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
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“The proposition that Muslims are welcome in Britain if, and only if, they stop behaving like Muslims is a doctrine which is incompatible with the principles that guide a free society.”
—Roy Hattersley (b. 1932)
“There is, however, this consolation to the most way-worn traveler, upon the dustiest road, that the path his feet describe is so perfectly symbolical of human life,—now climbing the hills, now descending into the vales. From the summits he beholds the heavens and the horizon, from the vales he looks up to the heights again. He is treading his old lessons still, and though he may be very weary and travel-worn, it is yet sincere experience.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)