RockClimbingHangout.com

YES!!!!

It always pisses me off when people talk about “climbing” a 4,000 footer. Unless it is a Class V (or IV in some cases) it is a HIKE.

Rock climbing is Class V or VI Climbing (see the Yosemite Decimal System). It includes everything from bouldering to big wall climbing, to aid climbing, to soloing…etc.

Mountaineering is just that- climbing mountains. It involves anything from Class I to class VI. Many mountaineering expeditions require some Rock Climbing and/or Ice Climbing, but not all.

That’s the basic explanation.

The two are separate terms. There are often bits of climbing in mountaineering and vice versa, but they are different.

Rock Climbing is kind of an underground sport…it’s difficult to find a lot of information. Try the individual types of rock climbing instead, such as Trad Climbing, Sport Climbing, Aid Climbing, Free Climbing, Soloing, Free Soloing, etc.

I’m afraid I don’t know this stuff from any source, but this is what I’ve read or heard somewhere over the years. Bear with me.

Mountaineering (Alpinism) as we know it now was first done in the Alps by all the countries that have Alps. So mainly France. This was done way back before technical rock climbing, but obviously it did involve some climbing.

Now, us Brits and the Germans don’t really have any mountains. Sure we have Scotland, and the Germans are close to the Alps (Schwarzwald is looked down upon by the Jungfrau massif), but nothing as good as what the French et al have.
So we started doing rock climbing at crags instead of up high in the mountains.
This was first done by nutters in hobnail boots and hemp rope, using chock stones to ‘protect’ falls, and occasionally bashing pitons into the rock to clip onto.
Eventually technology progressed so that better gear and ropes were used for protection, and climbing shoes started to evolve.
Once trad(itional) climbing was developed in this way, people thought it’d be a good idea to start bolting routes to make them safer / easier, and sport climbing was born.
From this premise, I guess, indoor climbing centres came.

Well that’s what I think the history of rock climbing is, there may be some guess work or lots of inaccuracy but it might be a starting point for you!
Mountaineering and rock climbing are synonymous because you need to be a good rock climber in order to do mountaineering. It’s only when it started becoming more popular that rock climbing started evolving as a sport in its own right.

yes, mountaineering is what mountain men do..it aint rock climbing, hell, it has nothing to do with climbing mountains, it has to do with people that live in the mountains…!

The answer is both “Yes” and “No”.

Rock Climbing is a sort of sub-category of Mountaineering. It specifically involves the use of techniques that enable the climber to scale sheer vertical routes up a mountain. In many cases, a climber must employ these techniques on large scale climbs or the entire climb may be up the vertical face of a mountain. Not every Mountaineering climb involves using rock skills, and not every rock climb will be a full-blown mountaineering expedition either.

Mountaineering MAY involve the use of crampons, ice tools, and snowshoes. Rock Climbers don’t use these things. Likewise, Ice Climbers do use some of the same equipment, but there are differences between an Ice Climbers crampons and tools and what an expedition mountaineer would use (unless part of the climb involved a sheer ice scale as well.)

However, mountaineering does not mean high-altitude only. Climbing Mt.Washington in the dead of February takes crampons and ice tools. It’s a hike in summer, but it’s mountaineering in winter! Same goes for a lot of the 14ers.

Most mountaineers are also rock climbers. Climbers are not always mountaineers but that’s up for debate as well. Big-Wall climbers are faced with the same amount of risk and weather as a non-wall climbing mountaineer. Someone who scales the face of El Capitan is a mountaineer. Someone who climbs trad in the Gunks is a climber because they are home for dinner. A gym climber isn’t even a rock climber in my book. In no way is a gym-rat a mountaineer, they simply lack the skills and experience of someone who climbs real rock and deals with Momma Nature.

Don’t put all your faith in Wikipedia. Consult some climbing websites, magazines, and books too.

The debate will rage on depending on the people involved. In my book, you make it to the summit of a peak, you can call it whatever the heck you want. It doesn’t matter if it was a hike, and climb, or it was mountaineering. You’re there and some other poor sucker got stuck at work or is plopped on the couch watching TV. You’re better off than them.

A huge difference. If you have time read “Yankee Rock and Ice”, the history of rock climbing in the northeast. By Laura and Guy Waterman. It will really give you a lot of insight on the difference and how rock climbing developed.

The biggest difference between rock climbing and mountaineering is that mountaineering is about getting to the summit of a mountain, while rock climbing is about getting up a particular “wall”. Reduced to its rawest elements, rock climbing becomes bouldering, where fantastically difficult free climbs are made up very short heights from the ground, 10′ to 20′ usually. It is almost all about strength, gymnastics, and technique. On the other end of the spectrum, the epitome of mountaineering is climbing Mt Everest. Many mountaineers are rock climbers, and many rock climbers are mountaineers, but usually the mountaineers climb rock faces in order to reach the summit, while rock climbers have to be mountaineers in order to reach a particular rock wall, such as Yosemite’s Northwest Face of Half Dome.