Games Climbers Play
Lito Tejada-Flores


Reality is the apparent absence of contradiction
Louis Arragon, Le Paysan de Paris

I

What I should like to propose in this article is not a new answer to the basically 
unanswerable question, 'what is climbing?', but rather a new way of talking and 
thinking about it. Climbing is not a homogeneous sport but rather a collection of 
differing (though) related activities, each with its own adepts, distinctive 
terrain, problems and satisfactions, and perhaps most important, its own rules. 
Therefore, I propose to consider climbing in general as a hierarchy of climbing-
games, each defined by a set of rules and an appropriate field of play.

The word game seems to imply a sort of artificiality which is foreign to what we 
actually feel on a climb. The attraction of the great walls, above all, is surely 
that when one is climbing them he is playing 'for keeps'. Unlike the player in a 
bridge game, the climber cannot simply lay down his cards and go home. But this 
does not mean that climbing is any less a game. Although the player's actions have 
real and lasting consequences, the decision to start playing is just as gratuitous 
and unnecessary as the decision to start a game of chess. In fact, it is precisely 
because there is no necessity to climb that we can describe climbing as a game 
activity.

The obstacles one must surmount to gain the summit of Indian Rock in Berkeley or 
the  Hand at Pinnacles National Monument are scarcely of the same oder as those 
defending the West Face of Sentinel Rock in Yosemite or the North Face of the 
Eiger. And the personal satisfaction of the climber upon having solved each of 
these problems could hardly  be the same. As a result, a handicap system has 
evolved to equalize the inherent challenge and maintain the climber's feeling of 
achievement at a high level in each of these different situations. This handicap   
system is expressed through the rules of the various climbing-games.

It is important to realize at the outset that these rules are negatively expressed 
although their aim is positive,. They are nothing more than a series of "don'ts': 
don't use fixed ropes, belays, pitons, a series of camps, etc. The purpose of 
these negative rules is essentially protective or conservative. That is, they are 
designed to conserve the climber's feeling of personal (moral) accomplishment 
against the meaninglessness of a success which represents merely technological 
victory.

Let us take as a concrete example the most complex game in the climbing hierarchy 
- bouldering. It is complex by definition since it has more rules than any other  
climbing game, rules which prohibit nearly everything - ropes, pitons and 
belayers. All that is left is the individual standing in front of a rock problem. 
(It should be noted that the upper belay belongs to practice climbing, that is, 
training for any of the climbing-games). But why so many restrictions? Only 
because boulders are too accessible; they don't defend themselves well enough. For 
example, it would be an absurdity to use a ladder to reach the top of a boulder in 
Fontainbleau, but to use the same ladder to bridge a crevasse in the Khumbu 
Icefall would be reasonable since Everest defends itself so well that one  ladder 
no longer tips the scales toward certain success. Thus the basic principle of a 
handicap is applied to maintain a degree  of uncertainty as to the eventual 
outcome, and from this very uncertainty stems the adventure and personal 
satisfaction of climbing.

More generally, I discern a complete spectrum of climbing-games, ranked according 
to the complexity (or number) of their rules. The higher one goes on the scale, 
the more inaccessible and formidable become the climber's goals, and, in 
consequence, he need apply fewer restrictions to conserve the full measure of 
challenge and satisfaction inherent in the climbing-game he is playing. At the top 
of the hierarchy we find the expedition-game, which, although complicated to 
organize and play, is formalistically speaking, the simplest game of all, since 
virtually nothing is forbidden to the climber. The recent use of airplanes and 
helicopters exemplifies the total lack of rules in the pure expedition-game.

While variant games have arisen in isolated and special circumstances in different 
countries, one can distinguish the following seven basic climbing games.

1. The Bouldering Game

We have already discussed bouldering, but one should note that the basic 
bouldering rules eliminate not only protection but also companions. The boulderer 
is essentially a solo climber. In fact, when we see solo climbing at any level of 
difficulty it represents the application of bouldering rules to some other 
climbing-game. Aside from that, this game is found in every country where climbing 
exists, although the number of climbers who specialize in it is relatively small. 

2. The Crag Climbing Game

Crag climbing as a pure game form has doubtless reached its highest form of 
expression in the British Isles. It is practiced on cliffs of limited size - 
routes averaging one to three pitches in length. Because of their limited size and 
the large amount of time at the climber's disposal, such routes are not imposing 
enough to be approached with the full arsenal of the climber's tools (though they 
may contain moves as hard as those of any climb). FUndamentally the game consists 
in climbing them free with the use of extremely well-defined and limited 
protection. The use of pitons is avoided or, in special cases, standardized at an 
absolute minimum. Pure crag climbing is scarcely practiced as a game in this 
country except in areas such as Pinnacles National Monument, where the rock is 
virtually unpitonable. There are, however, a number of areas in the States, such 
as the Shawangunks, where the crag climbing game could be played with more rigor. 

