History of Rock Climbing - Some Historical Benchmarks

Some Historical Benchmarks

• 400 BC: Chinese watercolors that depict men climbing rocks.

• 14th century AD: The Anasazis in the southwest United States drilled holes for posts and carved steps up the steep rock cliffs in Chaco Canyon. There are cliff dwellings scattered throughout the southwest. Given the difficult approaches to some of these cliff dwellings it seems reasonable to assume that the natives had the skills necessary to ascend what would now be considered technical climbing terrain.

• 1492 : Antoine de Ville ascends Mont Inaccessible, Mont Aiguille, a 300 meter rock tower south of Grenoble, France. Under orders from his king, he used the techniques developed for sieging castles to attain an otherwise unreachable summit. The ascent is described by François Rabelais in his Quart Livre.

• 1695 : Martin Martin describes the traditional practice of fowling by climbing with the use of ropes in the Hebrides of Scotland, especially on St Kilda.

• 1786 : The first ascent of Mont Blanc is often referred to as the start of mountaineering’s “modern era”. It took another century before history documents the use of devices similar to today’s fixed anchors: pitons, bolts and rappel slings.