History of Rock Climbing in One Blog Post

I don't know why I didn't think to research the history of rock climbing for one of my first blog posts, but better late than never. I was wondering why and how indoor rock climbing became so popular, so I decided look how outdoor and indoor rock climbing evolved over the years.

Nuts
en.wikipedia.org

Pitons
commons.wikimedia.org

The history of rock climbing starts in Great Britain around the 1920s when people began developing new ways to climb instead of just using their own body. It began with just carrying small rocks to cram into cracks to use as holds. Then, the European invention, pitons, were allowed people to climb routes that were impossible to climb without equipment. While pitons were still used to jam into cracks of rock walls, climbing nuts began to become more popular because of the many different sizes and shapes allowed climbing to secure these nuts into all kinds of cracks. Nuts were used more than pitons because they didn't damage the rock walls when they were removed from the rocks. With the discoveries of pitons and nuts, rock climbing itself grew to be more popular especially since people of all ages were able to participate in the sport.

en.wikipedia.org

en.wikepedia.org

So, why would people need to have indoor rock climbing gyms when there are endless places around the world where you could climb? The problem with climbing outdoors was weather. Climbing was a summer sport because it was too dangerous to climb during the winter when the walls are covered in slippery ice and snow. There were many weather-related accidents in outdoor climbing; temperature can cause hypothermia or heat exhaustion, and rain and thunderstorms can cause a climber to loose his/her grip and can lead to fatal falls. Don Robinson's main purpose of creating the first indoor rock wall in 1964 was to allow climbers to stay in shape during their off-seasons so that they were prepared for the summer months. These indoor gyms allowed climbers to climb more difficult outdoor routes and decreased the number of accidents that were caused by being out of practice, and it also contributed to the growth in the popularity of the sport.

I think it's great that these indoor climbing gyms were built because it allows more people to try the sport, especially if you're like me and don't want to have to travel to the popular outdoor climbing spots which are more dangerous. Maybe someday I'll try outdoor rock climbing after I'm comfortable with climbing indoors. Since there is a 3-day weekend coming up, I'm reserving that Sunday to finally go to Stone Summit to go rock climbing. For next week, I'm going to look at the required mental and physical strengths you need to rock climb.