The history of climbing is a recent history. Unlike many sports, climbing does not date back to ancient times. People tended to climb the steep faces of rocky cliffs only when they had to and now they do it because they want to do it.

There was some rock climbing down as a part of Alpine mountaineering. This was done most for rescue type operations. It was not until the latter part of the 19th century that rock climbing was first seen as a sporting activity. It seems to have emerged in three distinct European areas around this time. The first was in Germany in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains in the Southeastern part of the country near the Czech border. By 1903, there were almost 500 climbers active in this region and climbing clubs were being formed.

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When I first went off to the wilderness I was with a small group of kids who all had asthma/eczema, diabetes, epilepsy, cystic fibrosis or some such ailment. I attended a special boarding school for kids who suffered from different illnesses to the point that they would usually be permanently hospitalised. Our first ‘wilderness’ camping trip took all of these ten and eleven year olds out to a field in the south east of england. It was surrounded by ancient woodland, huge lakes and nothing but countryside. We had to get our water from a natural spring and cook over a fire and sleep in tents.

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