Mountaineering terminology
I'd like to clarify the question in my last post, namely "what is mountaineering?". Let's start by introducing some standard terminology so we've got something to work with.
- Hillwalking is, as the name suggests, walking on hills, usually with the aim of reaching the summit. Ropes are very rarely used, and typically only in emergencies.
- Winter walking is like hillwalking, but in winter. Crampons (spiked frames attached to your boots) and ice-axes (one per person) may be used.
- Scrambling involves the use of the hands to ascend or descend, but usually no technical gear and only fairly easy moves. The exposure (distance you'll fall if you fall off) may be high, though.
- Rock climbing involves more difficult climbing than scrambling - though there's no hard-and-fast rule, there's fairly good agreement over where one ends and the other begins. It's divided into aid climbing and free climbing.
- In aid climbing, progress is made by wedging gear (formerly pitons, but now mostly metal nuts or chocks) into cracks in the rock, then clipping short rope ladders (called étriers or aiders) into the gear, climbing up the ladders, then inserting the next bit of gear and repeating. Aid climbing never really took off in the UK, but it had a large following in the US: for a long time, it was the only way of climbing the "big walls" found in places like Yosemite.
- In free climbing, upward progress is only made by pulling or pushing on rock with the hands or feet: gear is only there to hold you in the event of a fall. Putting weight on gear or the rope is considered failure. Free climbing is considered a purer form of climbing than aid climbing. Free climbing is further subdivided based on the degree of protection used, into (at least) trad climbing (in which non-damaging protective gear is placed and clipped as you ascend), sport climbing (in which you clip the rope into pre-placed bolts as you pass), top-roping (in which the rope is attached to the top of the route, allowing for shorter falls and greater confidence), and soloing (in which no rope is used - the purest style, but also the most dangerous). Important special cases of soloing are bouldering (very short, extremely difficult routes, usually protected by a crash-mat) and deep water soloing (in which you're protected by deep water below you).
- Ice climbing is climbing on ice, typically using crampons and pairs of ice axes. Ropes are almost invariably used, and usually protection is placed as in trad climbing.
- Winter climbing, also (?) called mixed climbing, is climbing on a mixture of snow, rock, ice, frozen vegetation, etc, typically using ropes, axes and crampons. At the lower end (Scottish grade I) it shades into the more interesting end of winter hillwalking; at the upper end, you get this kind of thing. I've only done one winter climb - Ledge Route on Ben Nevis (Scottish grade II, on a scale of I to VI), the snowy sections of which would have made an easy-ish black ski run.
- An ascent of a classic face in the Alps or Greater Ranges. Multi-day, involving technical rock and mixed climbing, gaining a major summit at the end.
- An ascent of an Alpine 4000m peak by its easiest route.
- An ascent of a lesser Alpine peak by its easiest route.
- A multi-day "big wall" climb in Yosemite.
- A single-day, multi-pitch rock climb on a roadside crag or sea stack.
- A single-day, multi-pitch rock climb on a mountainside.
- A single-pitch climb on a crag.
- A single-pitch crag on a mountainside.
- A boulder problem on a mountainside.
- A sustained scramble up a Scottish hillside in summer.
- A walk up a hill of 1000m or so in summer.
- A walk up a hill of 600m or so in summer.
- A sustained scramble up a Scottish hillside in winter.
- A walk up a hill of 1000m or so in winter.
- A walk up a hill of 600m or so in winter.