Climbing route


A climbing route is a path by which a climber reaches the top of a mountain, a rock-face, or an ice-covered obstacle. Climbing routes are recorded in a climbing guidebooks and/or in online climbing-route databases. Details recorded include the type of climbing route, the difficulty grade of the route–and the beta for its crux–including any risk or commitment-grade, the length and number of pitches of the route, and the climbing equipment that is needed to complete the route.
Definitions have been agreed on what determines a valid ascent of a route, and on the classes or styles of ascent. The coveted first ascent, first free ascent, and first female free ascent, are chronicled for most routes. After a route is established, variations can be created, and climbers will try to improve on the style in which the route is climbed. Some climbers will try to reduce or limit the in-situ climbing protection or will try to completely free-solo the route. Others seek to set speed climbing records on routes.
The ascent of ever-harder routes is an integral key part of the history of climbing, and each type of climbing has notable routes that set major new milestones in rock climbing|milestones] of difficulty. There are ongoing debates amongst climbers about routes including the naming of routes, the creation of new routes by artificially altering the surface, the role of completely artificial indoor routes, the level and maintenance of in-situ climbing protection on routes and the ethical issue of retro-bolting.

Details

Climbing routes are usually chronicled in a climbing guidebook, a climbing journal, and/or in an online route database, where the key details of the route are listed, such as:

Physical

  • Climbing area. Routes are often clustered together in a general "climbing area", which is also known as a "crag". Notable climbing areas include: El Capitan, Clogwyn Du'r Arddu, Buoux, Verdon Gorge and Ceuse.
  • Route name. While rock and modern ice climbing routes can have any name, offensive names are removed from databases and guidebooks. In countries such as France the person who created the route names it, whereas in others such as the US and UK, the first person to ascend the route names it. Alpine routes tend to have names based on the peak or the first ascender and the geological feature, such as the Bonatti Pillar or the Walker Spur.
  • Type and condition of the surface. Different types of rock, such as limestone, granite, or sandstone, present different challenges in terms of friction and types of holds. The typical condition of the rock might be noted. Ice climbers will differentiate between the type of ice, and the stability of the ice surface.
  • Graphical topo of the route. Most guidebooks will include a photograph or drawing showing the line of the route. For more complicated routes, a more detailed "topo" illustration will include symbols for key obstacles and key features encountered on the route; and information on the crux.
  • Length and number of pitches. A key detail is the length of the route, which can vary from a few metres for a bouldering route, to several thousand metres for a big wall climbing or alpine climbing route. Longer routes are broken up into "pitches", which are less than a rope length; climbers will lead each pitch one at a time. For example, The Nose is over 880-metres long, and breaks up into 31-pitches.

Climbing

  • Type of climb and equipment needed. A key detail is whether climbing protection is already in-situ, or must be inserted while climbing. The protection equipment needed on traditional climbing routes will vary depending on the type of challenge presented. Some routes may require aid climbing and/or abseiling equipment.
  • Grade of difficulty and risk. Routes are graded for their difficulty – particularly for the crux – and the availability of adequate protection. Each route type will use the appropriate grading system such as: boulder grades, sport grades, traditional grades, aid grades, or ice grades. Big wall grade and alpine grade systems have additional grades for the level of commitment and seriousness of the route.
  • Estimated timings. Multi-pitch climbs will include details of the estimated timetable for the route, which might go from hours to several days and weeks. These timings may include additional information on key milestones that need to be reached in a given time to achieve the overall route timetable and to complete the route safely with sufficient provisions.
  • History of first ascent, first free ascent, and first female free ascent. Guidebooks record the first person to do the FA, FFA, and FFFA, including the "style" of the ascent and whether it was practiced beforehand by top roping. The type of aid used for the FA might be recorded, as well as near-FFAs that used minor aid. On alpine routes, the first winter ascent is recorded.
  • Popularity and other feedback. Modern guidebooks will include a popularity rating for individual routes in the climbing area. They may also include additional climber feedback on the route such as whether it requires muscle power, balance/footwork, or strong fingers to be successful.

Terminology

Types of routes

Climbers will often differentiate climbing routes by the general types of challenges they present. For example, in rock-climbing the four main types of challenges are:
  • Crack climbing, are routes following a system of crack that the climber uses to ascend the route; the width of the crack dictates the techniques needed, and crack-climbs are further differentiated by the body parts that can be 'jammed' into them.
  • Face climbing, where the rock face is fully vertical, unlike in slab climbing, and is largely featureless, unlike in crack climbing; face-climbing routes are typically sustained and exposed, and longer multi-pitch routes can become big wall climbing.
  • Slab climbing, where the rock face is 'off-angle' and not fully vertical; while the softer angle enables climbers to place more of their body weight on their feet, slab climbs maintain the challenge by having smaller holds.
  • Overhang (or roof) climbing, where the rock face leans back at an angle of over 90 degrees for part or all of the climb, and at its most severe can be a horizontal roof; most of the hardest modern climbs are continuously overhanging.
Similarly, in alpine climbing or in mountaineering, climbers will distinguish between routes — or parts of routes — that are mainly in sheltered couloirs or gullys from routes that are mainly on exposed arêtes or buttresses, as it they may require different types of equipment and/or techniques to overcome.

