Learn How to Rock Climb: Complete Guide To Getting on the Wall • Nomads With A Purpose

Warning: exif_imagetype(https://www.nomadswithapurpose.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_4690.jpg): failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found in /home/customer/www/nomadswithapurpose.com/public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 3268

Warning: file_get_contents(https://www.nomadswithapurpose.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_4690.jpg): failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found in /home/customer/www/nomadswithapurpose.com/public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 3291

How to Rock Climb: Learn How to Start Getting on the Wall

What was once considered a dangerous sport reserved only for elite athletes is quickly becoming a broadly known activity to do your spare time, even if if you’re not an elite athlete.

Rock climbing is not hard to get started with due to it’s increasing “trendiness.” Basic climbing knowledge is easy to find (you’ve found it haven’t you) and if you live anywhere near a large city, you can get started in the safe, easy environment of a climbing gym. If not, you can get started outdoors with the help of a local rock climbing guide.

Before we get into the gear, beta, and basics, lets cover the most important aspect. Why do you even want to climb?

Why We Climb

Climbing is extremely “in” right now and it’s awesome that the sport is so accessible to so many people, but there’s more to it than just ascending a rock face.

Rock climbing can involve risk assessment, mental challenges, and problem solving plus it can result in improved confidence, awareness, and overall happiness.

While it’s great if you’re getting into climbing because it’s the trendy thing to do nowadays, if you enter the climbing universe with the intention to experience the tricky mind games, the challenges, and risks, you will gain so much more from this sport than just improved fitness.

Climbing to me represents more of a mental climb than physical because in putting yourself in challenging situations, you learn new things and you grow.

Besides the mental gains you’ll experience, climbing is a great way to improve physical fitness, upper body strength, and body awareness.

Even if you’re only climbing 5.7s or V0, climbing makes you stoked. It’ a rush of adrenaline and endorphins which inevitably makes you feel awesome afterwards.

Types of Climbing

Bouldering

Bouldering is rock climbing–well, boulder sized rocks. When you are bouldering you are only climbing a 20 foot wall and there is no rope, harness, or belayer involved. It’s just you, a pair of shoes, and the route.

When you are bouldering, you fall and land or jump down onto padded flooring (when in a climbing gym) or onto a crash pad (when climbing outside).

Because of this, bouldering is definitely less scary for those afraid of heights but it can be much more dangerous for beginners. Make sure you practice falling with bent legs, rolling onto your back, and never fall back onto your arms.

Top Roping

When a climbing wall becomes too dangerous to take a fall from, then its time to bring on the ropes. Though you climb higher on ropes, you are actually much safer because you literally can’t fall when you’re on “top rope.”

Learn to climb: How to Start Rock Climbing — Isabelle on a top rope on the coast of Spain

Top rope means that the rope is already set up to go through an anchor system at the top of a route to create a pulley system between the climber and the belayer.

Climbing At Smith Rock, Things to do in Bend in summer — A top rope pulley is currently set up so Victor (on the rock) can climb without having to worry about falling

For those afraid of heights, top roping may seem much scarier than bouldering but just remember that you literally can’t fall more than 1 foot or so on top rope. When you slip off the holds on top rope, you simply sit into your harness and hang with your feet against the wall.

Lead Climbing

Lead climbing is often considered the purest form of climbing because while you do have protection if you fall, it’s is completely, 100% up to your own abilities to ascend the rock, there is no rope to pull or assist you.

The big difference between top roping and leading is that you can actually fall, however, you are protected so you can only fall a certain distance. Because of this, risk assessment and mental blocks are highly involved which is what makes it the gold standard of climbing, free solo-ing aside (where you ascend a climb with no form of protection whatsoever).

Instead of the rope running from the belayer through anchors before reaching the climber in a pulley system, when leading, the rope goes directly from the belayer to the lead climber. As the lead climber ascends the route, they attach the rope to an anchor on the wall (the type of anchor depends on if it’s a sport or Trad route). Usually, bolts or anchors are placed every 8-10 feet.

Top Rope Versus Sport Climbing - Move Your Climbing Outdoors

Source: Fix.com Blog

For a brief moment when the lead climber reaches their bolt or gear placement, they are safe and can’t fall because the rope is then in a pulley system. As soon as the lead climber climbs past this anchor they CAN fall. The lead climber can fall double the distance they are from their last anchor plus top stretch.

