Ice climbing is the sport of ascending frozen waterfalls, ice-covered rock, and glaciers using ice axes, crampons, and ice screws for protection. Climbers swing tools and kick crampon points into the ice to move upward. Conditions change constantly with temperature, making judgment as important as technique.
Free soloing is climbing without a rope or any protective gear, where a fall would almost certainly be fatal. It is the most dangerous form of climbing, practiced by a small number of elite climbers on terrain well within their ability. It is distinct from free climbing, which uses ropes for protection.
Free climbing is climbing using only your hands, feet, and natural rock features for upward progress, with the rope and gear used solely to protect against a fall — not to help you move. It contrasts with aid climbing, where gear bears weight. Sport, trad, and bouldering are all forms of free climbing, and it is often confused with free soloing.
Lead climbing is a style where the climber ascends with the rope trailing from below, clipping it into protection along the way, rather than having it anchored above. Falls are longer and more dynamic than top-roping, and both climber and belayer need specific skills, making lead the gateway to most outdoor climbing.
Traditional, or trad, climbing is a style where the leader places removable protection — such as cams and nuts — into cracks and features as they climb, and the follower removes it. It demands gear-placement skill and judgment on top of climbing ability, and leaves the rock free of fixed hardware.
Sport climbing is a style of rock climbing where climbers ascend routes protected by permanent bolts drilled into the rock, clipping the rope with quickdraws as they lead. Because protection is fixed and reliable, it emphasizes hard, gymnastic movement over placing gear, making it the most popular form of outdoor lead climbing.
A project is a route or boulder at the edge of your ability that you work on over many attempts or sessions — rehearsing moves, refining beta, and building strength — until you can finally send it cleanly. 'Projecting' is the process of methodically piecing such a climb together.
To send a climb is to complete it cleanly from start to finish without falling or resting on the rope or gear. The word covers any successful clean ascent — an onsight, flash, or redpoint all count as sends. 'Sending' has become general climbing slang for nailing a goal.
The crux is the hardest move or section of a climb — the part most likely to stop you. A route's grade is largely set by its crux, and climbers focus their beta, strength, and mental preparation on getting through it. A climb can have one crux or several.
Beta is any information about how to climb a particular route or boulder problem — which holds to use, the sequence of moves, foot positions, rests, and clever tricks. Climbers share beta in person, in guidebooks, and in videos, and using it changes whether an ascent counts as an onsight, flash, or redpoint.