Rock climbing

Rock climbing is a climbing sport that involves climbing routes made of natural rock outdoors, or artificial resin climbing walls indoors. Routes are described in guidebooks and online databases, which explain how to climb them (called the beta) and who made the first ascent (or FA) and the prized first free ascent (or FFA). Climbers try to climb a route onsight, but a climber can spend years projecting a route before making a redpoint ascent.

Routes can be a few metres or over 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) tall, and traverses can reach 4,500 metres (14,800 ft) in length. They include slabs, faces, cracks and overhangs/roofs. Popular rocks include granite (such as El Capitan), limestone (such as Verdon Gorge), and sandstone (such as Saxon Switzerland), and 43 types of climbable rock have been identified. Indoor climbing walls are popular, and competition climbing, which takes place on artificial walls, became an Olympic sport in 2020.

Today, rock climbing focuses on free climbing, where no mechanical aids can be used to help move upward, unlike aid climbing. Free climbing includes bouldering on short routes, single-pitch climbing, multi-pitch climbing, and big wall climbing on very tall routes. It can be done as free solo climbing with no protection at all, or as lead climbing using removable temporary protection (called traditional climbing) or permanently fixed bolts (called sport climbing).

Rock climbing has changed over time with new technical milestones, which are linked to new rock-climbing equipment such as rubber shoes, spring-loaded camming devices, and campus boards, as well as new rock-climbing technique. Climbers use different grading systems to rate how hard a route is. As of September 2026, the hardest lead climbing grade is 9c (5.15d) for men and 9b+ (5.15c) for women, and the hardest bouldering grade is V17 (9A) for men and V16 (8C+) for women.

Description

A key idea in many types of rock climbing is the lead climbing pair. One climber, the "lead climber," tries to climb the route with a rope attached to their harness. The other climber, the "belayer" (or "second"), stays at the bottom and controls the other end of the rope, a job called belaying. The belayer uses a belay device to let out rope as the lead climber goes up, and can lock the rope if the lead climber falls. When the lead climber reaches the top, they set up an anchor and act as the belayer from above while the second climbs.

Types of climbing protection devices

Removable nut

Removable SLCD

Fixed bolt

Another key idea is climbing protection (also called "gear" or "rack"). Modern climbers clip the rope into protection devices placed along the route. If a climber falls, the belayer locks the rope, and the climber drops until they hang from the last device they clipped into. Removable protection is called traditional climbing, and protection fixed permanently into the rock is called sport climbing. If a piece of protection pulls out, the climber keeps falling until the next one holds, and a zipper fall is when several pieces fail. On some routes there are few places for protection, leaving a large gap called a runout, so any fall can be long, called a whipper. Beginners can try top roping and bouldering before learning to lead. Climbers also sometimes come down a route, either while retreating (self-rescue climbing) or after finishing it, using abseiling (or rappelling in North America). This uses abseil devices to slide down a fixed rope that is anchored to a point at the top.

Types of routes

Main article: Climbing route

Main articles: Climbing wall and Climbing gym

Main article: Climbing guidebook

Rock climbing takes place on natural rock outdoors or on artificial walls indoors. Climbing routes can be just a few metres high or over 1,000 metres (3,300 ft). Height does not decide difficulty, and the world's longest rock climb is the 4,500-metre (14,800 ft) El Capitan Girdle Traverse on El Capitan. Famous routes exist on many rock types, especially granite, limestone and sandstone. Climbers also group routes by their challenges. Early slab climbs relied on balance, later crack climbs needed new techniques, and face climbs and overhanging routes pushed climbers even further.

Indoor climbing began to grow after a new artificial wall was built in a corridor of Leeds University in 1964. Modern indoor walls copy almost every type of natural obstacle and include features such as volume holds and sloper holds. Most competition climbing events are held indoors. Routes are recorded in topos, which are collected in climbing guidebooks and online databases such as MountainProject.com.

