Content-Type: text/html

# Rock climbing

HomePage | RecentChanges | Preferences
You can edit this page right now! It's a free, community project

Rock climbing is vertical or horizontal motion over steep rocky terrain.

Rock climbing is both a sport and a recreation. Often the emphasis is on balance and agility over brute force. Climbing can take place outdoors on real rock faces, or indoors on synthetically constructed [climbing walls]?. Competitions are usually held indoors on purpose built (often identical pairs) climbing walls. Indoors, routes are varying difficulty are often indicated using different coloured holds.

Climbers often climb in pairs. The leader will climb first climbing up and placing protection as they go. When the leader has finished the route the other climber in the pair, the second, will climb and will remove the protection that the leader placed.

For climbing heights over three meters, a climber should be secured or belayed by another person. These days both climbers wear a [climbing harness]?. The climber ties the rope to his harness. The other person is the belayer. The belayer will have some means of controlling the amount of slack in the rope; they need to be able to pay out more rope if the climber moves away from them, take in slack if the climber moves towards them, or hold the rope to arrest the fall should the climber fall.

Usually the belayer will achieve this by using a [belay device]? attached to the harness through which the rope runs. A [climbing eight]? is a popular belay device. The eight allows the belayer to control the amount of friction applied to the rope, which varies from very little when the rope needs to move, to enough friction to stop a fall. There are many varied belay devices: [gri gri]?, [sticht plate]?, tuber?, various proprietary trade names. Some climbers do not use a belay device, a sliding knot known as the [italian hitch]? (also known as friction hitch or muenter hitch) can be used.

The protection that climbers use varies (see article) but the basic idea is to run the rope through a point that is secured to the rock; if the leader should fall they will fall twice the distance from them to their last piece of protection that stayed in place (plus a bit because the ropes are stretchy), hopefully this is a sufficiently short distance they they are thereby prevented from hitting any large ledge or the floor.

Broadly there are two styles of rock climbing: [aid climbing]? and [free climbing]?.

Aid climbing is the simplest to understand. Any means of gettings yourselves and your equipment up the rock face goes. You can place gear into cracks and features on the rock and pull on the gear or stand in it in order to acheive ascent. Aid climbing may be the only way (yet!) to climb some very steep terrain.

Free climbing involves climbing where the only means of propelling yourself up the rock are your own body. Rope?s and gear are only used to protect the climb, they are not pulled on or weighted in order to actually climb.

Within free climbing there are still a number of different styles: solo, trad, sport.

Solo climbing involves no ropes and no equipment. The climber climbs unaided and unprotected. Scary.

Trad is short for traditional. The climbers climb from bottom to top placing their own protection as they climb, the second removes the protection.

Sport climbing involves climbs on routes that are protected entirely by bolts drilled into the rock. The protection is (generally) reliable, little equipment is needed. Generally people can push themselves more on sports routes.

Bouldering? is climbing without a rope. For safety reasons, climbers rarely go higher than a few meters from the ground. They may also put a crash pad ([bouldering mat]?) on the ground to break their fall. The region around Fontainebleau near Paris is famous for its beautiful and diverse bouldering sites. Bouldering is a pursuit in its own right as well as being used for training by climbers.

Climbers grade the routes they climb. The grading system used varies from country to country (and region) and according to what style the climb is.

Climbing Areas

- Germany
  - ...
- France
  - Fontainebleau
  - valley of the Verdon?
  - valley of the Durance?
- Spain
  - Canary Islands
- UK
  - [Peak District]?
  - Scotland
  - Wales
  - Yorkshire?
  - Everywhere else
- Everywhere else in the world

Types of rock (Geology)

The rock that climbers climb on is generally varied. In Britain the following types are common:

- gritstone? (a course sandstone) in the Peak District and Yorkshire.
- limestone in Wales, Peak District, Yorkshire, Scotland.
- sandstone (that is, usually softer and/or finer that gritstone) in Northern England, Southern England, Northern Scotland.
- granite? in West Penwith.
- slate? in North Wales (and parts of Devon and Cornwall?).
- gabbro?, rheolite?, other. Elsewhere.

In terms of climbing the factors that vary across different types of rock are:

- friction.
- strength.
- looseness.
- vegetation.
- typical frequency of protection placements.

For example, Peak District gritstone has high friction and is generally strong and compact and vegetation free, but it is known for producing routes with very sparse protection.

Which rock is best to climb on is a discussion likely to cause great debate amongst some climbers.

Collected sub articles

/Grading /Protection

HomePage | RecentChanges | Preferences
You can edit this page right now! It's a free, community project
Edit text of this page | View other revisions
Last edited August 13, 2001 8:30 am (diff)
Search: