Climbing certainly can be dangerous, especially if not approached with a focus on safety. Even then, there are aspects of climbing which we cannot entirely control, and no climbing situation can be said to be 100% safe. Our goal is to make climbing as safe as possible and to minimize risk using a particular learned system of communication, inspection, judgment, technique, and equipment. In any case, the most dangerous situation in climbing is when a beginner attempts climbing on their own without proper skill, knowledge, and experience. It is part of the guide's job to provide as safe an environment as possible for beginners to start to learn the safety system and develop skills and judgment for themselves.

Beginning climbing offers challenge in a relatively well-controlled setting, especially considering some of what we think of as other "thrill" sports. In mountain biking, you may frequently hit loose rock and wipe out or go over the handlebars. In river kayaking, you may roll, putting your head into the drink with an onrush of unseen hazards. In climbing, on the other hand, a beginner's fall on top rope is not only common and expected but encouraged, and it is of no more consequence than giving the rush of a very brief fall caught immediately by the rope.

As a beginning climber progresses, safety procedures become attentive habit and climbing becomes both safer and more fun. That allows those climbers who wish to do so to really push their limits and take climbing as far as they like. But the opportunities and variety of challenges in climbing are endless, and advanced climbers often take their skill and confidence to new levels by exploring aspects of the sport that offer more commitment, more challenge, and more risk. At all levels though, the goal remains to minimize risk within the chosen context.

Lead climbing involves the possibility of longer protected falls, fostering greater skill and control. Mountaineering involves increased objective hazards (unpredictables such as falling rock, avalanche, snow and ice, weather). Mountaineering, alpine, and big wall aid climbing all involve greater commitment (routes longer than a day, more complex logistics, difficulty of escape from the route). These types of climbing require further specialized skills, and one often learns them only after having many years of more basic climbing experience.

Most people have a fear of being up high and of falling unprotected. This is a healthy fear even for climbers. In climbing, the goal is to provide a system of protection that enables the climber to fall safely, being caught by the rope, and thus eventually begin to climb without fear. A large part of climbing is about confronting the fear of falling in as safe an environment as possible, coming to terms with it, and overcoming it in situations where the climber is properly protected.

As a guide, I've found that some beginners take more naturally to climbing than others. Some have more natural physical skill, some are more naturally less fearful, and some have greater natural trust in a guide and the safety equipment and procedures. Everyone who comes to climbing has some fear, but those who look past the initial fears to the possibility of great rewards that climbing has to offer, overcome the very deep fear of falling when they are in situations where they are confident that they are well protected and in control.

In fact, many experienced climbers grow to consider climbing more as a relaxing pastime than an adrenaline-filled extreme sport. It can be either, depending on the kinds of situations climbers choose to put themselves in. Just take a look above at my view down from a belay about 1800 feet up on the face of Half Dome in Yosemite. There's nowhere else I would rather have been at the time, and I can't wait to return again! Every step of the way, the climber remains securely fastened to the rock using rope and specialized gear, even though for the most part they do not use that gear but only their own hands, feet, and confidence to ascend.

Well, beginners begin climbing using the safest, most controlled, and least-scary kind of roped climbing called top roping, either in the gym or outdoors. Climbing on top rope looks like this:

The rope runs from the belayer on the ground, up through an anchor above the climb, down to the climber's harness. As the climber ascends, the belayer takes up slack in the rope through a friction device on their harness. This allows the belayer to catch the climber's falls immediately. A beginning climber is expected to fall frequently as a natural result of climbing due to fatigue, fear, lack of balance, etc. The top rope system aids in protecting a climber from falls, resulting in little more than a tug on the harness. Thus the beginning climber can focus on building strength and balance, overcoming the irrational fear of falling while protected, and having fun overcoming these obstacles and improving as a climber.

Indeed, many recreational climbers find climbing on top rope enough fun that they never feel the need to do any other sort of climbing. Beginning climbers on top rope benefit from guided instruction by having an experienced climber choose routes appropriate for their ability level, set up safe top rope anchors for them, lend them confidence and encouragement, and begin to teach them techniques for overcoming fear and improving efficiency through technique.

Many climbers who master top roping desire to move on to greater challenges in lead climbing. In leading a climb, a climber carries gear up the route, using it to anchor their rope at intervals as they ascend. Both the belayer and the climber must master an even higher level of technical skill in order to participate in a lead climb. In leading, the fear and the challenge is greater, because the leader falls farther before being caught by their protection. In sport leading, the rope is secured to pre-placed bolts in the rock. In traditional leading, gear is placed by the climber in cracks in the rock. In all types of leading, specialized knowledge and practiced skills must be learned to minimize the greater amount of risk, the goal being that the worst that happens is the leader falls ten feet or so before being caught and gets a little adrenaline pumping.

Many beginners discover that climbing easily becomes a lifelong passion--even an important part of their lifestyle. Climbing not only provides an excellent way to stay in very good physical shape, but it also challenges one to overcome deep fears and build remarkable confidence and self-sufficiency. While some types of climbing such as bouldering--climbing difficult sequences just a few feet off the ground--may require no more of an investment in gear than climbing shoes, many discover in climbing an opportunity to master a craft using a wide array of technical equipment and gain satisfaction from using specialized tools skillfully.

Climbing outdoors motivates a person to discover amazing natural settings and travel to new and beautiful destinations. The opportunities for climbing are endless. Climbing destinations all over the world offer unique surroundings, and different characters of rock. Each route, typically described in an area's guidebook, constitutes a unique and surprising new playing field. The aesthetic aspects of climbing are for many spiritually rejuvenating. For those who become hooked on climbing, it becomes an art, an activity that allows them to develop deep, meditative focus and escape life's mundane anxieties. Imagine being able to simply choose to go have a new adventure climbing on any given weekend! Most of the climbers I know have an excitement and a hunger for climbing that is in its own way an affirmation of life lived fully.

Apart from all this, of course, there are the qualities that you may have always heard, or might imagine, climbing can foster in a person. Strength, courage, confidence, boldness, assertiveness, tenacity. Respect for the outdoors and a spiritual admiration for it's beauty and simple grandeur. A unique and deep bond of trust between climbing partners. But this is not simply trite verbiage. If you climb and have a heart and imagination, you are constantly confronted by these things in yourself and in others, and they inevitably become a part of your life, on and off the rock. You explore yourself and discover and expand your own depths when you encounter and explore the mountains and deserts through climbing.

Learning to climb on one's own can be at best fraught with anxiety and uncertainty and at worst a very dangerous affair. As a guide, with the growing popularity of climbing I regularly encounter an increasing number of beginning climbers out on the rock who repeatedly put themselves in very dangerous situations due to lack of experience. Many are not even aware of how close they come to disaster. And many experienced climbers I know look back on their early years and wonder how they ever made it through those days of trial and error. I have also assisted in rescues of climbers--both beginning and experienced--who have had accidents due to bad habits, technical mistakes, or poor judgment in the mountains.

Many of our clients are experienced climbers, in California on business, who have only a limited time to explore southern California climbing. They want someone who knows the best of what the area has to offer--the routes, accommodations, and diversions--and they hire a private guide who can take them straight to the classics. Many others are local climbers interested in making a smooth transition from the gym to the outdoors, or who have reached a plateau in their abilities and need only to follow some harder climbs in order to make their own breakthroughs.

But time and again, my favorite thing about guiding is being able to offer what clients tell me amount to life-defining experiences for them--right up there in their lives with things like marriage and kids. Enabling them to have these kinds of experiences at will, and to do so with confidence, is what motivates our passion for guiding.