Paper short abstract:

Climbing landscapes are infinite memory books written by those who came before. How this heritage left in rocks manifests itself in the aesthetics of movement and the experiences embedded in the lines which have become climbing routes? How are we to understand the multisensory craft of climbing?

Paper long abstract:

These days, climbing attracts people in droves, all eager to join the contest between body and rock. Ian Heywood and Jackie Kiewa have eloquently trumpeted what this sport might bring to human existence – a sense of raw spontaneity sharply lacking in our comfortable, pre-packaged modernity. Climbing teaches life and risk management lessons, although it must constantly joust with modern rationalizing and commercial influences to remain authentic.

As an ethnographer, and one by intuition sceptical of modernity-revelling perspectives, I am drawn to the refined social background of climbing – to the experience born of the interplay between aesthetics and heritage. I believe climbers – skilful dwellers – inhabit climbing landscapes which are open spaces of possibility and affordance. In the act of climbing, the climber re-establish passive ‘nature’ into a highly interactive ‘environment’. In achieving this, they must master and employ skills and knowledge inherited from generations of rock climbing enthusiasts. Climbing landscapes, along with guides, stories, names, moves and objects left behind, are infinite memory books written by those who came before.

Consequently, I find myself asking how this intangible heritage left behind in rocks by generations of climbers manifests itself in the aesthetics of movement and the experiences embedded in the lines which have become climbing routes. How is an anthropologist to study the mind-body experiences and traces left by generations of rock users? How are we to understand the multisensory craft of climbing?