Rock climbing
Rock climbing is a climbing sports discipline that involves ascending routes consisting of natural rock in an outdoor environment, or on artificial resin climbing walls in a mostly indoor environment. Routes are documented in guidebooks, and on online databases, detailing how to climb the route, and who made the first ascent and the coveted first free ascent. Climbers will try to ascend a route onsight, however, a climber can spend years projecting a route before they make a redpoint ascent.
Routes range from a few metres to over a in height, and traverses can reach in length. They include slabs, faces, cracks and overhangs/roofs. Popular rock types are granite, limestone, and sandstone but 43 types of climbable rock types have been identified. Artificial indoor climbing walls are popular and competition climbing — which takes place on artificial walls — became an Olympic sport in 2020.
Contemporary rock climbing is focused on free climbing where — unlike with aid climbing — no mechanical aids can be used to assist with upward momentum. Free-climbing includes the discipline of bouldering on short routes, of single-pitch climbing on up to routes, and of multi-pitch climbing — and big wall climbing — on routes of up to. Free-climbing can be done as free solo climbing with no protection whatsoever, or as lead climbing with removable temporary protection, or permanently fixed bolted protection.
The evolution in technical milestones in rock climbing is tied to the development in rock-climbing equipment and rock-climbing technique. The most dominant grading systems worldwide are the 'French numerical' and 'American YDS' systems for lead climbing, and the V-grade and the Font-grade for bouldering. As of August 2025, the hardest technical lead climbing grade is for men and for women, and the hardest technical bouldering grade is for men and for women.
The main types of rock climbing can trace their origins to late 19th-century Europe, with bouldering in Fontainebleau, big wall climbing in the Dolomites, and single-pitch climbing in both the Lake District and in Saxony. Climbing ethics initially focused on "fair means" and the transition from aid climbing to free climbing and latterly to clean climbing; the use of bolted protection on outdoor routes is a source of ongoing debate in climbing. The sport's profile was increased when lead climbing, bouldering, and speed climbing became medal events in the Summer Olympics, and with the popularity of films such as Free Solo and The Dawn Wall.
Description
A key concept in many types of rock climbing is that of the 'lead climbing pair'. One member — the 'lead climber' — will try to climb the route and overcome its challenges with a rope attached to their harness. The other member — the 'belayer' — will remain standing at the base of the route but controlling the other end of the rope, which is called belaying. The 'belayer' uses a mechanical belay device to attach the rope to their harness from which they can 'pay-out' the rope as the 'lead climber' ascends but with which they can lock the rope if the 'lead climber' falls. Once the 'lead climber' reaches the top, they create an anchor from which they can act as the 'belayer', controlling the rope while the 'second' ascends.Another key concept is that of climbing protection. Early 20th-century rock climbers relied on the 'lead climber' looping the rope around natural spikes of rock as they ascended. If they fell, and the 'belayer' held the rope fast — which they would have to do manually by looping the rope around their waist — the 'lead climber' would hang from the rope if it had stayed looped around a spike of rock — if it didn't, they fell to the ground. Modern rock climbers use mechanical protection devices placed along the route, into which the 'lead climber' clips the rope as they ascend; if they fall, the 'belayer' will lock the rope, and the 'lead climber' will fall until they hang from the last 'protection device' that they had clipped the rope into. This protection can be removable, or permanently fixed into the rock.
If the 'lead climber' falls, the 'belayer' will immediately lock the rope using their belay device, and the 'lead climber' will fall twice the distance that they are above their last piece of climbing protection. If this piece of climbing protection fails — a major risk of traditional climbing — and rips away from the rock, they will keep falling until their next piece of protection holds the rope. On some routes, the opportunities for placing protection are poor so that the 'lead climber' is forced to leave large gaps between protection points — called a runout — so that any fall will be large. The wide variety of types of rock climbing offers safe ways for beginners to access the sport before learning to lead climb, including top roping and bouldering, and many will try leading on sport-routes first before attempting traditional-routes.
Finally, while rock climbing mostly involves ascending a route, climbers sometimes need to be able to descend a route — either in retreat or because they have completed it and there is no other way down. This requires the technique of abseiling, where climbers use abseil devices to move down a fixed rope that has been anchored to a point at the top of the route.
