AMCI Basic Mountaineering Course (BMC) 2002
History of MOUNTAINEERING
Mountain climbing, or mountaineering, is the practice of climbing to elevated points for sport, pleasure, or research.
The three principal types of mountaineering are :
- trail climbing, or hiking through forest trails to the top of small mountains
- rock climbing, the ascent to steeper mountains requiring the use of rope and steel spikes that are driven into the rock
- ice climbing, on very high mountains with peaks above the timber line
Dr. Michel_Gabriel Paccard first started the sport of mountain climbing by making the first ascent of Mont Blanc (15,771 ft) in Chamonix, France. The golden age of mountaineering began in the 1850s and ended with the conquest of the last great Alpine peaks, the Matterhorn.
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first climbed Mt. Everest, the world’s tallest mountain, in 1953.
The most popular high-altitude mountaineering site is the Himalayas. Alpine-style climbing’s birthplace is the alps-—also the birthplace of mountaineering.