About Boolder

The story

Boolder was born from the meeting between Romain, Cyril and Nicolas - two climbing enthusiasts and one technology enthusiast - living just a stone's throw from one of the most beautiful bouldering spots in the world: Fontainebleau.

For Nicolas, it was love at first sight. His two friends made him discover the magic of "Font": the emblematic sectors, the history of the forest, the joy of climbing in the middle of nature, as well as the rules to respect (clean your shoes!).

The richness of the forest remained however intimidating: more than 200 sectors, several tens of thousands of boulders, and hundreds of circuits for all levels. How to find your way around?

Nicolas then decided to map the forest in detail for nearly 2 years and create a modern guidebook. In 2023, Boolder launched as a free app on iPhone and Android.

Learn more: Nicolas's interview on the podcast "Allez" (in French)

The team

  • Nicolas

    Dev, mapping

  • Romain

    Climbing lover

  • Cyril

    Climbing lover

  • Emile

    Mapping

The Project

Boolder is a non-profit project, managed by volunteers.

Our goal is to make discovering bouldering in Fontainebleau fun and respectful of the forest.

The project is still very young, we welcome suggestions and ideas to foster help within the climbing community. Feel free to contact us!

Open data + open source

The code and data of the apps are available on GitHub.

We are looking for passionate climbers and coders to help us improve Boolder in a collaborative way.

Are you an Android developer?

We currently lack expertise for our Android app. Contact us if you want to contribute, we will be happy to talk!

Contact

For any questions, you can contact us at hello@boolder.com.

Thanks

We extend our thanks to everyone who has contributed to the Font ecosystem: the route setters, the circuit creators (aka "track painters"), and all those who have contributed to the maintenance and cleaning of boulders, anti-erosion operations, ...

Special thanks to Bleau.info, whose team has referenced almost 50.000 problems with great care and passion for the past 20 years, and made it free for everyone. You can support them on their sponsoring page.

We also extend our thanks to the Cosiroc association and the Topo Bleau website, which have provided a wealth of firsthand data and carried out numerous on-the-ground operations.

Frequently asked questions

Where does the data come from?
Photos and geographical data (GPS) were collected by the Boolder team.
The problem names and grades come mainly from Bleau.info, Cosiroc and Topo Bleau.
Some of the boulder drawings (in top view) are inspired by existing guidebooks. We are working to replace them with original drawings.
Why is the app free?
Because we want as many people as possible to enjoy it!
Nicolas took advantage of a sabbatical year to map many areas and code the first version of the application. Thanks to this, costs remained very low. We plan to keep this momentum going in the future thanks to volunteering and open-source.
Do you collect personal data?
You can consult our Privacy policy.