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After a while in the gym, or a few trips to sport routes at Long Dong, you have probably seen these clips: someone dropping off a sea arch into the water, someone sleeping in a portaledge halfway up El Capitan, someone swinging two ice tools up a frozen waterfall, someone climbing Taipei 101 without a rope in January 2026.
All of these are climbing, yet they are very different from what you do in the gym. This series has seven posts and this one is the map. It places the five disciplines on three axes, gives each a paragraph on what it is, what you need first and whether you can practise it in Taiwan, and then suggests which post to read first.
Three axes: what stops a fall, what you climb on, how long you are committed
These five disciplines are not harder versions of the same thing. They differ in three places.
Protection: what catches you when you fall. In bouldering it is a mat; on top rope it is a rope and a belayer. Moving outward, there are four cases:
| Protection | Example |
|---|---|
| None | Free soloing |
| Water | Deep water soloing (DWS) |
| Your own rope, no belayer | Rope soloing |
| A belaying partner, gear you place | Big walls, ice climbing, alpine climbing |
Medium: what your hands and feet hold. Rock, ice, snow, or a mix of rock and ice. A new medium means new tools: on ice you use ice tools and crampons, and protection changes from cams to ice screws.
Commitment: how long until you are back on the ground. North America uses NCCS grades. The American Alpine Club comparison chart published by Alpinist defines them: I and II are half a day or less of technical climbing, IV is a full day, V "typically requires an overnight on the route", VI is two or more days and VII is remote walls climbed in alpine style. Single-pitch routes at Long Dong usually carry no NCCS grade; if they did, it would be Grade I.
These three axes decide what each discipline requires and where its risk lies.
The five disciplines
Deep water soloing: swap the crash pad for the sea
You climb ropeless above water, and a fall drops you in. The Wikipedia article on DWS traces it to Mallorca, Spain, in 1978. British climbers later added an S0–S3 scale that describes only what happens if you fall.
- What you need first: swimming, plus bouldering experience. No rope skills at all.
- In Taiwan: possible, at very few spots. On Mountain Project, Long Dong's Crystal Blue Temptation is a roughly 6 m route in a pool enclosed by rocks, and the poster warns that elsewhere the rip currents are strong.
- More: Part 1: Deep water soloing.
Big walls and aid climbing: multi-pitch stretched over days
Big walls are long routes that take a full day or several; Grade V and up usually means a night on the wall. Climbing.com's big wall guide calls a big wall "just an overgrown rock route", complicated by aid climbing and hauling a bag. Aid climbing means standing on gear you place, usually through the hardest sections.
- What you need first: placing trad gear, building anchors, multi-pitch systems and self-rescue. Climbing.com says you should be comfortable leading at least 5.9 on gear.
- In Taiwan: nothing of big wall scale. Long Dong's cliffs reach about 70 m (climbstone.com Long Dong guide), but it is a good place to get your multi-pitch systems dialled.
- More: Part 2: Big walls and aid climbing.
Ice, mixed and dry tooling: a different medium
Ice climbing means two ice tools and crampons on frozen waterfalls or alpine ice. A route that is part ice, part rock is mixed climbing; using ice tools and crampons on bare rock with no ice at all is dry tooling. Belaying and leading work as they do on rock; protection becomes ice screws turned into the ice.
- What you need first: top-rope belaying and rappelling. One Korea ice training trip sold in Taiwan asks for "climbing experience, able to rappel and belay on top rope" plus six basic knots (sign-up page, in Chinese).
- In Taiwan: almost no natural ice. A gym in Kaohsiung has set up an ice-tool training area, but climbers wear rock shoes, and the article itself notes it is a derived form of ice-climbing practice, not dry tooling in the strict sense (go4mosa, in Chinese). Real ice means travelling.
- More: Part 3: Ice, mixed and dry tooling.
Alpine climbing: rock, ice and snow plus the mountain itself
Alpine climbing uses rock, ice and mixed techniques to reach summits or climb mountain faces. Its biggest difference from the others is objective hazard: the Wikipedia article on alpine climbing lists rockfall, avalanches, falling seracs, crevasses, storms and altitude. Alpine routes are graded F to ED (Alpinist grade chart), which rates the seriousness of the whole route, approach and descent included.
- What you need first: multi-pitch, snow and ice skills, navigation, reading weather and knowing when to retreat.
- In Taiwan: snow-climbing level only. To enter the Shei-Pa National Park protected area in the snow season you must attach a "snow-climbing equipment and skills self-check form" (National Park Service 2026 snow-season notice, in Chinese). Technical alpine routes mean going abroad, usually with a guide or a course the first time.
- More: Part 4: Alpine climbing.
