Why is Trad so much more difficult in grade than sport?

One other point - most of what has been said above applies only to "easier" trad routes, and to gear protected face routes.

On harder routes that are continuous cracks, there really should be little to no difference in how hard you climb, if your technique is equivalent, because many of the issues described by RGold and others (routefinding, unsafe falls, poor gear, tricky to place gear, etc) simply do not apply.

On face climbs with finicky gear, tenuous stances, and must-not-fall sections, my average onsight grade is a full five or six letter grades difference from where it would be on the same climb if it were sport-bolted.

But for well protected pure crack climbs, there is only about a letter grade difference between how hard I can onsight, compared to my hardest sport onsights.

GO

And another thing - trad climbing takes most people a long time to master. Sport climbing, on the other hand, is much more straightforward. Add to that the fact that many people these days start in the gym, and then sport climb, and then trad climb.

Put those together and you'll find that many people are somewhere between competence and mastery at sport climbing, while still being novices at trad. Of course that will lead to huge discrepancies in the grades they climb.

GO

One more factor which hasn't really been mentioned is the simply the added weight in trad climbing. I've never weighed my rack, but I would guess that when I'm loaded down for a long unfamiliar route I am carrying easily 15 pounds more than I would be on an equivalent sport route. I haven't tried it because it would seem silly but I'll bet carrying a full rack on sport climbs would lower your grade a notch or two.

Ed kelly wrote:One more factor which hasn't really been mentioned is the simply the added weight in trad climbing. I've never weighed my rack, but I would guess that when I'm loaded down for a long unfamiliar route I am carrying easily 15 pounds more than I would be on an equivalent sport route. I haven't tried it because it would seem silly but I'll bet carrying a full rack on sport climbs would lower your grade a notch or two.

I agree with this. The length of time required to place a piece is longer for trad as well, I think even counting to 15 or 20 while in your clipplng stance on a sport climb near your limit before clipping would make it more difficult and certainly more tiring.

If yr "redpointing" trad then the gear isnt really a factor in terms of weight ... As youve generally worked out the sequence

Onsighting is another ball game, especially on multi where you often need to bring up the whole shebang

In many ways trad in squamish can be "safer" than sport as you can often get a piece above you on many of the classic moderates

Its basically a moving top rope

;)

For me personally its def. the "placing gear" part, when sport climbing it's almost remedial, Check bolt, place biner spine in correct direction, don't back clip, watch your feet, monitor your fall path. Climb! In my mind Trad adds sooo much more... Is there a placement above? Do I have a piece that'll work/fit when I get there? Did my last piece walk on me? Will it hold if I fall on it? Did I extend enough? Am I even on route? What about pieces for belay/topping out? Where do I belay(where the hells the ledge)? Etc.... mentally I'm tired and I haven't even climbed yet. For me it just boils down to experience and time on the rock, climbing more trad!

As a new trad leader that did the gym > sport > trad progression, the hard parts were 1) gear placement & weight (as everyone mentioned) and 2) not knowing how to crack climb. I had no idea how to climb a crack when I started trad, even though I was working 11s in face climbs. The style is so different. If I personally had the same mileage on cracks, I would imagine the grade I climb at to be much closer to sport. Plus, I'm a pansy.

Trad is often easier for me. The movement is more intuitive and the feet/jams are more secure. There's a reason you'll see more people soloing moderate cracks than moderate face routes.

JeffL wrote:Trad is often easier for me. The movement is more intuitive and the feet/jams are more secure. There's a reason you'll see more people soloing moderate cracks than moderate face routes.

I would say that has more to do with a) you are resting on your skeleton when crack climbing, b) cracks don't break, face holds do.

Bill Czajkowski wrote:How much do you know about the reliability of trad gear? If you knew more, would you have more or less doubts?

Since putting up new routes I have much less faith in bolts that I used to. Trad gear and bolts are onlyas good as the rock they are in and the person that placed them. I have a new perspective on this now. It seems fairly universal to climb two letters to an entire number grade higher for sport though for whatever reason.

I kind of wonder at this question -- to me it seems obvious that trad should be expected to be harder at any particular grade. Without even considering that type of climbing itself -- given the exact same climb, it would be harder on gear than on bolts and harder leading on bolts than on top rope.

The climb, though, is rated for the difficulty of the movement -- how hard it would be to do on top rope, essentially.

On top rope, you're just doing the moves. No extra weight.
Sport, you're doing the moves and finding clipping stances and spending time clipping and burning energy while doing that. Plus you have a bit of extra weight with a bunch of draws. Plus a bit more extra weight nearer the end of the climb with the rope weight.
Trad, you're doing all the same moves, but now you're also finding and evaluating placements and spending the time and energy to place gear. Even if you get every placement exactly right the first time (which may happen on a red-point attempt, but won't happen for most of us on an on-sight or for any climb we haven't heavily rehearsed), and you have as much or more weight in draws, and then you have another 15-25lbs in rack.

I've heard people say that every 10lbs you lose is another letter grade. 20lbs of trad gear is two grades, right there.

David Gibbs wrote: you have as much or more weight in draws, and then you have another 15-25lbs in rack. I've heard people say that every 10lbs you lose is another letter grade. 20lbs of trad gear is two grades, right there.