The moves needed to finish a route are called the beta. Important new climbs are also shared in climbing magazines, such as Alpinist.

Types of rock climbing

Rock climbing has many types, and each one depends on the style used on a climbing route, its length and number of pitches, the climbing protection used, and whether it is part of a competition climbing event. Climbers often mix types. The routes The Nose and Freerider on El Capitan are over 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) high, so they need big wall climbing methods. They can be climbed with aid climbing or free climbed, and only Freerider has been free solo climbed. Both have also been rope solo climbed and simul climbed. Style mainly means whether a climber used aid. A first ascent (FA) uses aid, while a first free ascent (FFA) uses none. A free climb done on the first try, without seeing the route or getting the beta, is an onsight. With beta, it is a flash. After many tries, it is a redpoint, and most major new FFAs are redpoints. In 2021, Alexander Megos said climbers should record how a route was climbed, including whether knee pads or a sit start were used in bouldering, since these can change the difficulty. Length also shapes the type of climbing. Bouldering uses short routes with bouldering mats, highball bouldering is taller and more serious if a fall happens, single-pitch climbing fits within one rope length, and multi-pitch climbing uses belay anchors, hanging belays and jumaring. Novices who once started as a belayer now often begin with bouldering or indoor lessons, which gives them different ways into the sport.

Protection also shapes the type of climbing. Free solo climbing uses no protection. In 2017, Alex Honnold free soloed Freerider, which was featured in the 2018 Oscar-winning film Free Solo. Deep-water soloing takes place above water, and Chris Sharma brought it to wide attention with his 2006 climb of Es Pontàs. In lead climbing, a lead climber climbs while a belayer uses belay devices to control the rope. Traditional climbing places temporary protection as the climber goes up, while sport climbing uses bolts and quickdraws. In top rope climbing, the rope runs through an anchor at the top, which makes it a popular way for beginners to build strength. Competitions began to grow after the safer form of sport climbing developed in the 1980s. In 1988, the UIAA set up rules and the ICCC to regulate competition. In 2007, the IFSC took over and runs the Climbing World Cup and Climbing World Championships. Climbing debuted as an Olympic medal sport in 2020. Events include competition lead climbing using a climbing hold, competition bouldering with crashpads, competition speed climbing on a top rope with an auto belay, and competition combined climbing. Paraclimbing, or adaptive climbing, became well known when Mark Wellman climbed The Shield route on El Capitan in 1989. Hugh Herr also climbed routes graded 5.13 in the Shawgunks. The first official paraclimbing competition was held in 2006 by World Climbing in Yekaterinburg, and the first World Cup Series event followed in 2008. The Paraclimbing Cup Series began in 2010, and the first Paraclimbing World Championships were held in 2011 in Arco, Italy. Paraclimbing will debut at the 2028 Summer Paralympics in Los Angeles.

Main article: Rock-climbing equipment

The gear a climber needs depends on the route and the style of climbing. Bouldering needs the least, apart from climbing shoes, climbing chalk, and optional crash pads. Sport climbing adds ropes, harnesses, belay devices, and quickdraws, which clip into pre-drilled bolts. Traditional climbing adds a "rack" of temporary protection devices. Multi-pitch and big wall climbing add devices for moving up and down fixed ropes. Aid climbing uses special equipment, such as aiders, to help the climber move upward.

Climbing ropes are usually 50–80 metres long. Dynamic ropes stretch to absorb a falling climber's energy, while cheaper, tougher static ropes are used for fixed ropeing. Double ropes reduce rope drag. Climbers connect themselves and their gear with carabiners, quickdraws, lanyards, personal anchor systems, and climbing harnesses. Rope devices include belay devices, self-locking devices, ascenders, and abseil devices. Temporary protection includes spring-loaded camming devices, sometimes called "friends," as well as nuts and hexes. Fixed protection includes bolts and pitons. Aid climbers use aiders and daisy chains, and can hammer copperheads and hooks into the rock. For clothing, climbers wear climbing shoes for grip, climbing helmets, and belay gloves and belay glasses. Climbing chalk and medical tape for skin wear are distinctive parts of modern climbing, and knee pads and bouldering mats are now common at climbing venues. Training tools such as the bachar ladder, the hangboard, plyometric tools like the campus board, and the MoonBoard have helped shape climbing standards.

