A chimney is a rock crack or fissure wide enough for a climber to fit their entire body inside, and is climbed by pressing against the two opposing walls with the body — using back-and-foot or other counter-pressure techniques to inch upward. Distinct from cracks you jam with hands or fingers, chimneys rely on whole-body opposition. They range from comfortable to awkward and strenuous depending on width.
An overhang is a section of rock that is steeper than vertical — it leans out over the climber, so the wall is above and beyond you rather than upright. Overhanging terrain is physically demanding because gravity pulls the body away from the wall, putting more load on the arms and core and requiring strong body tension and technique (heel hooks, toe hooks, drop-knees, flagging) to stay on. A roof is an extreme, near-horizontal overhang.
A roof is a section of rock that projects out horizontally (or nearly so) above the climber, like a ceiling — the most extreme form of overhang. Climbing a roof requires powerful, technical movement to keep the body close to the rock against gravity: heel and toe hooks, strong body tension, precise footwork, and efficient, committing moves to pull through and around the lip. Roofs are among the most physically demanding features in climbing.
Alpine climbing is the discipline of climbing routes in high mountain environments, combining technical rock, snow, and ice climbing with mountaineering skills, typically in remote, committing, and serious terrain. It demands a broad skill set — efficient movement, route-finding, glacier travel, and hazard assessment — and often follows a fast-and-light ethic, exposing climbers to objective hazards like weather, rockfall, and avalanches.
Mixed climbing is a discipline that combines rock and ice climbing on the same route, where the climber uses ice tools and crampons to ascend terrain that includes both ice and bare rock. It demands the ability to hook tools on rock features (drytooling) as well as swing them into ice, and to use crampon points on both. Graded on the M-scale, mixed climbing ranges from alpine mixed routes to steep, athletic modern mixed and drytooling.
Face climbing is climbing the open face of the rock using its surface features — edges, crimps, pockets, knobs, and other holds — rather than ascending cracks by jamming. The most common style of climbing on featured rock, face climbing relies on grabbing and standing on holds and on technique like edging, smearing, and balance. It contrasts with crack climbing (which uses jams in fissures) and is the style most gym and sport routes emulate.
Crack climbing is the technique and discipline of ascending cracks and fissures in the rock by wedging (jamming) fingers, hands, feet, or even the whole body into the crack, rather than pulling on external holds. A distinct skill set from face climbing, crack climbing is graded and described by crack width — finger, hand, fist, and offwidth cracks each demand different jamming techniques. It's also the natural home of traditional gear placement.
Deep-water soloing (DWS), also called psicobloc, is a form of free soloing performed on sea cliffs or walls above deep water, where the water below serves as the protection — catching the climber when they fall. It removes ropes and gear while reducing (but not eliminating) the danger, since falls land in water. Hazards include the impact of high falls, water depth and obstructions, tides, and cold water.
Aid climbing is a style of climbing in which the climber makes upward progress by pulling on, standing in, or hanging from gear placed in the rock — rather than using only hands and feet on the rock as in free climbing. Using devices like etriers (ladders), the climber 'aids' up blank or extremely difficult terrain. It's central to big-wall climbing, has its own grading system, and is slow, technical, and gear-intensive.
Multi-pitch climbing is climbing a route too long for a single rope length, broken into sequential segments called pitches. The leader climbs a pitch, builds an anchor, and belays the follower up to them; the team then repeats this, leapfrogging up the wall. It demands anchor-building, belaying from above, efficient transitions, and route-finding, and takes climbers into bigger, more committing terrain than single-pitch routes.
