Once a chic pursuit for wealthy youth and adventurous others, by the 1990s rock climbing had come to embody a path toward greater self-fulfillment for the average person. Embraced by corporations and schools, rock climbing and the rope skills associated with it became tools to improve corporate teamwork and boost self-esteem in "at risk" school children. While an international audience could watch extremely skilled athletes scale difficult, dangerous rock faces in televised competitions, rock climbing was available to almost anyone. For the average person, the physical challenges offered by rock climbing were overshadowed by the mental strength participants could gain by learning the sport's skills even if they never stepped foot on an actual mountain top.

Essentially a subset of mountaineering, especially during the early part of the twentieth century, rock climbing involves scaling rock faces ranging in height from tens to thousands of feet and...