Free climbing is a type of rock climbing in which the climber uses only hands, feet and other parts of the body to ascend, employing ropes and forms of climbing protection to prevent falls only.
In contrast, free soloing uses no aids of any kind for protection or ascent while aid climbing employs ropes, protection, and direct aids to pull or stand upon such as jumars to make upward progress on extremely sheer vertical surfaces.
Used as an umbrella term, "free climbing" spans four subsets of climbing styles: traditional, sport, free soloing and bouldering.
Read more about Free Climbing: Methods and Techniques, Style, Common Misunderstandings of The Term
Famous quotes containing the words free and/or climbing:
“The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during election of members of parliament; as soon as the members are elected, the people is enslaved; it is nothing. In the brief moment of its freedom, the English people makes such a use of that freedom that it deserves to lose it.”
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)
“We seldom break a leg as long as we are climbing wearily upwards in our lives, instead we do it when we start going easy on ourselves and choosing the comfortable paths.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)