For example, if a climber is 5 feet past their 3rd bolt (about 30 feet off the ground) and they fall. There is 5 feet of slack out in the rope so they can fall 10 feet plus rope stretch (closer to 15 feet).

Lead climbing can definitely be dangerous in some scenarios especially when bolts/placements are farther apart, however, lead climbing in general is not necessarily dangerous. Learning to lead in a gym can be a very safe environment and leading is essential if you want to ever transition to outdoor climbing on your own.

Sport vs Trad

Within the realm of Lead climbing, there are two different types of climbing and they refer to the types of anchors that are protecting you when you fall on lead: sport and trad (traditional). These are not essential to know when you’re climbing in the gym, in fact trad climbing only applies outdoors, but you’ll definitely hear the terms thrown around a lot even in the gym.

Sport climbing means there are pre-placed bolts or pitons drilled or placed into the rock or wall. When climbers reach their bolt, the clip one end of a quick draw (pictured below) into the bolt, then their rope into the other end of the “draw,” as it’s often called.

People can usually climb a higher grade in sport climbing than trad climbing because of the ease and speed of clipping in their protection. Trad climbing, as I’ll explain in a second takes a lot longer to clip your protection which requires more endurance.

All gym lead climbing falls under the category of sport climbing. Pre placed bolts are also used outdoors when it’s not possible to use natural protection of trad gear.

Trad climbing is much harder in many ways. In order to clip your rope into the wall, you must first carefully place your protection into the wall. This placement not only makes clipping your bolt take a lot longer, but it’s also involves a whole other realm of climbing knowledge like types of gear (camming devices and nut sets), what piece of gear will protect you best, where you should place your gear, etc etc.

What do the Numbers Mean?

Different countries use different grading systems. It can often be confusing to convert grades so to keep it simple I’m only going to talk about the USA grades. Grades are different for roped climbing and bouldering. Trad and sport climbing uses the Yosemite Decimal System and bouldering uses the Hueco Tanks system

Yosemite Decimal System

The Yosemite decimal system is used by the US and Canada. The grades start at 5.4 (being the easiest) and 5.15d being the hardest. Anything easier than a 5.4 is considered Class 1, 2, 3, and 4 scrambling. Once a grade becomes a 5.10, the letters A, B, C, and D are added, 5.10a being the easiest. After 5.10d comes 5.11a and so on. Beginner climber with a moderate fitness level will probably be able to climb routes as hard as 5.8.

Bouldering (Hueco Tanks System)

When it comes to bouldering, almost all the world uses the same grading system except for one area of France and one area in the Peak District of England.

Bouldering starts at V0 being the easiest and V16 being the hardest. Because bouldering is done on a much shorter wall, the difficulty of routes in general are much harder. A V0 is technically the equivalent of a 5.10a, a V1 a 5.10b, and so on.

If you’re bouldering in a gym there are usually some VB routes that are easier than V0. These are most suitable for beginner climbers.

Check out this beginners guide to bouldering for more info on what bouldering is and how to get started

While you can learn to climb with a guided outdoor trip, the very basics of rock climbing are best learned in a climbing gym.

Basic Climbing Gear

Climbing gear in general is very expensive but to get started, you don’t need a full Trad rack or a rope or 100 slings. All you need is 4 (well really only 1) things to get started in the climbing gym…

1. Climbing Shoes

Climbing shoes are the very least you need to get started. As I’ll explain later in this blog, there are two main types of climbing: Ropes and Bouldering. To boulder, which involves no ropes, all you need is a pair of climbing shoes.

Climbing shoes in general are tight and uncomfortable and takes some getting used. More “Aggressive” shoes will be more uncomfortable so when you’re just starting out, you’re going to want to look for the least aggressive, most flat footed shoe there is.

Click here to see our complete guide to the best beginner climbing shoes.

Before purchasing a climbing shoe, you really need to try them on because every brand’s sizing runs different and you usually wear climbing shoes 2-4 sizes smaller than a regular shoe.

If you’re not sure if you’re going to like climbing and are just trying it out, pretty much every climbing gyms offer shoe rentals.

2. Harness

To get up on ropes on taller climbing walls you will need a harness. Harnesses can be rented at most any climbing gym just like climbing shoes in case you’re just trying out the sport.

