The craze of extreme sports in the 1990’s brought new popularity to climbing. It has also featured in many popular films, although Hollywood does not always give an picture of what climbing really involves. There are many different types of climbing, the most difficult and dangerous one being alpine climbing where climbers days or weeks at a time up mountains, often in freezing conditions. This sort of climbing requires very specific equipment and is usually only done by professional climbers with plenty of experience.
However, climbing doesn’t have to involve snow and ice and dangerous conditions; it can be a very hobby and something you can do for just a few hours on a Saturday afternoon. At the other end of the climbing spectrum from alpine climbing is sport climbing. This can be done indoors or outdoors on climbing walls. These walls vary from those which are completely and which have been designed and built especially to imitate occurring rock formations which have been prepared for climbing with equipment bolted in place.
For beginners, the easiest type of climbing is top-roping where the rope is already in All you need are climbing shoes, a harness and an experienced climber or to work the belay device and control the ropes. All basic equipment can be from most sports centres.