184 -- Mapping Different Climbing Types by State in the United States

The sport of rock climbing involves the climbing of rock faces, especially with the aid of ropes and special equipment. The sport has been ever growing since the late 1800’s, and its popularity was marked by its debut in the 2020 Summer Olympics. This project assessed geographic patterns of rock climbing and its many styles in the US currently. In the climbing world, many different styles of climbing exist, such a traditional climbing (brings protective gear to arrest falls), sport climbing (uses permanent anchors on the wall), bouldering (small boulders without ropes) and top rope climbing (anchored in from above). A spatial database was created using GIS software to record the number of each style of climb per state, which was then used to map the spatial patterns of each climbing style. Data was collected from The Crag, an online database of rock-climbing locations and venues across the world. Using maps and descriptive statistics, spatial patterns of different styles of climbing across the country were determined. In the US, the most common style of climbing was bouldering, while the least common was top roping. The top states for rock climbing overall were Colorado and California, whereas the states least popular for rock climbing were Nebraska and Louisiana. This project found that rock climbing is a highly regionalized activity within the US.