Free climbing
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Free climbing is a form of rock climbing in which the climber can only use rock-climbing equipment for climbing protection but not as an artificial aid to help them in ascending the climbing routes. Free climbing, therefore, cannot use any of the mechanical tools that are widely used in aid climbing to help the climber overcome the obstacles they encounter while ascending a route (e.g. aiders or skyhooks). The development of free climbing was a transformational moment in the history of rock climbing, including the concept and definition of what determined a first free ascent (or FFA) of a climbing route by a climber.
Free climbing can be performed in several different types of rock-climbing formats that vary with the type of climbing protection that is used. Thus, free climbing can be done as traditional climbing (which only uses temporary and removable climbing protection), sport climbing (which only uses permanently fixed in-situ climbing protection), and bouldering and free solo climbing (both of which use no climbing protection whatsoever). Free climbing is sometimes misunderstood as only relating to the formats of free-solo climbing or of solo climbing, which is not correct.