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The Secrets of Setting a New Rock Climbing Route

Published: 2026-11-08 👁 104 views
Last updated 2026-11-08 — Developing a beautiful, safe, and challenging rock climbing route requires extensive climbing experience, a deep understanding of the rock face, physical strength, and excellent climbing skills. This article is written by Gu Gu and photographed by ROCKER Zhang Rui. The work of designing and developing climbing routes on natural rock walls is called “setting a route,” known in English as...……
The Secrets of Setting a New Rock Climbing Route

Developing a beautiful, safe, and challenging rock climbing route requires extensive climbing experience, a deep understanding of the rock face, physical strength, and excellent climbing skills.


Gu Gu > Written by | ROCKER Zhang Rui > Photography by

The work of designing and developing climbing routes on natural rock walls is called “setting a route,” known in English as “bolting route.” Setting a route is a highly imaginative and creative yet extremely demanding task. Developing a beautiful, safe, and challenging climbing route requires extensive climbing experience, a deep understanding of the rock face, physical strength, and excellent climbing skills.
 

 


Preparation for Route Setting

First, you need to find and discover a suitable rock wall. Locating a beautiful and climbable rock face is the first step.

 

Next, after finding a suitable rock wall, an inspection is required. Once it's determined that the wall can be developed, planning is needed. Based on the shape and features of the rock face, it should be divided into several zones, and the type of routes to develop in each zone should be designed according to its characteristics.

 

Having rich climbing and route-setting experience can be very helpful. This stage requires a good deal of imagination and creativity. Although the features of the rock face are naturally formed, the direction and height of the climbing route, as well as which part of the wall to climb, can be designed by the route setter. A high-quality, beautiful climbing route should have the following features: clean and solid rock, safe and properly placed protection points, consistent climbing difficulty, diverse and engaging moves, and an appropriate route length.



 

 

Route-Setting Gear

To do a good job, you need the right tools. After completing the design and planning, gear needs to be prepared based on requirements. The typical gear used for setting routes falls into the following categories:

 

Drilling Tools: Cordless drill, drill bits; Protection Points: Stainless steel expansion bolts, hangers, or stainless steel glue-in anchors with glue, and depending on the type, quality, and environment of the rock, select appropriate protection points, as well as maillons or quicklinks;
Installation Tools: Rock hammer, wrench, blow tube;
Climbing Gear: Dynamic rope, static rope, carabiners, quickdraws, slings, accessory cord, ascenders, GriGri, belay devices, traditional climbing gear (cams, nuts, etc.), aid climbing gear (pitons, etriers, etc.), and personal climbing gear (helmet, harness, climbing shoes, chalk bag). Cleaning Tools: Pry bar, saw, sickle, wire brush, stiff brush, etc.; Other Auxiliary Tools: Drag rope, pulley, rope knife, headlamp, haul bag, thin accessory cord, etc.



 
Methods of Route Setting

Generally, there are two methods for setting routes: top-down and bottom-up.

Relatively speaking, the top-down method is easier and more efficient, and most routes are set this way.


Step one: Find the easiest and safest way to reach the top of the rock wall. You can choose another part of the wall and approach from an easier climbing area, or select the easiest route and climb up using traditional methods. Either way, reaching the top of the wall is the goal. Step two: Once at the top, set up an anchor station at the top of the planned route, then rig the top rope. Step three: Test-climb the designed route using the top rope. During this process, determine the route’s line and the placement of each bolt—this is a crucial step. What the final route will look like is largely decided here. You need to anticipate various situations climbers might encounter: potential falls, overcoming cruxes, bolt spacing, whether quickdraws can be placed conveniently, etc., to ensure the bolts are placed logically. The more route-setting experience you have, the better.

Step four: Drill holes and install bolts. Although this is a concrete operation, many details must be considered: the quality of the rock at the drilling spot, fine adjustments to bolt placement, the direction, depth, and angle of the drill hole relative to the rock face, how deep the expansion bolts go, the tightness of the nuts, the angle of the hangers, etc.


Step five: Clean the route. Cleaning the route is also very important. Loose or unstable rocks, weeds, shrubs, dust, moss, and other debris all need to be cleared so that the cleaned route becomes safer and doesn’t hinder climbing. Of course, the surrounding environment and access paths of the rock wall should also be tidied up..


 



A high-quality climbing route will attract many climbers to scale and challenge it, allowing them to dance a beautiful “cliff ballet” on the wall, thus becoming a classic route. This brings great satisfaction and honor to the route setter, making all the hard work worthwhile—and that is precisely the meaning of route setting.


Tàn Lù Lǘ – Professional Outdoor Adventure & Self-Drive Tours !

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