You don’t really need to try on a harness before purchasing. Shop harnesses now on REI, Backcountry, or Amazon.

3. Belay Device (ATC or Gri Gri)

A belay device is used to keep the climber from falling when climbing ropes. Belaying will be explained more later in this blog but gear-wise, and belay device is one of the absolute essentials for getting started with rock climbing, at least if you want to climb top ropes.

There are multiple different types of belay devices but the most common are an ATC or Gri-gri. ATCs are much cheaper but gri-gri’s have an “auto-blocking” feature which can be good for beginners because they basically self lock. In the rare case that belayer lets go of the brake strand (explained later), the gri-gri will brake on it’s own (Auto-blocking).

4. Chalk & Chalk Bag

Chalk is not absolutely necessary to get started, especially if you’re a beginner but it could be nice and I’d definitely consider it an essential. Plus, chalk bags are like an expression of who you are, ya know. It’s like the stickers on your water bottle. Below are some chalk bag designs from our favorite brands (8b+, Organic Chalk Bags, Evolv, or Prana). Don’t forget to buy some chalk to go with it too.

Roping Up

Belaying + Tying In

Belaying is used in any roped climbing. In top roping, you can learn how to safely tie into the rope and belay a climber in only 10-15 minutes, it’s that easy.

The basic principle of belaying on top rope is a pulley system as mentioned before. The rope runs from the climber where the rope will be tied into their harness, up the wall through an anchor system and back to the belayer. The belayer puts their end of the rope through a belay device. As the climber climbs up, the belayer keeps their end of the rope tight by pulling down on the rope, feeding it through their belay device, and taking up the slack.

How a Belay Device Works - Move Your Climbing Outdoors

Source: Fix.com Blog

The most important thing to remember is to never let go of the brake strand which you’ll learn in any belay lesson. Auto-blocking means, to some, extent, that you could let go and it would brake on it’s own, but I don’t recommend testing the theory.

To tie in, no matter what form of roped climbing, you will always tie in the end of your rope into your harness using a figure eight knot followed by a “Yosemite follow through” or Fisherman’s knot.

At most climbing gyms you will be required to take a belay test before you will be allowed to top rope in the gym. Most climbing gyms have cheap belay lessons you can take or you can watch our YouTube video below to learn how to tie in and belay.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI8TzaJp05A[/embedyt]

Lead belaying and climbing requires much more climbing experience. A lead belayer is in a much higher risk scenario and it’s much easier to make mistakes when lead belaying. See more about this in How to Start Climbing Outdoors (coming soon).

Lowering Off the Route

When top roping, no matter how high you go, you will have to lower off your route by letting go of the wall and sitting in your harness. Your belayer will then slowly lower you down.

Many beginner climbers are nervous to fully sit into their harness. The best advice is to trust your harness. The closer you are to being in a seated position with shoulders leaned back and feet in front of you on the wall, the easier lowering will be. Because this can be so nerve racking for beginners, especially those afraid of heights, I highly recommend getting comfortable hanging/sitting in your harness and practice lowering down when you are only a few feet off the ground.

Go Climb!

Now that you have a good understanding of how to start to rock climbing, you can hit the your local climbing gym with confidence to get on the wall.

Mesa Rim Indoor Rock Climbing - Intro to Rock Climbing: 3 Ways to Find Out If Rock Climbing Is Right For You — Climbing gyms make it super easy to get started with rock climbing

You don’t necessarily have to start climbing in a gym though. If you want to climb outdoors hire a climbing guide and they’ll make sure you have an awesome time at the crag while teaching you the basics of climbing.

Once you get comfortable with basic rock climbing, you can transition to outdoor climbing. You don’t have to be climbing 5.11 to become an outdoor climber. In fact, the first year we climbed outdoors, we could only climb 5.9. There are some very important things you need to know though. Click here to find out how to start climbing outdoors.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpYKltkJGqA[/embedyt]

Recommended: How to Rock Climb (Falcon Guides) by John Long

While the blog does cover themes important essential aspects of learning to rock climb, I still recommend this How To Climb guidebook. We used this book when we started and it’s especially good if you want to learn more about climbing technique, lead climbing, and outdoor climbing.

Disclosure: We are not guides and this blog is not a course to tell you how to belay or lead climb. This is just an overview of climbing for informational purposes which means, Climb At Your Own Risk.