3. The Continuous Rock-Climbing Game

This is the game that most California climbers know best. It differs from the crag 
game in allowing the full range of rock climbing equipment to be used at the 
discretion of the climber as well as allowing the use of direct aid. Fundamentally 
this game should be played on longer, multi-pitch climbs whose length puts a kind 
of time limit to the mechanical means that a climber can employ and still reach 
the top. Shorter climbs should still be approached as more complex games with 
stricter rules.

4. The Big Wall Game

This game is practiced not only on the bigger Yosemite walls but in the Dolomites 
and elsewhere. It is characterized by the prolonged periods of time spent on the 
walls and by the fact that each member of the party does not have to climb every 
lead (e.g., different climbers may prusik with loads on different days but are 
still considered to have done the entire climb). The full technical and logistic 
equipment range is allowed. In the modern big wall game fixed ropes to the ground 
and multiple attempts to prepare the route are non longer allowed (see par II), 
and a rigorous distinction is still made between free and artificial moves and 
pitches.

5. The Alpine Climbing Game

In alpine climbing the player encounters for the first time the full range of 
hostile forces present in the mountain environment. In addition to problems of 
length and logistics he meets increased objective dangers in the form of falling 
rock, bad weather and extreme cold, and bad conditions such as verglas. All this 
leads to a further realization of formal rules since success in the game may often 
include merely surviving. In alpine climbing the use of pitons is avoided wherever 
possible because of time loss in situations where speed means safety, but where 
pitons are used there is a tendency to use them as holds also. Thus the rules of 
this game do not require one to push all leads free. The restrictions upon the 
player are more determined by the nature of the mountain and the route than by a 
set of rules which he accepts in advance.

6. The Super-Alpine Game

This is the newest climbing-game to appear and is not yet completely understood. 
It rejects expedition techniques on terrain which would traditionally have been 
suitable for it. Its only restrictive rule is that the party must be self-
contained.  Any umbilical-like connection in the form of a series of camps, fixed 
ropes, etc., to a secure base is no longer permitted. This rule provides a measure 
of commitment that automatically increases the uncertainty of success, making 
victory that much more meaningful. Often the major alpine routes under extreme 
winter conditions provide suitable terrain for super-alpine climbs.  Some of the 
early, classic super-alpine routes were the South Face of Aconcagua, the ascent of 
Cerro Torre by Egger and Maestri, and the first winter ascent of the Eiger North 
Wall.

7. The Expedition Game

I have already mentioned the lack of rules in this game, but I wish to point out 
that there are still differences of personal involvement on the part of the 
players from expedition to expedition. For example, members of the German Broad 
Peak expedition who packed all their own loads up the mountain were, in a sense, 
playing a more difficult game than the usual Himalayan expedition that moves up 
the mountain on the backs of its Sherpas.

It should be noted that the above ordering of climbing-games is not an attempt to 
say that some games are better, harder, or more worthwhile in themselves than 
others. One remembers that the very purpose of the game structure is to equalize 
such value connotations from game to game so that the climber who plays any of 
these games by its proper set of rules should have a least a similar feeling of 
personal accomplishment. Of course, each type of game will still have its own 
proponents, its own classics, heroes, and myths.

The real purpose of ranking climbing games into such a hierarchy, however, it not 
to make judgments about a game or its players, but rather to have a useful scale 
against which to discuss climbing ethics, since unethical behavior involves a 
disregard of certain rules.

II

Within our new framework we can now clear up certain misconceptions about climbing 
ethics. Ethical climbing merely means respecting the set of rules of the climbing-
game that one is playing. Conversely, unethical climbing occurs when a climber 
attempts to use a set of rules appropriate to a game higher up on the scale than 
the one he is actually playing (i.e. a less restrictive set of rules). Applying 
this idea to the bolt controversy that has animated ethical discussions among 
climbers for the last several years, we can see that there is nothing unethical 
about bolts per se; it is merely that their use is prohibited by the rules of 
certain climbing-games and not by others. In certain games the question becomes 
meaningless for, as Bonatti points out, on a major mixed face no amount of bolts 
can guarantee success, whereas an excessive number will insure defeat through lack 
of time.

I have assumed so far that the rules for various climbing-games were fixed. Of 
course, this is not the case, as both the games and their rules are undergoing a 
constant, if slow, evolution. The central problem of climbing ethics is really the 
question: who makes the rules for these games? and secondarily: how do they change 
with time?

