What Will Rock Climbing on Mars Look Like?

I've recently gotten into bouldering and rock climbing. I love it. I've been doing it for about 6 months now and can now climb v4s. It's not much, but I've been consistently training and don't see myself stopping anytime soon. As with everything in life, I wish I had discovered it earlier. I'm 22, and wish that I started when I was a kid so that I could potentially do something amazing for the sport. While 22 is still young, I accepted that I probably won't do something substantial, and it will just be some fun and fulfilling exercise.

BUT then I saw it - a way I can do something that I think is amazing for rock climbing... I was watching some 8k footage of Mars, and thought to myself, "Those rocks look really climbable... Whoa, that would be awesome!" As a futurist, I am hopeful that I can live on Mars before I die, so naturally, I would also want to rock climb on Mars! How cool would it be to pioneer the climbing scene on Mars? I started doing some research, and there's a wikipedia article of the list of mountains on Mars by height. There are a lot, but we are interested in the tallest one of course.

Olympus Mons: The Tallest Mountain On Mars

Olympus Mons is the tallest mountain on Mars (and the coolest sounding one). Its name is well deserved; it is the second tallest mountain in our solar system, second to Rheasilvia on Vesta. It has a hright of 70,000 feet (21,000 m). This is 2.5x the size of Mt. Everest. It's hard to know just how possible it is to climb, since the peak may be sticking out of Mars' atmosphere.

It most likely isn't the most interesting or challenging climb on Mars either, due to its size. It's surface area is the size of Italy, and due to the size and shallow slopes, you can't get a full view of the mountain. According to its Wikipedia page, its sloping profile is only 5 degrees. While there are some interesting features like collapsed raters and cliffs, you can probably just walk up most of it. Nonetheless, it has to be climbed.

Side note: I learned that mountains can grow so large on Mars because they lack mobile tectonic plates. Unlike on Earth, the crust of Mars remains fixed and volcanoes can continue discharging lava until it reaches an enormous height.

Other Routes

Even if Olympus Mons isn't the most interesting climb, I'm sure there are tons of other routes waiting to be discovered. Here are some cool images I screencaptured from the 8k footage of potential routes.

Cementing it

I want to be the first person to rock climb on Mars. Wouldn't that be amazing?!? Now, I just need Elon Musk to pull through :)