Rock Climbing History From a Mountaineering Activity to a Full Fledged Sport

The earliest recorded rock climbing history can be traced back to the end of the nineteenth century. The state of Colorado has the distinct honor of being the home of the earliest American rock climbers. However, its popularity really only peaked towards the beginning of the twentieth century. When it first began, rock climbing was more of a sport that formed part of mountaineering with most mountaineers indulging them in rock climbing as a prelude to their climbing expedition.European Origins

In Germany as well as in Great Britain, the earliest climbers found rock climbing to be something to become very passionate about, and they raised the bar as far as standards of rock climbing were concerned. Rock climbing history further reveals that around the 1920s, rock climbing began to find takers in the United States. In addition, there are two forms of traditional rock climbing that climbers perform, which are aid and free climbing. Aid climbing means the rock climber uses climbing equipment, while climbers who depend on their own skills, abilities, as well as physical strength are said to be indulging in free climbing.

Rock climbing history shows free climbing to be the only method used during the early days of rock climbing, and it was only when some of the early explorers required to advance to higher points that the need for climbing equipment became necessary thus introducing to the world the concept of aid climbing. Further developments have since been made and incorporated in rock climbing history such as the mid-sixties period when American climbers realized that using pitons as a tool in aid climbing caused damage to the rocks that they were climbing.

An offshoot of this realization brought about the invention of slinging machine nuts that could act as a substitute for these pitons. And, according to rock climbing history, it was France in the middle eighties that brought about the combination of free as well as aid climbing, which resulted in much lesser levels of difficulty in rock climbing, and thus it helped rock climbers to improve their style of climbing.

American Input

It is also another fact of rock climbing history that during the sixties and seventies, it was the United States that led the way in rock climbing and there were many dedicated American rock climbers that helped in significantly improving rock climbing techniques. And, only recently has rock climbing won recognition as being a sport, which unlike the traditional rock climbing, makes use of very advanced rock climbing equipment. In fact, the interest in this sport has considerably increased, though during the eighties, the trend most often followed by rock climbers was to use short, but difficult climbs.

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