Techniques

Learning new climbing techniques was just as important as better equipment for helping climbers reach harder grades. Good body position and balance save energy, so climbers keep their arms straight and let their stronger legs do most of the work. They keep their hips close to the rock, using tricks such as 'back-stepping', 'flagging', and 'high-stepping'. Climbers use 'laybacking' and 'bridging' in corners and cracks, and 'chimneying' where walls face each other. Early climbers such as Joe Brown used these methods on routes like Cenotaph Corner in 1952 at Dinas Cromlech in Wales. 'Jamming', where climbers wedge body parts into cracks and pull on them, opened up crack climbing. Climbers also use 'smearing' and 'palming' on smooth rock, which is most important on slab climbing. The Welsh climber Johnny Dawes became famous for using these methods on hard routes such as the Indian Face. Route setters in competition climbing now design routes that need specific techniques, so today's climbers must master many more of them.

Climbers also use 'crimping', 'pinching', and 'edging' on very small holds, and training tools such as the hangboard help build the finger strength needed for these grips. These skills are most useful on face climbing routes, where there are no big features to grab. Climbers also use 'hooking' with their legs and feet, which is a key skill in competition bouldering and competition lead climbing. Advanced moves such as the 'drop knee', the 'dyno' (a jump between holds), and the 'Gaston', named after Gaston Rébuffat, help climbers reach holds on steep routes. Other examples include the tiny two-finger pockets on Action Directe and the thin cracks of Cobra Crack and Rhapsody.

Grading

Main article: Grade (climbing)

Climbing routes in rock climbing are given a grade that shows how hard they are, and sometimes how risky or demanding they are. The first ascensionist can suggest a grade, but it is changed to match the agreed view of later climbers and recorded in online databases or printed guidebooks. Many countries with strong climbing traditions have their own grading systems, but a few systems are used around the world for each type of climbing.

Main article: List of grade milestones in rock climbing

The history of rock climbing is linked to grade milestones, which have kept rising as climbing techniques and equipment improve. Women's top grades are usually only one or two levels below men's top grades, except in free soloing.

History and development

Main article: History of rock climbing

The three main sub-disciplines of rock climbing, bouldering, single-pitch climbing, and big wall climbing, began in late 19th-century Europe. Bouldering started in Fontainebleau and was pioneered by Pierre Allain in the 1930s and John Gill in the 1950s. Big wall climbing started in the Dolomites and spread across the Alps in the 1930s, led by Emilio Comici and Riccardo Cassin, and in the 1950s by Walter Bonatti. It then reached Yosemite, where Royal Robbins led it from the 1950s to the 1970s. Single-pitch climbing began before 1900 in the Lake District and in Saxony, and by the 1970s it had spread around the world, led by climbers such as Ron Fawcett (Britain), Bernd Arnold (Germany), Patrick Berhault (France), Ron Kauk and John Bachar (USA). Bouldering has stayed consistent since its origins, because it uses no artificial aid or climbing protection. Single-pitch climbing stopped using artificial aid in the early 20th century, led by Paul Preuss and later by Kurt Albert". It was not until the late 1960s and early 1970s that Robbins and Yvon Chouinard brought free climbing to big walls.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, French pioneers like Patrick Edlinger wanted to climb rock faces at Buoux and Verdon that had no cracks for traditional protection, so they drilled bolts into routes, which became known as "sport climbing". This safer format led to higher climbing standards, technical grades, training tools such as climbing walls and campus boards, the growth of competition climbing (led in the 1990s by French climbers such as François Legrand), and the arrival of the "professional" rock climber. By the end of the 20th century, Wolfgang Güllich, Jerry Moffatt, Alexander Huber, Fred Nicole, Chris Sharma, Adam Ondra, and Tommy Caldwell had set records, and Güllich and Huber made bolder single-pitch free solo climbs. Alex Honnold's big wall free soloing became the Oscar-winning film Free Solo. In 2016, the IOC announced that competition climbing would be a medal event at the 2020 Summer Olympics. Women's climbing developed later, but by the 1980s Lynn Hill and Catherine Destivelle were closing the gap with leading men, and in 1993 Hill made the first free ascent of The Nose on El Capitan. Today, indoor and competition climbing have spread the sport worldwide, with Asia becoming the fastest-growing region. In 2025, Asian competition climbers swept the medals in the men's lead-climbing discipline at the 2025 World Climbing Championships, while Japanese, South Korean and Chinese climbers regularly win medals at the World Climbing Series.