Not to mention all the extra weight in cojones

Wow. A big thanks to everyone that's responded. The more you talk about trad and cracks, the more I want it. I know I have A LOT to learn but feel I'm well on my way. I've done some crack climbing and it seems to suit me. I enjoy cramming myself and getting scabbed up. And I'm comfortable with the trust I put on myself. Now I just need to get the dough together. I have the best mentor I could hope for. Maybe the fact that he is moving away from ventura to mammoth is just another sign that trad suits me best. Because I'll be climbing the sierras often soon. Also, thanks for being informative and non combative. I know how passionate climbers are about there knowledge. You guys can make a person feel like they're scrapping for waves at Malibu or Rincon. May the most badass prevail!

David Gibbs wrote:I kind of wonder at this question -- to me it seems obvious that trad should be expected to be harder at any particular grade. Without even considering that type of climbing itself -- given the exact same climb, it would be harder on gear than on bolts and harder leading on bolts than on top rope. The climb, though, is rated for the difficulty of the movement -- how hard it would be to do on top rope, essentially. On top rope, you're just doing the moves. No extra weight. Sport, you're doing the moves and finding clipping stances and spending time clipping and burning energy while doing that. Plus you have a bit of extra weight with a bunch of draws. Plus a bit more extra weight nearer the end of the climb with the rope weight. Trad, you're doing all the same moves, but now you're also finding and evaluating placements and spending the time and energy to place gear. Even if you get every placement exactly right the first time (which may happen on a red-point attempt, but won't happen for most of us on an on-sight or for any climb we haven't heavily rehearsed), and you have as much or more weight in draws, and then you have another 15-25lbs in rack. I've heard people say that every 10lbs you lose is another letter grade. 20lbs of trad gear is two grades, right there.

Also add that sport is primarily single pitch and trad is often multipitch, so you may be wearing a small bullet pack with food/water, rain jacket, walkoff shoes, etc. Oh and the weight of the helmet as well, since typically sport climbers are too cool to wear one, but most trad climbers tend to wear them (unless they are getting some shots taken for the climbing porn rags).

David Gibbs wrote:I kind of wonder at this question -- to me it seems obvious that trad should be expected to be harder at any particular grade. Without even considering that type of climbing itself -- given the exact same climb, it would be harder on gear than on bolts and harder leading on bolts than on top rope. The climb, though, is rated for the difficulty of the movement -- how hard it would be to do on top rope, essentially. On top rope, you're just doing the moves. No extra weight. Sport, you're doing the moves and finding clipping stances and spending time clipping and burning energy while doing that. Plus you have a bit of extra weight with a bunch of draws. Plus a bit more extra weight nearer the end of the climb with the rope weight. Trad, you're doing all the same moves, but now you're also finding and evaluating placements and spending the time and energy to place gear. Even if you get every placement exactly right the first time (which may happen on a red-point attempt, but won't happen for most of us on an on-sight or for any climb we haven't heavily rehearsed), and you have as much or more weight in draws, and then you have another 15-25lbs in rack. I've heard people say that every 10lbs you lose is another letter grade. 20lbs of trad gear is two grades, right there.

If you've got that much weight on your harness you're either carrying a rack of iron from the 60s or you've got way too much gear.

Jon Clark wrote: If you've got that much weight on your harness you're either carrying a rack of iron from the 60s or you've got way too much gear.

Agreed. If your harness is 20 lbs heavier when you rack up for a trad lead vs a sport climb, you might be doing it wrong.

Trad climbing is more scary because you can't see the spiders hiding in the cracks, lol.

In addition to the obvious gear placement issues people have mentioned, I think there is some definite correlational factors at play as well. Sport climbing is a relatively new sport compared to trad, and the ratings tend to be a lot more in line with gym ratings and "softer" than old school trad ratings. Route finding is also a huge issue, as inexperienced trad climbers will often force themselves into making significantly more difficult moves than the rated grade in an effort to maintain a straight line. As an illustration, I find even toproping in trad areas more difficult for the grade than leading in sport areas. I'll happily lead any 10 or low 11 in Red River Gorge, for example, but have been pounced by 8s and 9s at Devil's Lake, lol.

Standard squamish single rack

- full set of walnuts

- dragons from baby blue to big blue

- purple and blue metolius

- nut tool

draws not included as youll be carring the draws up anyways for a sport climb unless its permadrawed or you prehung them

Total weight 4 LB, 4 oz

Even a full set of doubles will be ~ 8 LB

Unless yr hauling quadruples of all sizes or carrying valley giants theres no way on gods green earth yr dragging up an extra 20 LBs on te equivalent trad climb

Ie comparing sport multi to trad multi ... Or sport cragging to trad cragging

;)

climbing friend,

those who do the climbing rocks of traditional style have balls most enormous. That is why each grade would be feeling harder on trad when compare to sport. The extra mass and heft may drag you down.

Because it's more badass, obviously! But really, just kidding. I just went out to Estes Park from Michigan for a few days, with ambitious intentions of climbing 5.10 finger cracks at Lumpy, because I'd been training on gym toprope wooden cracks for 8 months...toe/rand smears, hanging on single pinkie-down locks, practicing placing gear in those stances, etc. Got out there and did Melvin's Wheel and realized that was as hard as I could comfortably lead at 5.8+...well, shit, it's hard there, onsighting routes first climbed in 1969. Oh well. Went on and did some single-pitch 5.9 trad and climbed Piz Badille, which turned out to be the most memorable lead of the trip at 5.6 (pretty sure I led the 5.8 variation of the first pitch, including a couple 30+ foot runouts). Trad climbing is all about enjoying the responsibility for your own safety and enjoyment, and working through scary/hard moves because you have to. A pretty sweet game to play, indeed. Yes, I climb harder sport, but I prefer the lower numbers and greater entertainment.