A climbing route is a path by which a climber

Climbing

Climbing is the activity of using one's hands and feet to ascend a steep object. It is done both for recreation and professionally, as part of activities such as maintenance of a structure, or military operations.Climbing activities include:* Bouldering: Ascending boulders or small...

 reaches the top of a mountain

Mountain

Image:Himalaya_annotated.jpg|thumb|right|The Himalayan mountain range with Mount Everestrect 58 14 160 49 Chomo Lonzorect 200 28 335 52 Makalurect 378 24 566 45 Mount Everestrect 188 581 920 656 Tibetan Plateaurect 250 406 340 427 Rong River...

, rock, or ice wall. Routes can vary dramatically in difficulty and, once committed to that ascent, can be difficult to stop or return. Choice of route can be critically important. Guidebook

GUIdebook

GUIdebook is a website that contains screenshots of computer software.It shows a visual history of the software's user interface. It includes operating systems like Mac OS and Windows, desktop environments like GNOME and KDE, portable operating systems like Newton OS and Windows CE, and...

s, if available, are helpful in providing detailed diagrams and photographs of routes.

In the earliest days of hillwalking

Hillwalking

In the British Isles, the terms hillwalking or fellwalking are commonly used to describe the recreational outdoor activity of walking on hills and mountains, often with the intention of visiting their summits...

 and mountaineering

Mountaineering

Mountaineering or mountain climbing is the sport, hobby or profession of hiking, skiing, and climbing mountains. While mountaineering began as attempts to reach the highest point of unclimbed mountains it has branched into specialisations that address different aspects of the mountain and consists...

, climbers got to the top by whatever means got them there. Little information about how they did it is available. During the 19th century, as explorers of the Alps

Alps

The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....

 tried ever harder summits, it became clear that choosing an eastern face over a southwestern ridge

Ridge

A ridge is a geological feature consisting of a chain of mountains or hills that form a continuous elevated crest for some distance. Ridges are usually termed hills or mountains as well, depending on size. There are several main types of ridges:...

 could spell the difference between success or failure. One example was the first ascent of the Matterhorn

Matterhorn

The Matterhorn , Monte Cervino or Mont Cervin , is a mountain in the Pennine Alps on the border between Switzerland and Italy. Its summit is 4,478 metres high, making it one of the highest peaks in the Alps. The four steep faces, rising above the surrounding glaciers, face the four compass points...

, which had been repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempted via the southern side. The strata

Stratum

In geology and related fields, a stratum is a layer of sedimentary rock or soil with internally consistent characteristics that distinguish it from other layers...

 there tended to slope down and away while the rocks of the northeastern ridge (the one closest to Zermatt

Zermatt

Zermatt is a municipality in the district of Visp in the German-speaking section of the canton of Valais in Switzerland. It has a population of about 5,800 inhabitants....

) tilted up - a steeper, but safer route.

As technique developed, and mountains of the world were ascended via easy routes, climbers began to challenge themselves by looking for and trying harder routes. Once all the obvious lines had been tried, climbers looked for more technically challenging routes (e.g. an all-rock route threading between icefields or a single thin, fissure running in a continuous straight line from base to summit). An aesthetic element came in, as well. An easy, but confusing route, weaving back and forth across a face was less desirable than a direct route along a scenic ridge. Safe routes that yielded to good technique were more desirable than routes with loose rock and awkward climbing.

Climbing routes that were overlooked or required greater technical skill became associated with the climber(s) who first climbed them. It became common practice for the first climber

First ascent

In climbing, a first ascent is the first successful, documented attainment of the top of a mountain, or the first to follow a particular climbing route...

 to choose a name for the route. Inevitably, there were climbers so energetic that they established multiple routes on a single mountain or cliff, and named routes based on a theme. This opened up a new outlet for creative overkill. Some climbing area

Climbing area

A climbing area is a small geographical region with a concentration of opportunities for climbing. The term is most commonly used of rock climbing areas, but there are also ice climbing areas that have the right combination of steepness and water to result in climbable ice during the winter.While...

s have a bewildering variety of curious and amusing names for their many routes, as seen in the list below.

