This is not true. Climbing at high altitude on snow, ice and rock is not the same as scaling sheer granite rock walls. Both rock and mountain climbing require a high level of conditioning ...

Behind the village rises a sheer 3,000-foot cliff that shimmers ... A thousand feet above us Alex is climbing, antlike, up the rock wall. The Althouris are beside themselves.

On a bright Saturday morning in September a young man is clinging to the face of Half Dome, a sheer 2,130 ... which means climbing with only a powdery chalk bag and rock shoes—no rope, no ...