Climbing Walls and Self Reliance Ethics in Climbing

With regard to indoor or outdoor artificial climbing facilities:
The Mountaineering Council of Scotland take an ethical stance that participation in a climbing activity is done in the full knowledge that it can be a hazardous sport with a risk of injury and that people participating in it should accept responsibility for their own actions and the consequences of any mistakes they make during climbing. This over-ridding ethic of climbing is just as relevant when a climber is participating in the activity on the mountain, on a crag or at an indoor (or outdoor) man-made climbing wall.

Wall manufactures have an obligation to ensure that the wall is structurally safe and performs its function (i.e. does not fall apart whilst being used), whilst climbing wall managers have a responsibility of ensuring the facilities they provide are safe for their intended use by their clients whilst they make use of all the facilities provided (as does any provider of a sporting facility). However, the MCofS believes that the climber has a duty to participate in the sport in such a way as to ensure his/her own safety as well as the safety of those climbers nearby who may be affected by their actions. All climbers at an artificial wall must therefore take responsibility for their own actions at the facility and should not feel that the centre management or the wall manufacturers are responsible for an accident that is the consequence of their climbing actions. The same duty of care and responsibilities to fellow climbers one automatically accepts at a natural crag are also relevant whilst climbing on an artificial wall.

[Taken from “Scottish Climbing Walls; Guidance for developers of climbing wall facilities in Scotland” published by the MCofS and Scottish Sports Council 1998]