Free soloing: no second chance
Free soloing means no rope and no protection at all, just shoes and chalk. The example Taiwanese readers know best is Alex Honnold's Netflix livestream on 25 January 2026, when he climbed Taipei 101 ropeless in 1 hour 31 minutes (Wikipedia: Skyscraper Live).
- What you need first: this series does not teach it and does not recommend it.
- In Taiwan: not applicable.
- More: Part 5: Free soloing and rope soloing covers only the accident record, the ethics debate and why climbing alone on a rope carries its own risks; Part 6: How to Rope Solo covers the gear and pre-climb checks for top-rope soloing, single-pitch lead soloing and multipitch soloing.
Prerequisites at a glance
| Discipline | Minimum first | Taiwan | Main source of risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deep water soloing | Swimming, bouldering | A few spots at Long Dong | Entry position, drowning, submerged rock |
| Big walls | Trad, anchors, multi-pitch, self-rescue | Systems practice only | System errors, long exposure, hard retreats |
| Ice | Top-rope belay, rappel, knots | Gym ice-tool training area | Ice screws pulling, falling ice, changing conditions |
| Alpine | Multi-pitch + snow/ice + navigation + weather | Snow-climbing level | Rockfall, avalanches, weather, descent |
| Free soloing | Not recommended | Not applicable | Any single mistake |
Accident counts cannot rank danger
Climbing.com's summary of the American Alpine Club's 2025 Accidents in North American Climbing (ANAC): among 2024 accidents in the US and Canada, alpine climbing led with 71, trad had 52, sport 35, and free soloing and deep water soloing together had 9.
It is tempting to conclude that alpine is the most dangerous and soloing the safest. Climbing.com itself warns against that: these are totals, not rates. Its reading is that high counts may simply reflect how many people do a discipline; one with few participants can have few accidents and still a high rate.
So whenever a post in this series discusses risk, it says what has happened and how it usually happens, never "this is X times more dangerous than that", because no data can answer the second question yet.
Which post should I read first?
| You are | Read first |
|---|---|
| Gym boulderer looking for the closest step outdoors | Deep water soloing, if you can swim |
| A trad climber with a few multi-pitches | Big walls and aid climbing |
| Comfortable on top-rope belay, planning a winter trip | Ice, mixed and dry tooling |
| A hiker of Taiwan's high peaks with snow training, eyeing technical routes | Alpine climbing |
| Just watched the Taipei 101 stream and wondering how dangerous soloing is | Free soloing and rope soloing |
| Can rig a top rope and rappel, but can't find a partner | How to Rope Solo |
If you have not climbed outdoors yet, start with Sport vs trad climbing. For books on big walls and soloing, see the climbing books knowledge map. If you want to make snow, ice and alpine your profession, read What is an IFMGA mountain guide.
Practice: three scenarios
Answers are below each question. Think first, then check.
1. You have only bouldered in the gym and want to try the closest kind of outdoor climbing.
Answer
Deep water soloing. It needs no rope skills, and your bouldering movement transfers directly. You must be able to swim and should never go alone. Read Part 1 and learn entry technique and how to check water depth first.
2. A friend says: "ANAC shows alpine has the most accidents, so free soloing is safer than alpine climbing."
Answer
That treats totals as rates. 71 and 9 are accident counts, not divided by participants or climbing days. Far more people probably climb alpine routes than free solo, but this data has no participant numbers; Climbing.com explicitly says the soloing rate could be high. The data cannot rank which is more dangerous.
3. A route is listed as "VI 5.9 C2" and you only understand the 5.9. What does VI mean?
Answer
VI is the NCCS commitment grade: an average team needs two or more days. 5.9 is the hardest free climbing, and C2 is the grade of the aid sections. Three grades side by side is the usual big wall notation, unpacked in Part 2.
Update Log
- 2026-10-24: the series gained part 6, How to Rope Solo; the post count is now seven, and the soloing section and "which post first" table link to it. Facts in this post were not re-checked.
References
- Climbing Grade Comparison Chart (Alpinist, courtesy of the American Alpine Journal)
- 9 Interesting Stats From 210 Climbing Accidents (Climbing.com, summary of ANAC 2025)
- Deep-water soloing (Wikipedia)
- Crystal Blue Temptation, Long Dong (Mountain Project)
- Long Dong climbing information (climbstone.com)
- How to Climb a Big Wall (Climbing.com)
- Korea ice climbing course (Goforwild, in Chinese)
- Lin Yi-fan, a Taiwanese ice climber from Kaohsiung (go4mosa, in Chinese)
- Alpine climbing (Wikipedia)
- 2026 snow-season notice, Shei-Pa National Park (National Park Service, in Chinese)
- Skyscraper Live (2026) (Wikipedia)
- Sport vs trad climbing
- What is an IFMGA mountain guide
- Climbing books knowledge map