Lessons Learned
|
Bring a working headlamp |
|
Don't start celebrating until the rope you rapped down on is on the ground. |
|
wivanoff wrote:Bring a working headlampAmen ! And I love reading these , anybody got some more ? |
|
Be kind and let people behind you pass... i spent an extra 3 hours on a route due to having to sit there on belay ledges waiting for the people in front of me to finish... turned what i expected to be an 8 hour day into 11 hours. |
|
Mike Anderson wrote:A very common mistake is trying to work through the grades on trad climbs. Instead, work on being a good climber, not a good trad climber, then once you have achieved that, it is very easy to apply "good climbing" skills to the sub-discipline of trad climbing.If that were really a good idea then the majority of folks here who actually do trad wouldn't climb 2-3 grades below their sport level. Sure a few top sport performers can cross-over reasonably well in a short time, but in general there's almost nothing more terrifying to watch than 5.12 gym/sport crossovers tackling old school trad 5.10s. All the way around there is simply way, way more involved with trad than movement and the idea the average Jim or Jill is going to weather that transition with aplomb and do it safely without coming up through the grades is fraught with problems. Bill Kirby wrote: Don't start celebrating until the rope you rapped down on is on the ground.I don't know. Seen a few fuck ups over the years which convinced me not to start celebrating until you're back at your car... NickinCO wrote:Being new to trad myself I love it when a guide book tells you the gear you'll need. When I climb at devils lake I usually end up bringing too much gear. That's the biggest thing that's holding me back with trad climbing and probably the major reason I can lead mid 11's sport and only 8/9's trad.I'd recommend going the opposite way - abandon the guide books and develop an eye. Being able to walk up to a rock, scope out the lines and map your abilities and gear to those lines is kind of the heart of the deal, or at least it is for FAs. If you always use guidebooks you may never develop an eye or understand what your abilities really are. Might give it a whirl. Will you epic occasionally? Absolutely and that's a sure sign you're learning. Risk/Reward/Repeat... |
|
Nivel Egres wrote: It's about trusting or not trusting your placements. Any solid 5.12 sport climber will be able follow a trad 5.12 and could certainly flash a trad 5.10 (yup, even at the Gunks). In fact, bouldering is probably the best possible training for trad.Climbing and placing gear are 2 completely different things. No different than saying you can top rope a 5.13 but can only lead a 5.11 sport. To be perfectly honest climbing with preset draws vs having to clip your own draws and rope are 2 different things also. I know sport routes i can't climb without preset draws due to reach but if they are already clipped to the wall i can lead it no problem. If you can climb to the point that you can free solo what you trad... is your trad gear placement even going to really matter? It comes down to alot more mental than really physical ability alot of times. If you are questioning your gear placements (because you don't know what you are doing) than your grade level for what you can climb really drops. To be honest though i love climbing trad because i don't care what level trad i climb. I just go look at a wall and try to get to the top. Who cares what level you climb. The only time i really push myself to the edge for pure climbing ability is when i am bouldering. |
|
Get good at falling. There is a art to it. If possible push back away from the wall so you can protect yourself and possibly avoid a ledge. |
|
Climb with friends or at least people you like, life is too short to climb with people you don't like. Yes, even cragging. Or should I say especially cragging, because you get to hang out with your partner(s) more? |
|
Nivel Egres wrote:It's about trusting or not trusting your placements.And there is so much more that goes into establishing that trust beyond sticking a chunk of metal in rock; things like: - being comfortable with what you are doing to begin with - understanding the rope system you are attempting to establish relative to drag on the pitch - having situational awareness on the line relative to placements - knowing when it's better to simply climb on rather than stop for and dick around with the pro - being able to read / plan placements ahead - being able to read placements, pick the right piece first time and get it placed the first try - continuously reading the fall potential / dynamics relative to last and next placement - learning if you're any good at placing pro no matter how much you do it Can lack of much of the above be compensated for if you boulder highball V5X confidently and lead sustained 5.13d sport? Absolutely, but can you? No? Then you're going to want to work up through the grades in trad. Certainly doesn't hurt to augment that with bouldering or sport, but the idea that just anyone can bypass following a lot of trad pitches and leading up through trad grades will meet a hard wall the first time you jump on something real. |
|
A lot of good information in this thread,.... and some stuff about goats, which matters less to me. |
|
Mathias, |
|
Thanks Bill. I'll have to look into that. |
|
TFCC injuries suck. 3-4 years after surgery, I find pushing a door open still hurts.
I learnt that climbing with straight wrists reduces my wrist injury rate. I learnt to think about how I'm loading body parts, and what might tear if I pull too hard. |
|
Mike Anderson wrote:A very common mistake is trying to work through the grades on trad climbs. Instead, work on being a good climber, not a good trad climber, then once you have achieved that, it is very easy to apply "good climbing" skills to the sub-discipline of trad climbing. The fastest way to becoming a good climber is bouldering and sport climbing.This is terrible advice if you ever want to be a decent trad climber. If you want to be a good trad climber, you have to climb a lot of trad. Sure, it helps to do other stuff too. But once you are really good at sport/gym/bouldering, and you try to transition over to trad climbing, you have a ton of things in your own way. GO |
|
wivanoff wrote:Bring a working headlampBest advice on this thread yet. |
|
Bump again , always down to hear some good advice |
|
Don't go crack climbing on polished granite the day after it rains. I know this sounds obvious...but we had limited time in the area and really wanted to climb this particular climb. |
|
Go for easy belays even if you pitch it out. Running out the rope and fiddling around with a fewer number of tricky belays takes more time than easy more frequent belays. |
|
Trad is a dead end? |
|
My name (rob) sounds a lot like Rock. When someone yells "rob", don't look up. it's actually a rock. |