The development of ethics/practice of sport climbing

In the 1950s Fontainebleau's Bleausards reached significantly higher difficulties and started to threaten the artificial border of the sixth degree. Subsequently they graded harder problems with additional letters. One of the famous classics of the time, La Joker, was given a grade of 6f (today 7a). J.C. Droyer was the first to use the new first number ("7") and to limit the letter scale to go from a to c. In 1977 he established "L'Echelle" in Saussois and gave it the unprecedented grade of 7a. Differences in the difficulty level between boulders of the same grade were only made with a "+" sign. Why are there no "minuses" is a mystery. Nonetheless, as the french climbers led the scene, the new French Grading Scale became the dominant one in the 1980's.

The spirit and ethics of that time were to liberate climbing from old traditions and meanings. The message of modern free climbing was brought by red dots, painted on the rock by Kurt Albert in 1975. Although hard free climbing was done in the US at the time, the ethics of free climbing were made popular with this idea.

Sport climbing and it's ethics developed quickly.


One of the most significant breaks from the old tradition was to establish new routes by drilling bolts while lowering from the top. This was first practiced on new routes in the Verdon Gorge (France) by Jaques Nosley in 1978. The method was quickly accepted in order to help establish new sport climbing areas and to push the limits of difficulty of the sport. But even today, using this method remains a taboo. In the beginning of the 1980s the french started to climb "en libre" leaving the quickdraws on the wall for their red point attempt. Before this, quickdraws needed to be put in place during the climb (a practice still used in traditional climbs).

Using chalk remained controversial until 1986 when the first scientific studies on the subject came to the conclusion that it is safe to use it. Altering the rock (i.e. chipping and gluing) has been practiced from the early days of climbing in order to make certain routes possible to climb. The practice intensified with the introduction of artificial holds that were first put on outdoor rock in the 1980s France (and later practiced all over the world). Today the consensus is to preserve natural state of the rock in order to give the future generations a chance for ever harder climbs.

From the 1980s the validity of certain methods in on-sights, flashes and red points have been under heavy discussion. The latest debates on the issue include preclipping the rope on quickdraws (one or two bolts for safety reasons?), grabbing anchors (anchor too high or no holds to clip from) or down climbing (coming off the route). Other “later” additions to the overall climbing ethics discussions have been anorexia among climbers, intermediate anchors on climbs and eliminates/link-ups. An important ethical topic of today and tomorrow is the coexistence of the interests of climbers and the preservation of the nature.