On reflection, it seems to me that the rules of various climbing-games are 
determined by the climbing community at large, but less so by climbers approaching 
the two extremes of ability. One of these elements is composed of those 
fainthearted types who desire to overcome every new difficulty with some kind of 
technological means rather than at the expense of personal effort under pressure. 
The other group  is the small nucleus of elite climbers whose basic concern is not 
with merely ethical climbing but with minimizing the role of technology and 
increasing that of individual  effort in order to do climbs with better style. But 
before talking about style and the role of the elite climber in climbing 
evolution, I want to expand my idea that the majority of climbers are responsible 
for deciding the rules of a given climbing-game.

No matter what their origin a set of rules must be consecrated by usage and 
general acceptance. Thus, the way good climbers have always done a climb becomes 
the traditional way of doing it; the rules become classic and constitute an 
ethical minimum for the climb, defining at the same time the climbing-game to 
which it belongs. But what of new climbs? At any moment there are relatively few 
members of the climbing community capable of doing significant first ascents; 
these will be members of the creative elite we have already mentioned. The 
question arises: should the style they use on a first ascent determine the rules 
for succeeding ascents? I think not (although their approaches and attitudes will 
of course serve as guidelines for following parties). Examples of cases where the 
first ascent has not set the pattern for succeeding ascents are almost too 
numerous to list. Just because Jeff Foott made the first ascent of Patio Pinnacle 
solo or because Bonatti soloed the South-West Pillar of the Drus, following 
climbers have felt under no obligation to stick to the difficult rules of the 
first ascent; or just because the first ascent of the Eiger North Wall was made in 
a storm, no one has seriously suggested that later parties wait for bad weather to 
go up the face. A kind of group prudence is at work here, rejecting individual 
solutions whose extremism puts them beyond the reach of the majority of competent 
climbers climbing at any given period.

What then, is the role of the small minority of extremist climbers in the 
evolution of climbing-games? To understand it we must first develop the idea of 
climbing style. Style may be defined as the conscious choice of a set of rules for 
a given climbing-game. Thus, if a climber follows the accepted rules for a given 
game he is climbing both in classical style and ethically. Bad style and unethical 
climbing are synonymous and represent the choice of rules from a simpler (higher) 
game, such as alpine climbing with expedition style. On the other hand, a climber 
can choose to climb with better style lower down in the hierarchy than that which 
he is playing. A fitting example  would be the way John Gill has applied 
bouldering rules to certain crag climbing problems, doing extremely hard, 
unprotected moves high off the ground.

In this way the creative nucleus of elite climbers can express itself by climbing 
with better style than the average climber (like aristocrats playing a more 
demanding game than the democratic majority), which certainly provides enough room 
for personal expression, yet seems to avoid the traditional aristocratic role of 
leadership and direction. In fact, these climbers lead the majority only 
indirectly - their responsibility is not to determine and set ethical standards 
(rules) for the majority but rather to demonstrate the superior style. Thus, they 
stake out the possible directions for the evolution of climbing-games. And this, 
aside from suffering the wiles of equipment-mongers, is the only way that such 
changes can come about. 

Let me give a concrete example. The most evident is the way in which the rules of 
the big-wall game have evolved in Yosemite Valley under the influence of the best 
climbers of the day whose primary concern was to do their own climbs in the best 
style possible rather than to impose an arbitrary set of rules on all climbers. 
After the feasibility of doing the bigger Grade VI walls without siege tactics had 
been consistently demonstrated, climbers were impressed enough to accept this 
approach as a basic rule to such an extent that today even strangers to the 
Yosemite climbing community (such as the two Frenchmen who did the Nose of El 
Capitan in the spring of 1966) follow it as a matter of course.

In a less dramatic way the rules of all climbing-games are changing constantly, 
becoming ever more restrictive in order to preserve the fundamental challenge that 
the climber is seeking from the inroads of a fast changing technology. The present 
laissez-faire of the uppermost games is disappearing slowly as the complexity of 
rules shifts up the spectrum. The eventual victim, of course, will be the 
expedition game which will disappear completely as super-alpine climbing takes its 
place. This is not only the newest but, in a sense, the most creative climbing-
game, since here the nature of the obstacles encountered is so severe that it will 
be a long, long time before technological advances even begin to encroach upon the 
climber's personal satisfaction. The possibilities, on the other hand, are 
immense. One can even visualize the day when, with ultra-modern bivouac gear, a 
climbing party of two sets off to do an 8000m peak just as today one sets off to 
do a hard route on the Grand Teton or on Mont Blanc.

Here, I think, this article should end. Not because speculations about the future 
of climbing are either futile or uninteresting, but because we have already 
wandered far enough from our original subject. That climbing will continue to 
evolve is a certainty, although it is far less certain that the idea of climbing-
games is the best basis for looking at this evolution. But surely this, or any, 
new framework for thinking and talking about what we are actually doing when we 
climb is at least a valid step toward the future.

Ascent 1967