Bouldering is one of the purest and most dynamic forms of climbing, a discipline built around short, powerful sequences that test strength, technique, and creativity. Done without ropes but protected by mats, it’s a style that invites both beginners and experts alike to push their limits on the rock.
In this project, I explore how difficulty and popularity interact across three of the most iconic U.S. bouldering areas: Hueco Tanks, Joe’s Valley, and Joshua Tree. Each has its own flavour — from Hueco’s steep, pocketed problems, to Joe’s Valley’s diverse sandstone, to Joshua Tree’s old-school slabs and highballs. These differences shape not only how climbs feel but also how they’re graded and perceived.
Using data from MountainProject.com, I ask:
- How are climbs distributed across the V-grade scale in each region?
- Do climbers prefer easier problems, or are harder lines more beloved?
- Are rating trends and difficulty distributions consistent across areas?
As both a climber and an economics student, this analysis is not just a data exercise, but a way to understand how climbers engage with the environments they love — and what makes a boulder problem truly memorable.
🧩 Data & Caveats
For this analysis, I used data from MountainProject.com — a popular, community-driven climbing platform where climbers log ascents and rate routes. By focusing on the chosen US bouldering areas — Hueco Tanks, Joe’s Valley, and Joshua Tree — I aim to explore how difficulty and popularity intersect across these regions.
One key variable is the number of ratings a climb receives. A 4-star route with 200 votes tells us more than one with a single rating, so popularity helps gauge consensus.
That said, there are a few things to keep in mind:
- Grades are subjective: A V5 in Joshua Tree might feel very different from a V5 in Joe’s Valley, so comparisons can be tricky.
- Crowd Sourced Bias: The ratings are crowd-sourced, meaning they’re influenced by individual climbers’ experiences, which can vary depending on factors like season, visibility, and popularity.
- Uneven Sampling: While Hueco has a lot of climbs with plenty of ratings, the others have more obscure climbs with just a handful of ratings, something we account for when interpreting results.
Ultimately, the goal here is to understand not just what’s hard or easy, but what climbers truly enjoy.
📉 Comparing Difficulty Distributions Across Regions
The spread of bouldering difficulty in a climbing area reveals a lot about its character — whether it's a playground for beginners or a proving ground for seasoned crushers. By comparing the distributions in Hueco Tanks, Joe’s Valley, and Joshua Tree, we get a clearer sense of what each area offers and how it caters to different types of climbers.
📊 Observed Patterns
Across all three areas, its clear that the number of routes generally declines as difficulty increases, which makes sense. Harder climbs take more effort to establish, and naturally, there are fewer of them. But the pace at which that decline happens, and the exact spread of difficulty, tells a more nuanced story.
Joshua Tree
This area stands out as the most beginner-friendly. There’s a dense cluster of V0–V2 problems, but a sharp drop beyond that. You won’t find many climbs above V5. It’s not a hotspot for cutting-edge difficulty, but its classic easy problems and scenic desert setting make it a favourite for newer climbers or those seeking mellow days.
Joe’s Valley
Joe’s Valley, on the other hand, offers a more balanced spread. From V2 to V8, there's a solid spread, with mid-range grades being particularly dominant. This makes it one of the most versatile areas in the dataset, with enough variety to challenge climbers across a wide skill range. Whether you’re still working through V2s or pushing for V8, there’s something here for you.
Hueco Tanks
Despite its reputation for hard bouldering, Hueco has a surprising number of easier routes in the dataset — especially V0–V2. The steep drop-off into higher grades may suggest that many climbers come here for the approachable classics, or that only a subset of elite lines get logged frequently. Either way, its lower-grade routes clearly resonate with a broader base.
🧗♂️ What Climbers Are Actually Climbing
Knowing how climbs are graded is one thing — but what are climbers actually getting on? To answer that, we turn to the number of logged ascents at each grade. This serves as a useful proxy for popularity and usage.
Whereas the previous section focused on what's available, we now want to look at what’s actually getting climbed. By plotting total ratings per V-grade, we see where climbers are spending their time — and how that differs between areas.
Unsurprisingly, most of the action across all three areas is in the V0–V6 range. That tracks with broader trends in climbing as these grades are the most accessible, abundant, and where most climbers operate. But each region shows its own patterns:
Joe’s Valley
Joe’s sees a high level of activity in the V2–V4 range, but there’s also substantial engagement from V5 to V7 — nearly rivaling the lower grades in volume. This suggests the area isn’t just popular with intermediates — it’s a proving ground for more experienced climbers too. Activity drops off sharply after V8, hinting at a ceiling in terms of how much hard climbing gets logged.
Joshua Tree
Joshua Tree sees the most logged ascents at V0, with V1 to V4 also receiving considerable attention. However, from V5 onwards, activity tapers off quickly, with very few logs beyond V8. This aligns with the area’s beginner-friendly profile — it’s a place for early progression and mileage rather than elite pushing.