Ethics

Rock climbers have long debated what counts as fair play. One of the earliest arguments began in 1911, when Austrian climber Paul Preuss started the Mauerhakenstreit (or "piton dispute") by writing in the German Alpine Journal that climbers should move toward free climbing. He described "artificial aid" and said a piton should only be an emergency aid. In 1913, German climber Rudolf Fehrmann published rules for climbing in Saxon Switzerland, where only natural holds were allowed to protect the soft sandstone. These rules for climbing in the area are still followed today.

After World War 2, steel pitons led to a golden age of big wall aid climbing. In 1958, a team led by Warren Harding made the first ascent of The Nose on El Capitan, using many pitons and bolts over 47 days. The climb was controversial because of how much aid it used. In 1972, Yvon Chouinard and Tom Frost wrote an essay calling for hammerless "clean climbing", which was later adopted.

Since bolted sport climbing began in the 1980s, people have debated whether bolts for protection change the challenge and risk of a route. In 1971, Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner wrote The Murder of the Impossible, which argued that bolts were making mountaineering less meaningful. Climbers have also cut holds to shape routes, a practice called chipping. This has caused arguments in some cases, such as Fred Rouhling's Akira and Hugh, but not in others. Climbers have also debated the environmental effects of outdoor climbing, including the use of chalk and restrictions to protect wildlife and cultural sites, such as at Hueco Tanks. Equipment has raised fairness questions too. The use of knee pads for resting on climbs is still debated, and in 2021, Czech climber Adam Ondra argued that knee pads are no different from rubber shoes or chalk.

Culture

Commentators note that modern rock climbing culture grew out of the counterculture movement of the 1960s and 1970s. This was a time when the "dirtbag climber" lived simply and cheaply, often out of a car or tent, so they could focus on climbing in nature. Rock climbing was a counterculture way of life with a sense of purity and a love of nature. In the United States, the community gathered in Camp 4 in Yosemite in California.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Europeans, and then Americans, began to train harder and use new techniques, such as hangdogging and plyometrics. This helped them climb a new generation of harder sport climbing routes. Sport climbing led to competition climbing, which pushed rock climbing further toward a competitive sport. The popularity of bouldering led to rapid growth in indoor climbing gyms around the world. In these gyms, the dangers were almost removed, and the focus was on the technical challenge of the movements.

Some commentators feel sad that the "dirtbag climber" era has passed. Figures such as Yvon Chouinard, who gave his entire Patagonia Inc. fortune to charity, are remembered as examples of this spirit. In 2020, the magazine Climbing noted that some parts of rock climbing culture have stayed the same. It quoted its editor, Michael Kennedy, who wrote in 1975 that climbing "is about two things: ascending direct natural lines with a minimum of technical aid and protection; and preserving the climbs through the use of the least destructive methods possible." The magazine added that today about 44.5 million people climb both indoors and outdoors, and that Kennedy's words ring truer than ever.