Types of routes
Natural outdoor
s can range from just a few metres in height to over. The higher the route, the greater the danger and the greater range of [|techniques] and equipment needed, however, the technical difficulty of a route is not correlated to its height. Climbers have spent as many years trying to ascend routes such as Burden of Dreams, as they have on routes like The Nose. Rock climbing routes at high-altitude, such as on big wall routes like Eternal Flame on the Trango Towers, present additional physical challenges. Traversing routes, by their horizontal nature, can extend to great distances, and the world's longest rock climb is the El Capitan Girdle Traverse on El Capitan.Famous routes have been created on almost every climbable rock type, and particularly so on granite, which is noted for its grip and large cracks, on limestone, which is known for its detailed holds and cracks, and on sandstone, which can have sculpted features. However, climbing areas have been identified on over 43 climbable rock types including on gritstone, on slate, on dolorite, on iron rock, on gneiss, on dolomite, on monzonite, and on quartzite.
Climbers also differentiate routes by challenges encountered and the techniques required to overcome them. Some of the earliest rock climbs were smooth off-vertical 'slab climbs' where balance and shoe grip were key; famous modern examples include Indian Face in the UK. Climbers then acquired the techniques to ascend near-vertical 'crack climbs' by 'laybacking', 'bridging', and 'jamming'; famous examples include Super Crack, The Phoenix and Grand Illusion. Climbers then took on blank vertical 'face climbs' by 'crimping' and 'edging' on tiny holds, which required bolts drilled into the rock for their climbing protection; famous face routes include ' and ', La Rage de Vivre and Super Plafond, and To Bolt or Not to Be and Just Do It. Eventually, they migrated to routes that were also severely and continually overhanging and which required 'dynos' to reach holds; famous examples include Action Directe, Realization/Biographie, La Rambla, Jumbo Love, La Dura Dura and Silence.
Artificial indoor
In 1964, a new artificial indoor climbing wall built in a corridor of Leeds University began to produce climbers who, after exclusively training as students on the wall, could climb some of the hardest routes in Britain when they ventured into the outdoor environment. This led to an explosion in indoor climbing that was further amplified by the rise of bolted sport climbing and of bouldering, which are also suited to indoor climbing.Modern indoor climbing walls and gyms include artificial versions of almost every type of obstacle and climbing hold encountered in the natural environment. Artificial walls include novel features such as volume holds and sloper holds, which indoor route setters use to challenge climbers in very specific and unusual ways. As most competition climbing events are held on indoor walls, many contemporary climbers have spent their careers training and competing on artificial indoor walls. This revolution in the design of indoor climbing holds has affected how climbers now approach outdoor routes.
Modern indoor walls can have their routes graded for technical difficulty in the same manner as outdoor natural routes. The MoonBoard climbing wall has a 'grid' of 200 climbing holds that can be climbed in over 50,000 sequences, with sequences created and graded by an online community. Even the 2024 Olympic artificial climbing walls were graded with the women's walls at up to for lead and for bouldering, and the men's walls at up to for lead and for bouldering. Artificial walls have been created that have been estimated to be at or above the hardest technical grades climbed in the outdoor natural environment.
Recording of routes
The ever-growing volume and range of new rock climbing routes are recorded via specialist diagrams called topos, which are collated in climbing guidebooks and more latterly on large online rock climbing databases such as theCrag.com and MountainProject.com. Guidebooks and databases record the local consensus view on the level of difficulty of the routes, however, where this is materially lower than the actual difficulty of the routes, it is termed sandbagging.The individual moves needed to complete a given rock climbing route are called the beta, and popular rock climbing routes have detailed step-by-step video guides of their beta available online, and which has led to legal disputes over the ownership of the beta between online databases.
Important new first ascents are also chronicled and discussed in specialist rock climbing media, including climbing magazines and climbing journals with notable examples including Alpinist, and Climbing, which are read globally. These are supplemented by popular online climbing websites such as UK Climbing and PlanetMountain, as well as country-level specialist rock climbing magazines such as Desnivel, ' and '.