An example of interesting route-naming can be seen on the Southeast face of El Capitan

El Capitan

El Capitan is a vertical rock formation in Yosemite National Park, located on the north side of Yosemite Valley, near its western end. The granite monolith extends about from base to summit along its tallest face, and is one of the world's favorite challenges for rock climbers.The formation was...

 in Yosemite Valley. The Nose

The Nose (El Capitan)

The Nose is one of the original technical climbing routes up El Capitan. Once considered impossible to climb, El Capitan is now the standard for big-wall climbing...

 was the first route on the main part of the cliff, so called because it is shaped like a 3000 feet (914.4 m) nose. A list of routes to the right of The Nose includes:

• New Dawn
• Wall of the Early Morning Light
• Mescalito
• Hockey Night in Canada
• Pacific Ocean Wall (just to the left of a large pattern that looks vaguely like a map of North America)
• Sea of Dreams
• North American Wall
• Wyoming Sheep Ranch (crosses the "Wyoming" of the pattern)
• New Jersey Turnpike
• Atlantic Ocean Wall
• Born Under a Bad Sign
• Bad to the Bone
• Zodiac
• Eagle's Way
• On the Waterfront
• Waterfall Route
• Chinese Water Torture
• East Buttress (one of the earliest, dating from 1953)

Names often incorporate puns. For example, in Joshua Tree National Park

Joshua Tree National Park

Joshua Tree National Park is located in southeastern California. Declared a U.S. National Park in 1994 when the U.S. Congress passed the California Desert Protection Act , it had previously been a U.S. National Monument since 1936. It is named for the Joshua tree forests native to the park...

, route names include Coarse and Buggy, Cranking Skills or Hospital Bills ("cranking" being the use of upper body strength), Rockwork Orange (after A Clockwork Orange

A Clockwork Orange

A Clockwork Orange is a 1962 dystopian novella by Anthony Burgess. The novel contains an experiment in language: the characters often use an argot called "Nadsat", derived from Russian....

), Fist Full of Crystals (from A Fistful of Dollars

A Fistful of Dollars

A Fistful of Dollars is a 1964 Italian Spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood alongside Gian Maria Volonté, Marianne Koch, Wolfgang Lukschy, Sieghardt Rupp, José Calvo, Antonio Prieto, and Joseph Egger. Released in Italy in 1964 then in the United States in...

), and Dangling Woo Li Master (from The Dancing Wu Li Masters

The Dancing Wu Li Masters

The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav is a popular new age book from 1979 about mysticist interpretations of quantum physics.The toneless pinyin phrase Wu Li in the title is most accurately rendered 物理 in hanzi in the light of the book's subject matter, but appears to be somewhat of a pun as...

).

Another reason for the large number of named routes is the desire to indicate precisely where routes go. For high mountain routes, rockfall and snowfall would significantly change the mountain landscape over the years such that it is only possible to give a general idea of a route (i.e. "Climb the southeast ridge to the black tower, pass below it on the right side, and go up a snow-filled gully to the summit ridge").

Established rock climbing routes are more predictable and good descriptions help keep climbers "on route" and out of trouble. For example, an incorrect choice of a crack could leave the climber stranded in a very precarious position. Guidebooks, if available, can be helpful in showing routes drawn over photographs or a topographic diagram

Topo (climbing)

Topo in climbing is a term which refers to the graphical representation of a climbing route....

 ("topo" for short) showing a view of the climbing route with specialized symbols indicating important characteristics of the route, and marking helpful climbing gear such as pitons and bolts. For routes longer than the climbing rope (usually about 60 meters), a good topo will also indicate the recommended belay stations

Rock climbing

Rock climbing also lightly called 'The Gravity Game', is a sport in which participants climb up, down or across natural rock formations or artificial rock walls. The goal is to reach the summit of a formation or the endpoint of a pre-defined route without falling...

.