Climbing Etiquette

In “the good old days” we are led to believe that climbing was a pass-time of wealthy gentlemen and that it was all very sporting and polite and that if one party was ahead of another on a chosen route then they had the priority and could progress at their own rate. The party behind was obliged to wait patiently till the route was free or to find an alternate route that did not interfere with the first party.

These days though, there are far more people climbing on the crags and in the mountains and there are multitudes of stories about “rude” parties who just barge on through over the top of a slower party with no regard for safety or etiquette.
In North America this phenomenon is often related to offensive European climbers and particularly the French. However, the truth is that the golden days are long gone and that the routes on the crags and mountains of the whole world are now crowded. Its also true that there is such a wide range of climbing abilities that there are people who can climb a route in a few hours that other parties will literally take four or five days to climb. (e.g. ElCap in Yosemite has a record ascent time of less than four hours but it took me four days to climb it on a trip ten years ago!)

With these conflicting factors, there is no wonder that etiquette has diminished over time and likewise it is not surprising that the Europeans would appear to be the worst offenders to the spoilt Americans who still have relatively un-crowded climbing routes unlike the Alps where virtually every route is a constant stream of ascending parties. It also has to be said that in general, the types of people who push themselves to climb difficult routes on rock and ice are not the types of people to sit and wait quietly in line-ups of any sort!

For my own part I can say that I climbed in many places around the world on both rock and ice. I have found myself on both sides of this type of interaction and not always deported myself well – we live and learn! So, it seems to me that this sort of conflict is inevitable and the best we can do with it is to try to not be dangerous or abusive whichever side of the interaction we are on. :)