All Types of Rock Climbing Explained

Climbing is a sport that has changed over time. Rock climbing in the 70s and 80s is not what it is today. There has been an evolution in climbing and back when climbing first started it was quite different from what is most common these days.

There are also many different materials and places that you can climb that are considered different types of climbing. things like ice climbing, alpine climbing, and mountaineering. we will not cover all of these here but we will cover them in another post. 

Chart of the Different Types of Rock Climbing

Free Climbing

Free climbing describes a method of climbing and is not a single type of climbing itself.

Free Climbing is where a climber hangs directly from the rock and only uses features of the rock to hold onto to ascend. All of the equipment used in free climbing is merely for protection from falls.  

Free climbing is the basis for most modern rock climbing. It is also the most physically demanding and requires a lot of skill and effort.

Types of Free climbing include but are not limited to.

• Top rope climbing
• Sport climbing or Lead climbing
• Trad climbing
• Bouldering
• Free Solo
• Deep Water Solo

Top Rope Climbing

Top rope climbing is one of the most common types of climbing. It is considered one of the more safe types of rock climbing. It can be done either indoors in a Gym, some gyms are set up for this as the main type of climbing, or outdoors where you can set ropes from the top of a climb.

The main benefit of top-rope climbing is the much smaller distance that you can fall when climbing. This is because the climber is always below the point that the rope is fixed to the wall. 

Top rope climbing is also much simpler in the setup and required equipment. you also don’t need to worry about carrying equipment or knowing how to connect it or anchor yourself at the top of a climb. For these reasons, top-rope climbing is great for beginners as they don’t need to worry about anything other than climbing.

Sports Climbing

Sports climbing is the most popular type of outdoor climbing. Sports climbing is where you fix protection to pre-placed bolts on the wall in the form of quickdraws that hold the rope as you ascend.

This type of climbing is also known as lead climbing. When trad climbing you are also lead climbing you are just using different equipment.

The main purpose of sports climbing is to increase strength, and technique and enjoy climbing in a somewhat controlled environment. As close as you can get to a controlled environment when climbing outdoors anyway.

Multi-pitch Sport Climbing

This is the same as normal sports climbing where you are using pre-placed bolts and anchors but it allows climbers to climb much bigger walls. 

Climbers do this by breaking the wall into sections, pitches, that are climbed one at a time. This is done as there are limits to how much safety gear you can carry and how long a rope can be for climbing a wall. most multi-pitch sports climbs are up to around 4 pitches and beyond that, it is considered Big Wall climbing, which you can read about further down in this article.

Bouldering

This is the second most popular style of Rock Climbing in the world and is actually the most popular in some places like France. Bouldering is something that is done a lot in gyms but is also very popular outdoors.

Bouldering is all about short but very technical and usually, highly difficult routes called 
“problems”. This differs from other climbing where they are referred to as routes. 

Bouldering is great because of its simplicity, all you really need is some climbing shoes and some chalk and you are good to go. If you are going outdoors all you need to add is a bouldering mat and you are ready. This is one of the reasons that it is now so popular. 

You can boulder outdoors on your own but it is much safer to go with friends. When bouldering outdoors you will usually have a “spotter”. This is someone that will stand behind the climber and in the case that they fall, guide them onto the climbing mat. 

Free Solo Climbing

Free Soloing is where the climber will climb large climbs, sometimes 100’s of meters high with no protection at all. Nothing but their hands to hold onto the wall.

This type of climbing was made famous by the movie Free Solo. This is by far the most dangerous type of climbing that anyone can undertake.

The famous quote from Free Solo speaks mountains of truth about this epic style of climbing that most people don’t have the stomach for, and for good reason.

“People who know a little bit about climbing are like, oh he is totally safe…

Then people who really know exactly what he is doing, are FREAKED OUT”

we do not recommend anyone try this kind of climbing. Even if you are a very advanced climber this is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS.

Deep Water Solo

This sounds similar to Free Soloing but it is very different for one main reason.

First the similarities, you climb up a higher rock wall without a rope, as high as you are comfortable going.

But in contrast to free solo where a fall would be very bad. When deep water soloing, you are climbing over, well you guessed it, deep water. So in the case of a fall, you simply fall in the water and avoid any injury.

Trad Climbing

Trad Climbing or traditional climbing is a form of free climbing where the climbers attach their protection to the wall via removable anchors. There are a number of different types of anchors you can use for this like.

• Cams
• Nuts
• Big Bros
• Hexes
• Tricams
• Alpine Slings

Collectively this gear is called a trad climber’s “rack” and it is a symbol of great pride and status for a lot of climbers.

The beauty of trad climbing is that you are able to climb anywhere. Sport climbing is limited by the availability of pre-placed bolts for attaching your protection to the rock.

this means that trad climbers can effectively climb anything as long as there are places to put their equipment on the wall.

Trad climbing is also one of the least invasive types of climbing as all of the equipment is removed afterward and there is minimal damage to the rock.

Multi-pitch Trad Climbing

Also just like sports climbing, you can do multi-pitch trad climbing. Where you would ascend a certain distance before rigging an anchor cleaning all the equipment off the wall below you and your partner then starting a new section of the wall. 

Once this goes beyond 3-4 pitches you would consider it to be a big wall climb that you can read about next. 

Big Wall Climbing

This is rock climbing for the big boys. Big Wall climbing is where you are climbing massive rock walls 100’s or meters high sometimes with more than 30 pitches to get to the top.

A climb is usually considered a “big wall climb” when you need to spend more than 1 day climbing the wall. Climbers would usually climb the wall over several days and they would need to sleep on a “portaledge” and bring all their food with them.

A perfect example of big climbing is the movie “The Dawn Wall” where Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson, spent 19 days on the face of El Capitan in Yosemite National park.

Aid Climbing

Aid climbing is one of the first types of rock climbing. Aid climbing is where climbers then use climbing gear, like ladders (aiders), to climb up the rock. These are attached to the wall, pitons, cams, nuts, or pre-placed bolts. When aid climbing you climb on your gear not using the rock to primarily support your weight.

This type of climbing is still used by some climbers, and there are still many climbs around the world that are simply too hard to free climb so aid climbing is really the only option.

In the world of modern rock climbing, this is seen as an older and not very authentic style of climbing as you are not actually climbing on the rock and there is much less strength and skill involved.