Hueco Tanks
Hueco follows a similar pattern to Joe’s, though with relatively more activity at V0 and V1. The decline in logged ascents is more gradual, suggesting a broader and more continuous spread of difficulty levels being climbed. This supports Hueco’s reputation as both an entry point and a legendary test-piece venue — its easier problems draw in the crowds, while its harder classics see selective but steady traffic.
Together, the spread of grades and the volume of logged ascents give us a fuller picture of how these areas are used. With that context, we can now ask: which climbs are the most beloved — and does difficulty influence how routes are rated?
⭐ Do Climbers Prefer Easier Routes?
When this in mind, we can now ask: When choosing climbs, do people gravitate toward fun, approachable boulders — or chase the challenge and prestige of something harder? To explore this, we looked at the relationship between a route’s difficulty and its average user rating across the three regions
🔍 Why This Matters
Climber satisfaction isn’t just about difficulty — it’s about experience. Do climbers reward approachable, enjoyable climbs with high ratings, or do they save their stars for the hardest lines? These patterns reveal deeper insights about motivation, risk tolerance, and the way we relate to different climbing environments.
Each point in the below scatter plot represents a route. The x-axis shows difficulty (V grade), the y-axis shows average user rating (out of 4 stars), and point size reflects how many climbers have logged the route.
📈 What the Scatter Plot Tells Us
- Challenging climbs often earn more love.
It's not dramatic, but there’s a slight upward slope in average ratings as difficulty increases, suggesting climbers reward climbs that test them. - Popular ≠ well-loved
Some of the most-climbed problems (especially in the V0–V4 range) receive average ratings. It seems volume doesn’t always mean praise. - Quality varies at every grade
From beginner-friendly V1s to gnarly V9s, star ratings swing wildly. The best routes aren’t defined by grade, but by experience. - Crowding in lower grades: The scatter plot is densest in the V0–V4 range, where most climbs — and climbers — live. Larger point sizes here help surface the most influential problems.
- Regional flavour matters: While all three regions follow the overall trend, there are small differences in how climbs are rated by grade. Joe’s Valley ratings stay consistent across grades. Joshua Tree has more variability, especially at easier grades. Hueco Tanks shows some of the highest-rated mid-grade climbs
To go deeper, I broke the data into box plots by grade and region. Each box shows the median rating and the spread of user scores — letting us compare consistency, variability, and overall enjoyment.
🧭 Key Observations
Once again, ratings rise with difficulty. Especially from V0 to V8. Easier climbs (V0–V2) tend to score below 2.5 stars; harder ones edge closer to 3.
Joshua Tree: Mid-grade sweet spot. Joshua Tree’s V4–V8 climbs show a small but noticeable bump — combining challenge with broad appeal.
Joe’s Valley: Reliable and even. Ratings here are steady, with smaller boxes and fewer wild cards. This might reflect consistent style or better routes.
Hueco Tanks: Love it or hate it. The low-grade boxes here are wide and full of outliers — some climbers adore these climbs, others clearly don’t.
Grade ≠ quality. The biggest takeaway? A V6 isn’t automatically better than a V3. Great climbs come in all flavours.
Subjectivity rules. The spread in lower grades is especially wide — from beloved to loathed. Ratings are about experience, not just effort.
So, do climbers prefer easier climbs? Not necessarily. There’s a subtle lean toward rewarding harder climbs — but difficulty alone doesn’t guarantee praise. The climbs that resonate most tend to offer something more: flow, beauty, movement, or just a feeling that sticks with you long after the pads are packed away.
📈 Multiple Linear Regression Model: Interpreting the Output
So can we predict what climbers will enjoy? So far, we’ve looked at trends in difficulty, popularity, and ratings across regions — but what if we could go one step further? In this section, we build a multiple linear regression model to predict the average user rating of a climb based on its characteristics (climb’s difficulty, its location, and the number of ratings it received). The goal: to identify which features — from difficulty to location — actually influence how well a route is received.
Model Performance
- R² Score: 0.305
The model explains 30.5% of the variance in average ratings.
➤ That’s decent for behavioural or preference data, which often contains a lot of noise — but it also indicates there’s still a good deal of unexplained variance, likely due to unmeasured factors (e.g. route aesthetics, scenery, movement quality, beta videos, etc.). - RMSE: 0.6389
On a rating scale that likely ranges from 0 to 5 stars, this is a moderate error — not terrible, but it suggests predictions are typically off by around 0.64 stars.
Feature Coefficients (Interpretation)
Feature | Coefficient | Meaning |
Log_Num_Ratings | 0.165 | Climbs with more ratings tend to be rated higher, even after controlling for other factors. Popularity might signal quality or classic status. |
Numeric_Grade | 0.133 | Harder climbs receive slightly higher ratings on average — consistent with our scatterplot analysis. |
Location_Joshua Tree | 0.035 | After accounting for difficulty and popularity, climbs in Joshua Tree receive slightly higher ratings than those in Hueco Tanks (the baseline location). |
Location_Joe's Valley | -0.077 | Climbs in Joe’s Valley tend to receive slightly lower ratings than those in Hueco Tanks, all else equal. |
Note: Hueco Tanks is the baseline in this regression because it’s omitted from the one-hot encoded location dummies. All location coefficients are interpreted relative to it.