Types of ascents

The definition of what is classed as a valid ascent of a climbing route is a redpoint. Many routes may not be climbed on the first attempt, and will require days of attempts; when a climber undertakes such a task, it is sometimes called projecting a route. When a climber does climb the route on their first attempt without any falls and without any prior knowledge of how to climb the route, it is known as an onsight; where the climber had prior beta on the route, it is known as a flash. Alpine climbers distinguish whether the ascent was made in summer or in the more difficult winter season.
Climbers will also seek to improve the "style" in which a route is climbed. A route that uses a lot of aid climbing will be reclimbed with less and less aid until it is eventually "free climbed". Greenpointing refers to the process of even removing any existing in-situ sport climbing protection bolts to ascend the route as a cleaner traditional climb. Alpine climbers seek to complete established high-altitude "expedition style" routes in alpine style with no supplemental oxygen or any fixed ropes, and even alone. Free solo climbers seek to ascend a route with no protection equipment whatsoever. Some big wall climbers set speed records on routes.

Variations of routes

When a climbing route has been established, variations may be added, a typical one being a more "direct" line of the original route, also called a direttissima in alpine climbing, and thus not avoiding the difficult obstacles that the original route went around. Boulder climbers might add a harder sit start "SS" variation to a boulder route. Alpine and big wall climbers often seek to link established routes together in a larger enchainment route.
The straightforward and frequently used route up a mountain peak is often called the normal route in mountaineering.

Debates

Naming of routes

Traditionally, in many countries, the person who made the first ascent of a route was allowed to name it ; this concept of "naming ownership" by the first ascensionist led to inertia with regard to the changing of problematic names including route names that were vulgar or had racial, sexual, colonial, discriminatory or other, slurs, tropes or stereotyping.
In 2020, the climbing community more directly confronted the issue of problematic names. In June 2020, climbing author Andrew Bisharat wrote in Rock & Ice that "routes belong to us all. That should include their names" in regard to changing problematic names. At the same time, Duane Raleigh, the editor of Rock & Ice, stepped down from his post recognizing some problematic names that he had given his own routes in the past. The debate intensified, reaching national media attention in countries around the world, and was described as climbing's "#MeToo" moment.
In 2021, the American Alpine Club created the "Climb United" initiative to bring magazine editors, guidebook publishers and database managers, and other climbing community leaders together to create principles for naming routes that would "Build the best publishing practices to avoid harm caused by discriminatory or oppressive route names". Many climbing guidebook publishers and route databases introduced policies to redact inappropriate route names, including the largest online databases, theCrag.com, and MountainProject.com.

Manufactured or artificial routes

Some climbers have physically altered the natural rock surface to "construct" a route, by cutting or expanding handholds, which is also known as chipping. Such acts have at times caused controversy, but at other times has not. A 2022 survey by Climbing showed climbers were largely against manufacturing routes on natural outdoor rock on public lands, but were less negative on private lands ; they were willing to allow "cleaning" of routes, and also the repairing of routes.
In contrast, indoor climbing is done on completely artificially manufactured sport climbing routes on climbing walls, as is competition climbing where a route setter manufactures a completely new route for each stage of the competition. In 2017, Black Diamond Equipment launched "The Project" on an indoor climbing wall in Sweden, with the aim of creating the world's hardest sport climbing route at circa. ; it was later deconstructed having never been fully ascended, despite attempts by some of the world's best climbers, including Adam Ondra, Stefano Ghisolfi, and Alex Megos. Since then, other "Project-type" routes have been created on other climbing walls, with the goal of being the world's hardest route.

Permanent-protection and retro-bolting of routes

There has been a long-term debate in the climbing world on the use of permanently fixed in-situ climbing protection on climbing routes. Such protection is not to provide aid, but to increase the safety of the route. Climbers call routes that have such protection, "sport climbing routes". In the 1980s and 1990s in the US, this debate became so heated that it was known as the "bolt wars", with climbers bolt chopping on routes they considered to be traditional-only routes.
While all indoor climbing routes are bolted sport routes, the use of bolts in the outdoor natural environment raised environmental considerations, which led to the development of the clean climbing movement.
Other objections to pre-bolted protection highlighted the effect that such protection had on the very nature and challenge of a climbing route. In 1971, Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner wrote a famous essay called The Murder of the Impossible, challenging that the use of such protection was diminishing the nature of mountaineering, saying of such climbers: "he carries his courage in his rucksack, in the form of bolts and equipment". Such concerns also relate to the debate on retro-bolting of traditional climbing routes, which is the conversion into safer sport climbing routes, but that also fundamentally alters the nature of the route challenge.

Notable routes

Rock climbing

Ice climbing

  • Ice climbing. Notable ice routes include the first to get near/above the WI6 grade milestone such as Gimme Shelter, Riptide, and Sea of Vapours in the Canadian Rockies, and Repentance Super in the Val di Cogne in Italy. Since 2010, Helmcken Falls in Canada has produced overhanging ice climbs above the WI10 grade, including Mission to Mars the world's first-ever WI13 graded ice route.
  • Mixed climbing. The most famous route is Jeff Lowe's Octopussy WI6 M8 R, which started the mixed climbing revolution; this was followed by early consensus M10-12 routes in Europe and North America such as Reptile in Vail, Colorado, X-files and Empire Strikes Back in Val di Cogne, and Musashi in Canada. Iron Man in Switzerland became the world's first consensus M14, and also the world's first-ever FFFA of an M14.
  • Dry tooling. Notable routes include Bichette Light in France, the world's first-ever D14. The Tomorrow's World Cave in the Dolomites in Italy produced the world's first-ever consensus D15, and consensus D16 routes.

Mountaineering