Health

Rock climbing has been linked to better fitness, stronger muscles, and better balance. Research has also reported possible mental health benefits, such as better memory and problem-solving, fewer symptoms of depression, improved communication and social skills, and more self-confidence. This has led to "therapeutic climbing" (TC), especially indoor bouldering, which is easier and safer for beginners. A 2023 review in the journal PM&R found that TC had positive effects for various patient groups. A 2025 review found that indoor bouldering with mindfulness exercises may help adults with moderate depression. Some studies suggest TC may work about as well as cognitive behavioral therapy for depression.

See also: Climbing injuries

Besides the obvious risk of falling, climbers can get injuries to their tendons, especially in the fingers and arms, and to their joints, especially the knees and shoulders. These injuries have been made worse by plyometric training devices like the campus board and by techniques like the "drop-knee". Climbers have also spoken about eating disorders, particularly in competitions, where athletes try to improve their strength-to-weight ratio. In 2023, top competition climber Janja Garnbret called it a long-standing "cultural problem". In 2024, the IFSC introduced its first clear policy guidelines to help address eating disorders in competition climbing.

Governance and organization

See also: Climbing club

Rock climbing is mostly run by the climbers themselves, relying on social sanctioning. Country-level groups can act as "representative bodies" for the sport. Some are recognized by their governments, such as the American Alpine Club, and can influence government policy on issues like land access. Many of these groups also represent mountaineering, which rock climbing grew out of during the 19th and 20th centuries, such as the British Mountaineering Council. The Union Internationale des Associations d'Alpinisme (UIAA) is an important international group for mountaineering that also covers rock climbing and ice climbing, especially equipment quality standards and competitions.

In the late 1980s, the UIAA began to regulate competition climbing more formally and formed the International Council for Competition Climbing (ICCC). The UIAA later handed this work to a new separate body, the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC), which regulates competition climbing, including the Olympic sport of climbing. The UIAA still directly regulates competition ice climbing. In December 2025, the IFSC was renamed World Climbing (WC). Many country-level competition climbing groups were also created, some under older representative bodies and others fully independent, such as USA Climbing. Specialist groups also exist, such as The Access Fund, a North American group that works to secure and keep access to climbing areas and promotes responsible behavior there.

In film

Several films show different kinds of rock climbing. Assault on El Capitan (2013) follows Ammon McNeely repeating the controversial 1982 route Wings of Steel on El Capitan in 2011. The Inner Wall (2018) is a short film from Reel Rock about Andy Kirkpatrick climbing El Capitan alone using ropes and aid. Other big wall films include El Capitan (1978), about an early ascent of The Nose (VI 5.9 C2), and Valley Uprising (2014), about climbing in Yosemite. The Dawn Wall (2017) tells the story of Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson climbing the first-ever big wall route at 5.14d (9a). Free Solo (2018) shows Alex Honnold climbing Freerider 5.13a (7c+) on El Capitan without ropes. The Alpinist (2021) is about the late Canadian alpinist Marc-André Leclerc, who made a solo climb of Torre Egger in Patagonia. Rampage (1999) follows an 18-year-old Chris Sharma on an American bouldering road trip that started the "bouldering revolution." The Wall: Climb for Gold (2022) features competition climbers Janja Garnbret, Shauna Coxsey, Brooke Raboutou, and Miho Nonaka.

The Dosage Volume I-V series (2001 to 2007) is well regarded and includes major first free ascents, such as Chris Sharma's climb of Realization/Biographie 9a+ (5.15a) and Beth Rodden's climb of Meltdown 8c+ (5.14c). Hard Grit (1998) shows traditional climbing on extreme gritstone routes in the British Peak District. King Lines (2007) is about Chris Sharma, including his solo climb of the route Es Pontàs 9a+ (5.15a) on Mallorca. Reel Rock 7 (2012), from the Reel Rock series, shows Chris Sharma and Adam Ondra working together on La Dura Dura 9b+ (5.15c). Statement of Youth (2019) is about the start of sport climbing in Britain in the 1980s and features Jerry Moffatt and Ben Moon.