Top Rope, Sport Lead, Trad Lead, Bouldering, Free Soloing... What's that All About?

Top RopeThere are a variety of different terms used in climbing to differentiate the styles of climbing.

Top Rope

Climbing on top rope means that there is a rope attached to the climber that goes to a fixed anchor / pulley system at the top of the climb, and then back down to the base of the climb to the belayer, or alternatively to the belayer who may be at the top of the climb.

The thing that defines top rope is that the rope from the climber is always going up to an anchor system, so that if the climber comes off the wall, provided the belayer is maintaining good tension in the rope, the climber will not really "fall", but rather swing out from the wall, and end up swinging back to roughly the same place they came off the wall. There will likely be some stretch in the rope so that the climber will descend somewhat, but the down-distance is minimal.

Lead Climbing

In lead climbing, the rope attached to the climber does not go through a top anchor / pulley system, but rather is clipped in to either bolts in the case of "Sport Lead", or protection placed by the climber into the rock face in the case of "Trad Lead".

Sport Lead

Sport lead climbing is done either at indoor gyms that are appropriately equipped, or outdoors on cliff faces that have been bolted.

At indoor gyms, sport lead climbs have been equipped with what are often referred to as "quick-draws" or "clips" permanently affixed to the climbing surface. Sport Lead One end of the draw — a short span of nylon webbing — is attached to the bolt in the wall, and the other end has a carabiner into which the lead climber clips the rope tied into his/her harness.

Outdoors, routes for sport lead climbing are already bolted using usually expansion bolts and an epoxy glue, with a flange on the surface-end of the bolt into which the lead climber clips his/her own quick-draws. The quick-draws in this case have carabiners on both ends of a short span of nylon webbing, and are not left on the rock face after the climbing session. Once the draw is clipped into the flange, the climber clips the rope into the carabiner at the other end of the draw.

In both cases the other end of that rope goes through a belay device attached to the climber's belayer. Just as in top rope, the job of the belayer is to manage the rope so that the climber is safe in the case of a fall. However, for lead climbing, the process is somewhat more complex, depending upon where the climber is in relation to where they last clipped into a quick-draw. I won't go into all the nuances here, as I strongly recommend anyone interested in sport lead climbing to take a course! However, if you don't know already, and just so you're aware what happens in the gyms for your own safety, there are two cases, both of which you should be aware:

1. Climber is below last clip. If the climber is below their last clip when they fall, then the fall is really no different than if they were on top rope. In these cases, the belayer will probably not give them much of a dynamic belay (see below), although some may, depending on what the climber prefers.
2. Climber is above last clip. In this case the climber is going to fall the distance they are above the last clip, plus that distance again, as that is how much rope is out, plus the distance of the dynamic belay that the belayer provides.

   A dynamic belay is where the belayer uses a technique to gradually slow the descent of the climber's fall close to the end of the fall. Some belayers do a well-timed jump at that point, acting as a counter-weight, and lifting themselves off the ground. Others will leverage control of the belay device to slow the descent. Others still will use a combination. In any case, it's likely that there will be some sudden movements in the area of the belayer, and best to stay clear!

Regardless of where the climber is in relation to the last clip, it's always a good idea to give lead belayers a wide berth in the gyms, and be aware at all times!

Trad Lead

Trad (short for "traditional") lead climbing is done outdoors. It shares many characteristics with sport lead climbing, save for one notable difference in that there are no fixed bolts in trad climbing. Instead, the climber is equipped with an array of various pieces of gear, collectively referred to as a "rack", which the climber installs in feature on the rock face (cracks, crevasses, etc.) to act as protection in the case of a fall.

I won't go into trad lead any more here. If you are interested in trad climbing, I recommend

1. Become proficient in climbing technique.
2. Take a sport lead course.
3. Climb sport lead for a while and climb out doors.
4. Take a trad lead course. There is much more to consider when trad leading compared to sport leading.
5. Climb with an experience trad leader for a while before setting out on your own.

Knowing what you are doing in trad lead is critical for both your safety and that of your fellow climbers.

Bouldering

Bouldering is climbing without any ropes to a limited height, so that any fall will not result in injury. Bouldering both indoors and outdoors leverages the use of a thick pad referred to as a crash-pad, along with other boulderers to act a spotters for the boulderer who is climbing.

Bouldering emphasies power, strength, and dynamics, focusing on individual moves or short sequences of moves, as opposed to top rope or lead climbing, which generally demand more endurance over longer stretches of rock where the difficulty of individual moves is often not as great.

Free Soloing

Free soloing is climbing without any ropes to any height over that of bouldering, such that a fall will result in injury or death. An extremely risky and dangerous pursuit, I will not delve any further into it here, other than to comment that practically all noted free-soloists are generally referred to in the past-tense.