There are two basic categories to "solo" climbing. The first, also known as "free soloing", is simply climbing without a rope. If you slip, you splat. Nothing complicated.

	Don Mellor Don Mellor Don Mellor has been climbing, writing about climbing, and teaching climbing for more than 25 years. Meet Don Expert Answers

The second category is called"roped soloing", where a lone climber attaches one end of his rope to a solid belay anchor and then proceeds upward, keeping himself attached to the rope with some kind of ascender, prusik system, moving clove hitch, or some kind of solo belay device. He's not attached to an end of the rope. Instead, the solo climber pulls out enough rope to make a series of moves, clipping protection just as he would on a typical two-person climb.

There are a lot of negatives to roped solo climbing. A fall loads the attachment system (the ascending device, Gri-Gri, prusiks, clove hitch, whatever). This is not good because many of these aren't designed to take such a load. Also, paying out the rope usually requires at least one hand, so obviously, it's tough to do a hard free (fifth class) climb using this technique. On a "big wall" aid route, however, it's easy to pull out three feet or so while standing in etriers. Thus, roped soloing is much more suitable to aid climbs than free climbs.

There are a few products that allow automatic feeding of the rope, but I won't get into the details in such a short answer; nor do I want to say anything here to encourage solo climbing as a safe alternative. It isn't.

Once the roped soloist reaches the next belay anchor, he rappels back to the last anchor, detaches the rope, then ascends back up to repeat the process. If there is a haul bag involved, then there's all the more work.

Free soloing is crazy. Roped soloing is tedious. Better to enjoy a climb with a friend and partner.

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