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History of rock climbing

Bouldering, single pitch and multi-pitch / big wall

  • 30 min read
  • 15 chapters

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As a free solo exercise with no artificial aid or climbing protection, bouldering remained largely consistent since its origins. Lead climbing on single-pitch climbing routes stopped using artificial aid in the early 20th-century, led by Paul Preuss and the "free climbing" movement. Free climbing of 'big walls' started before World War I, and was advanced by Emil Solleder in the 20s, Batista Vinatzer in the 30s, and Mathias Rebitsch in the late-40s. Climbing protection was needed for single-pitch and big-wall free climbing, and it was inserted into the rock by the lead climber and then removed by the following climber; this is now called "traditional climbing". By the 1980s, French pioneers like Patrick Edlinger wanted to climb rock faces in Buoux and Verdon that had few cracks in which to insert traditional-climbing protection. Controversially, they pre-placed—by abseiling from above—using battery-powered drills, strong permanent bolts for protection (but not as artificial aid) on new free climbs; this became known as "sport climbing". This extremely safe form of lead climbing, along with a softening of free climbing ethics (e.g. bolts, projecting, chalk, hangdogging, and pinkpointing) enabled a dramatic increase in climbing standards, grades, and tools (e.g. artificial climbing walls and campus boards), the development of competition climbing (initially dominated in the 1990s by French climbers such as François Legrand), and the "professional" rock climber.

By the end of the 20th century, the hardest sport-climbs were often combinations of bouldering-moves, and some of the best challenges lay in free climbing extreme big walls; this led to greater cross-over amongst the three sub-disciplines. Leading climbers such as Wolfgang Güllich, Jerry Moffatt, Alexander Huber, Fred Nicole, Chris Sharma, Adam Ondra, and Tommy Caldwell set records in several of these disciplines. Huber and Allain Robert also made ever-bolder single-pitch free solo climbs, while Sharma pushed standards in deep-water soloing; Alex Honnold's big wall free soloing was turned into the Oscar-winning film, Free Solo. In 2016, the IOC announced that competition climbing would be a medal sport in the 2020 Summer Olympics.

Female rock climbing also began in the late 19th-century, but women were initially a tiny percetage of climbers. By the mid-1970s female climbers became much more common and they began leading some of the hardest routes; all-female teams were not unusual. By the 1980s, climbers such as Lynn Hill and Catherine Destivelle were closing the gap to the standard of routes being climbed by the leading men. By the 21st-century, Josune Bereziartu, Angela Eiter and Ashima Shiraishi, had closed the gap to the highest sport and boulder climbing grades achieved by men to within one/two notches; Beth Rodden fully closed the gap for traditional climbing grades in 2008 and Janja Garnbret became the most successful competition climber in history with 50 IFSC world cup golds.Today women make up about 30% of rock climbers.

Origins

There are early documented examples of people "rock climbing" to achieve various objectives. The Le Quart Livre records that in 1492, ordered by his king, Antoine de Ville used castle siege tactics to ascend Mont Aiguille, a 300-meter rock tower, near Grenoble, France. In 1695, Martin Martin described the traditional practice of fowling by climbing with the use of ropes in the Hebrides of Scotland, especially on St Kilda.

The first ascent of Mont Blanc in 1786, started mountaineering's "modern era"; however it would take another century until the fixed anchors of rock climbing appeared, including pitons, bolts, and rappel slings. By the early 19th-century, "alpine rock climbing" was developing as a pastime; the tools of the alpine shepherd guides (early mountain guides), the alpenstock and woodcutter's axe (later combined as the ice axe).

Although the action of rock climbing had become a component of 19th-century victorian era Alpine mountaineering, a sport of rock climbing (i.e. climbing short rock routes as a recreational activity without any summit objective), originated in the last quarter of the 19th century, and in four European locations: the Saxon Switzerland climbing region in Germany, the Lake District and Peak District in England, the Dolomites in Italy, and in the forest of Fontainebleau in France.

  • The solo first ascent of Napes Needle in the Lake District, England, by Walter Parry Haskett Smith in June 1886 is widely considered to be the start of the sport of rock climbing in the UK. In 1897, O. G. Jones climbed Kern Knotts Crack at grade VS. By the early 20th-century, groups of 60 would gather at the Wastwater Hotel in the Lake District during vacations.
  • The birth of climbing in Saxon Switzerland for nothing but sporting motivation is credited to gymnasts from nearby Bad Schandau who used ladders and other aid equipment to ascend the Falkenstein in 1864. Ten years later in 1874, O. E. Ufer and H. Frick free climbed the rock pinnacle "Mönch" with a similar motivation, consciously avoiding the use of aid equipment. Inspired by late 19th-century pioneers such as Oscar Schuster on Falkenstein, by 1903 there were 500 climbers in the Saxon Switzerland climbing region, including the well-known team of Rudolf Fehrmann and American Oliver Perry-Smith; their 1906 ascent of Teufelsturm at grade VIIb, set new standards of difficulty. By the 1930s, there were 200 climbing clubs in the area.
  • The 1887 solo first ascent of the Vajolet Towers by the 17-year-old Munich high school student Georg Winkler, encouraged the acceptance and development of the sport in the Dolomites, and in particular opened up the era of big wall climbing on the huge rock faces of the Dolomites, which spread over the wider Alps including the important centre of Chamonix in France.
  • By 1897, members of the French Club alpin français began to gather amongst the boulders of Fontainebleau to practice their rock climbing skills that they would use in the Alpine season; the boulders were shorter than the large walls being attempted in the Lake District, Saxon Switzerland or the Dolomites, but this led to the development of more advanced bouldering skills.

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