What This Tells Us
- There’s evidence that both difficulty and popularity influence user ratings.
- The effect of region exists, but it’s smaller than the effects of difficulty and number of ratings.
- Joe’s Valley appears to be slightly undervalued in user ratings compared to the other two, even after adjusting for grade and popularity.
- Joshua Tree has a slight premium, though the effect size is small.
Overall, Difficulty and popularity matter — and regional identity adds nuance — but the majority of what makes a climb beloved remains subjective.
Top Rated Climbs in Joe’s Valley by Difficulty
To highlight what climbers truly love, we’ve zoomed in on Joe’s Valley, one of the most climb rich areas in the dataset. For each category, we list the top 10 highest-rated climbs, in no particular order, based on average user ratings. Only routes with 10 or more ratings were considered to ensure reliability.
🟢 Beginner Routes (V0–V4)
Accessible and aesthetic, these classics are popular for a reason — offering flow, fun, and unforgettable movement.
Route Name | V Grade | Avg Stars | Number of Ratings |
Kobra Khan | V4 | 4.0 | 202 |
Michelangelo | V3 R | 3.8 | 160 |
Speed | V3 R | 3.7 | 48 |
Thriller | V0 R | 3.7 | 108 |
The Angler | V2 | 3.6 | 902 |
The Kraken | V4 R | 3.6 | 37 |
America's Playground | V1–2 | 3.6 | 128 |
Candy Paint | V3 | 3.6 | 37 |
Wax or Wane | V4 | 3.5 | 34 |
Sandy Cheeks | V4 | 3.5 | 22 |
🟠 Intermediate Routes (V5–V8)
These are the problems climbers come back for — high-quality rock, clean lines, and a perfect challenge.
Route Name | V Grade | Avg Stars | Number of Ratings |
The Wind Below | V7 | 4.0 | 78 |
Thor's Hammer | V7 | 3.9 | 76 |
The Flu | V7–8 | 3.9 | 120 |
Lumberjack | V8 | 3.9 | 27 |
Wills Of Fire | V6 | 3.9 | 499 |
No Substance | V8 | 3.9 | 60 |
Low Tide | V6 | 3.8 | 244 |
Black Sea aka The Dead Sea | V8 | 3.8 | 81 |
Dark Side of the Moon | V5 | 3.8 | 34 |
Anti-Future Plan | V8 | 3.8 | 13 |
🔴 Advanced Routes (V9+)
These are the test pieces that define an advanced climber's journey — demanding sequences on impeccable stone, pushing limits with elegant, sustained movements.
Route Name | V Grade | Avg Stars | Number of Ratings |
Superman | V10 | 4.0 | 20 |
Trent's Mom | V10 | 4.0 | 10 |
Godsend | V9 | 4.0 | 11 |
Eden | V10 | 4.0 | 27 |
Lactation Station | V10 | 3.9 | 14 |
Jitterbug Perfume | V10 | 3.9 | 14 |
Renaissance Man | V9 R | 3.9 | 16 |
Beyond Life | V10 | 3.9 | 32 |
Glock 9 Handy | V9 | 3.8 | 15 |
Resident Evil | V10 | 3.8 | 80 |
Wrapping It Up
Digging into the ratings of bouldering routes across some of the world’s most iconic climbing areas has been a fun ride — and it turns out, climbers aren’t just chasing the hardest grades. Sure, there’s a general trend: harder routes tend to get slightly higher ratings, but that’s far from the whole story. Some lower-grade problems still shine — especially when they’re interesting, aesthetic, or just plain fun.
Even when we tried to model what makes a route highly rated, the results were pretty humble — suggesting that while things like difficulty and popularity matter a bit, they definitely don’t tell the whole tale. Climbing is personal, and much of what makes a route memorable simply isn’t captured by the data.
Zooming in on Joe’s Valley with its big spread of routes across all grades gave us a great chance to see which climbs really stand out, from beginner classics like The Angler to steep test pieces like Wills of Fire. What binds them is the experience: the movement, the setting, the story. Ratings hint at consensus, but behind each star lies something personal.
Because climbing isn’t just about difficulty, it’s about connection. Connection to the rock, to the line, and most importantly, to the moment itself. It’s that personal experience that makes each route meaningful, beyond the ratings or the grades.
In the end, this wasn’t just about finding “the best” routes — it was about celebrating how diverse, subjective, and opinionated the climbing community can be. Whether you’re projecting V12s or psyched on a chill V2 with a great view, there’s something out there that’s four stars in your book — and that’s what really counts.
