/type param). There is no separate short route-finder/<id> saved-search URL for anonymous users — the query string is the shareable artifact.
• Form POST is captcha-guarded. The form carries a reCAPTCHA and a winnie-the-pooh honeypot. The GET results URL bypasses both — never submit the form.
• lat/lng + radius is not supported by the Route Finder. Radius search requires the documented JSON data API /data/get-routes-for-lat-lon (lat/lon/maxDistance), which needs an apiKey from a logged-in profile — out of scope for the cookie-less path.
• No anti-bot wall observed. All HTML/CSV fetches returned HTTP 200 cookie-less across the run; heavy pagination did not trigger a login or captcha wall.

Expected Output

{
  "total_count": 556,
  "page": 1,
  "per_page": 50,
  "applied_filters": {
    "selectedIds": "105744222",
    "area_name": "Boulder Canyon, Colorado",
    "type": "rock",
    "grade_system": "YDS",
    "grade_min": "5.8",
    "grade_max": "5.11a",
    "diffMinrock": 2000,
    "diffMaxrock": 4800,
    "styles": ["trad", "sport"],
    "pitches": "any",
    "min_stars": 2.0,
    "min_votes": 0,
    "sort": "popularity"
  },
  "results": [
    {
      "id": "105750457",
      "name": "Cosmosis",
      "url": "https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105750457/cosmosis",
      "grade": "5.10a",
      "grade_system": "YDS",
      "type": ["trad"],
      "pitches": 2,
      "length_ft": null,
      "star_rating": 3.6,
      "vote_count": 372,
      "area_path": ["Colorado", "Boulder", "Boulder Canyon", "Bell Buttress Massif", "Bell Buttress - Main Crag"],
      "lat": 40.0011,
      "lng": -105.413,
      "first_ascent": null
    },
    {
      "id": "105761271",
      "name": "Lust",
      "url": "https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105761271/lust",
      "grade": "5.10c",
      "grade_system": "YDS",
      "type": ["sport"],
      "pitches": 1,
      "length_ft": 90,
      "star_rating": 3.4,
      "vote_count": 210,
      "area_path": ["Colorado", "Boulder", "Boulder Canyon", "Avalon", "Second Tier", "Tarot Wall"],
      "lat": 39.999,
      "lng": -105.4122,
      "first_ascent": null
    }
  ]
}

Notes on field provenance:

• grade_system is derived from the type param (rock→YDS, boulder→V, ice→WI/AI, mixed→M, aid→Aid).
• type (per route) comes from the CSV Route Type / HTML Trad|Sport|TR text; a route can carry multiple (e.g. ["trad","top rope"] from "Trad, TR").
• length_ft, lat, lng come from the CSV; vote_count comes from the HTML list; both can be null when absent. first_ascent is always null from the search surface (detail-page only).
• total_count is the result-set size (read from the HTML results header / page count); the CSV is capped at 1000 even when total_count is larger.