Best Cliff

Along the northwestern coast of Kauaʻi, Hawaiʻi, the Nā Pali Cliffs form a rugged meeting of steep land and the Pacific Ocean. Deep, narrow valleys cut between ridges, with streams and waterfalls contributing to the coast's fluted, green appearance. Within Nā Pali Coast State Wilderness Park, these...

Within the Trango Towers group of Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, the east face of Great Trango Tower forms an extensive granite wall in the Karakoram. Its near-vertical relief exceeds 1,300 meters, giving it a prominent place in discussions of high-altitude big-wall climbing. Sustained rock climbing ta...

In Auyuittuq National Park on Baffin Island, Nunavut, the west face of Mount Thor presents a vast granite wall within the remote Baffin Mountains. Its drop of approximately 1,250 meters follows a largely vertical line, giving the face a strikingly abrupt profile. The rock wall is a defining geologic...

On the Normandy coast in France, Pointe du Hoc preserves the remains of a German coastal artillery position fortified during World War II. On June 6, 1944, U.S. Army Rangers climbed its approximately 100-foot cliffs under enemy fire to attack the position. The guns had been moved from their emplacem...

Known in English as Pulpit Rock, Preikestolen projects above the Lysefjord in Rogaland, Norway. Its near-flat granite platform stands about 604 meters above the fjord, with exposed edges and broad views across the surrounding mountains. The shape of the rock gives the viewpoint its character: a comp...

The eastern side of the Fitz Roy massif in Patagonian Argentina presents a steep granite face shaped by a glaciated mountain setting. Rock, snow, and ice contribute to the terrain, bringing alpine conditions into a wall that also demands sustained technical climbing. The face is part of the massif's...

On Cerro Torre in the Southern Patagonian Andes, the east face combines steep granite with ice and other alpine terrain near the Argentina-Chile border. Climbers encounter difficult rock alongside mixed sections, snow, and ice, so the face cannot be treated simply as a rock wall. Its shape and surfa...

Half Dome's northwest face rises as a sheer granite wall in Yosemite National Park, California. Its first ascent in 1957 by Royal Robbins, Mike Sherrick, and Jerry Gallwas marked an important development in American big-wall climbing. The face requires sustained movement over many rope lengths, with...

The Behistun Inscription is a monumental rock relief and multilingual text commissioned by the Achaemenid king Darius I on a cliff in present-day Kermanshah Province, Iran. Written in Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian, it recounts Darius's accession and his suppression of revolts across the empir...

Mount Roraima is a unique sandstone tepui – a table-top mountain – located in southern Venezuela. Its isolated flat summit creates a distinct ecosystem supporting unusual plant and animal life. The sheer cliffs offer significant geological interest for geologists and biologists studying high-altitud...

The northwest face of Half Dome is a major granite wall in Yosemite National Park, California, with a place in the history of American big wall climbing. Its Regular Northwest Face route was first climbed in 1957 by Royal Robbins, Mike Sherrick and Jerry Gallwas. That ascent helped establish the wal...

Fitz Roy, also known as Chaltén, is a granite mountain near El Chaltén in Patagonia, on the border between Argentina and Chile. Its steep, sharply defined summit and extensive rock faces give it a recognizable profile. Although grouped here with cliffs, it is a mountain with multiple climbing faces...

The Troll Wall is a mountain cliff in Romsdalen, Norway, formed from hard gneiss and rising about 1,100 meters above the valley. Its steep, fractured face includes long vertical sections and overhanging areas that have made it an important destination for experienced climbers and mountaineers. The s...

The Cliffs of Bandiagara are a sandstone escarpment and cultural landscape in central Mali associated with the Dogon people. Villages, houses, granaries, shrines, and burial sites are distributed along and below the cliff, reflecting long-established settlement traditions. The area is recognized as...

Cerro Torre is a prominent granite cliff located within the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. Its sheer face and challenging conditions have established it as one of the world’s most demanding climbing destinations. The peak, situated on the border between Argentina and Chile, attracts experienced moun...

Mount Thor is a granite cliff located on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. It holds the record for Earth’s steepest documented cliff face, plunging nearly 1,250 meters vertically. The sheer scale of its drop makes it a significant geological feature and a subject of study for geologists and glac...

The Falaises de Bonifacio are pale limestone sea cliffs on the southern coast of Corsica, France. The cliffs rise as much as about 70 meters above the Mediterranean and support the fortified town of Bonifacio on a narrow coastal promontory. Their layered rock, caves, inlets, and exposed position mak...

Møns Klint is a long line of white chalk cliffs on the eastern coast of the Danish island of Møn. The cliffs were shaped by glacial and coastal processes and expose chalk formed during the Cretaceous period, including layers containing marine fossils. Paths, stairways, and viewpoints allow visitors...

The Alpamayo Southwest Face is a prominent granite cliff located within Peru’s Cordillera Blanca. Noted for its exceptionally clean pyramidal shape, it represents one of the world's most visually striking mountains. This challenging ice-cliff attracts experienced climbers seeking demanding technical...

Trælanípa is a basalt cliff and rock outcrop on the island of Vágar in the Faroe Islands. It rises above Lake Sørvágsvatn near the Atlantic coast, creating an optical perspective in which the lake can appear to float above the sea when viewed from certain angles. A marked hiking route leads to the v...

The Qingshui Cliffs are a high coastal escarpment in Taroko National Park on Taiwan’s east coast. Mountains composed largely of metamorphic rock, including marble, descend steeply toward the Pacific Ocean, with some sections rising more than 1,000 meters above the shore. The cliffs are known for the...

The Dawn Wall represents one of climbing’s greatest achievements: a nearly vertical granite face on El Capitan within Yosemite National Park. Its remarkable difficulty—requiring months of sustained free climbing—made it notable in 2015 when a team successfully completed the ascent. This challenging...

Slieve League Cliffs are sea cliffs on the Atlantic coast of County Donegal in northwestern Ireland. The quartzite cliffs rise to roughly 600 meters above the ocean, making them among the highest marine cliffs in Europe. The area is visited for its coastal scenery and walking routes, including paths...

The Flysch Cliffs of Zumaia are a coastal geological formation in Gipuzkoa, within Spain’s Basque Country. Their exposed sedimentary layers extend between Zumaia and Deba and record more than 50 million years of Earth history, including major climate changes and the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary. Th...

Devils Tower is an igneous rock formation in northeastern Wyoming, within Devils Tower National Monument in the Bear Lodge Mountains. Its tall, near-vertical columns formed through cooling and jointing of magma, producing the distinctive polygonal structure used to identify it. President Theodore Ro...

The Cuernos del Paine are a series of towering granite cliffs located within Torres del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia. These sheer rock formations, composed of distinctive dark sedimentary stone, rise dramatically from the surrounding landscape. They are notable for their impressive scale...

Mount Asgard stands as a significant granite cliff face within Auyuittuq National Park on Baffin Island. Its dramatic twin peaks and near-vertical rock walls present one of Canada’s most challenging big wall climbs. Experienced alpinists seeking extreme technical climbing in the Arctic environment u...

Troll Peaks, also known as Trolltindene, is a significant granite cliff formation within the Romsdalen area of Norway. It’s notable for its dramatic alpine landscape and contains Trollveggen, Europe's highest sheer rock face. The peaks are primarily utilized by experienced climbers seeking challengi...

The Los Gigantes Cliffs are a series of steep volcanic sea cliffs on the western coast of Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands. The rock walls rise to about 500 meters in places and descend directly toward the Atlantic, forming a distinctive coastal landscape shaped by Tenerife’s volcanic geology and...