Top rope climbing

Climbers on indoor climbing walls can use mechanical auto belay devices to top rope alone.

Top roping is one of the safest forms of rock climbing and is used by most beginners and novices of the sport.

By definition, top-roping is only possible where the climbers can get to the top of the route by other means so that they can set up the anchor and pass the rope through it.

[1][2][3] A belayer who takes in all the slack and maintains a high level of tautness in the rope is giving the climber a source of artificial aid in ascending the route.

[6] A first free ascent where the climber had practiced the route on a top rope (called headpointing or hangdogging), was noted in guidebooks to record its lesser status.

[8][9] In the 1998 climbing film Hard Grit, British traditional climber Johnny Dawes advocated for the use of a top rope — with enough slack in the rope to avoid any implication of aid (so that in a fall, the climber would fall a few metres before the rope became taut)— to qualify as a free ascent on extreme traditional climbing routes, however, his view was not adopted by the wider climbing community.

The technique of top roping in ice climbing is identical to that of rock climbing but sometimes the creation of a secure anchor point at the top of the route can be more complex if it involves securing into the ice (e.g. it may require the creation of an Abalakov thread anchor point).