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Bouldering

Climbers invented bouldering as a training tool for mountaineering and traditional rock climbing, beginning on the gritstone outcrops of the United Kingdom and on the sandstone boulders of Fontainebleau, France, with some of the earliest forays onto the boulders of Font coming as far back as the 1870s.

In the United States, bouldering was seen, at best, as “practice climbing” until the gymnast John Gill applied the strength and skills he’d cultivated as a gymnast to pursue and evolve bouldering as its own pursuit, beginning in the 1950s. Pushing the sport basically on his own, Gill proposed a new bouldering grading scale (B1 through B3), and in the 1960s and 1970s established problems that would today be V10 (i.e., very difficult) on the modern bouldering scale, the “V Scale.”

Now, bouldering is a sport of its own—gaining popularity in indoor and outdoor environments all over the world. It’s the simplest, easiest-to-learn and to-practice form of climbing: All you need is rock shoes, a chalk bag or chalk pot, a toothbrush for cleaning the holds, some crashpads, and friends to spot you. In bouldering, climbers tackle boulder “problems,” usually five to 20 feet tall, but in some cases higher (this is called “highball bouldering”). The current most difficult boulder problems are given 9A on the French scale or V17 on the V Scale, and involve wildly dynamic moves on minuscule holds up overhanging panels of rock.

Culture

The Climbing Q&A: Jimmy Webb

Jimmy Webb would be the last person to tell you that he’s sent more V16s than almost any other American. Credit that humility—and the work ethic that earned him those ticks—to his Tennessee roots.

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