By: Claire Li

Imagine thousands of bright and colorful rock climbing holds, all glued tight to a wall. Imagine gripping so tightly on the holds to climb up and feeling like you could fall down any second. These are all parts of a sport more than 500,000 people in South Korea play and enjoy – rock climbing.

Rock climbing requires many attributes like agility, strength, and the ability to solve problems. Bouldering is a type of rock climbing that involves going through many challenging courses without a rope. Aside from bouldering, there is also lead and top rope climbing. Top rope climbing is when you are attached by a rope at the top, and climbers climb up using the rock climbing holds. Lead climbing begins similarly to top rope climbing, but the climber has their rope unattached to anything besides the climber and belayer and the climber is clipping to holds as they ascend. It is basically top rope climbing but a bit more extreme. To many people, rock climbing is a thrilling and exciting sport to participate in. Rock climbing has had more and more climbers over time especially in recent years. Now, there are over 600 rock climbing areas all over South Korea.

“Also, in the past few years, there has been a rise in ‘extreme’ sports in Korea — surfing, skydiving, and climbing. But climbing especially has become more popular because it is less likely to be limited by weather and place,” said the owner of Code Holds Sangdong Kim, according to Climbing Business Journal.

What makes this sport so popular? One big reason is the media. An example is the movie Exit. In Exit, there are multiple scenes that feature rock climbing. The creators of the movie made the scenes dramatic and thrilling, inspiring many people to try the sport out. When rock climbing is shared on social media, it sparks the interest of many people as well. Rock climbing is also a sport that provides many opportunities for socializing. Many people like to team up together in bouldering and try to figure out the route together. Lastly, according to many climbers, going through courses is lively and an escape from the daily bore of work/school. It can be a break from climbers’ daily stressors in life by allowing them to team up with strangers and to go through a challenging and exciting course of rock climbing.

Image Credit by Allan Mas