Rock Climbing
The large craggy rocks and mountains are immovable. They stand tall through time, only changing a little with the weather and ages, and represent a challenge to mankind. Scaling the heights and climbing them has proved a thrill immeasurable, as it allows a climber to establish his dominance over the elements. Rock climbing is an established extreme sport that involves climbing, upward, downward or across, natural rock formations or artificial rock walls.
What you need to know before you try Rock Climbing
Rock Climbing is mentally and physically demanding. It tests strength, endurance, balance, skill and mental control, so be ready for it. The sport can be very dangerous without the necessary equipment, route guidance, and knowledge of proper climbing techniques. Always check your equipment twice before going for a climb. It is safer on the whole to climb as a group than alone. You should include a spotter in your group. A spotter is a guide who assists from the base by offering advice and warnings on the route.
Rock Climbing types:
Rock climbing has several types or styles of climbing:
Aid Climbing: Aid climbing involves climbing assisted with devices that aid upward progress and descent. It concentrates on the safety of the climber. As such aid climbing is the most popular form of climbing for large walls currently and is also called class 6 climbing. It has its own ranking from A0 through A5.
Free Climbing: This is the most commonly used method to ascend climbs and refers to climbs where the climbers own physical strength and skill are used with some form of device backup for protection. Free climbing involves the following climbing methods:
Bouldering:This often involves short low routes (often with boulders) and the climber does not use any protection except maybe cushioned bouldering pads at the base away from the spotter.
Solo climbing:This means climbing alone with no one to belay a climber for protection and is very dangerous especially for beginners. It has the categories deepwater soloing (unprotected and without a rope, but potential falls will be into deep water), free soloing (single person climb with no rope or protection, this is a lethal method where falls are likely to kills or cause heavy injury) and roped solo climbing (climbing with a rope secured at the beginning and the climber self belays).
Lead climbing: This involves the climber passing the safety rope through anchors below them instead of as in top rope climbing. The partner feeds the rope (belays) from below without unnecessary slack and the climber clips the rope into anchors along the way. It is also slightly more dangerous than top rope. This is because; if a climber falls the distance is greater as the rope is attached below. Lead climbing has the categories multi pitch climbing (with a fixed length of rope and the routes broken into several ‘pitches’ or segments), sport climbing (where the wall has protection in the form of bolts or permanent anchors attached) and traditional climbing (placing anchors and protection as the climber ascends, hence though the gear is used for protection it does not aid the ascent) Beginner's crag grade 5a to 5c. Experienced climbers crag grade 6a to 7b+
Bottom Rope climbing and Top Rope climbing
- Bottom rope climbing (Top roping) is where the belayer is on the ground and the rope passes as in a pulley system through an anchor at the top of the route. The climber has the other end and the belayer tightens the stretch of rope with the ascent so that if the climber falls it will not be far, a meter at most depending on the weight of the climber and the length and stretch of the rope.
- Top Rope climbing (Seconding) involves the bela
