Avoiding Catastrophic Errors

Hi everyone,

My partner and I are starting to make the transition from sport climbing to trad. I am planning on taking a local course to learn the fundamentals this spring, but I wanted to hear any veteran advice on avoiding fatal errors in trad. I am sure learning to be efficient and make good placements comes over time, but what non-negotiable systems need to be solid before going out? I assume bomber anchor building and rappel systems to be among the most important, but what else? 

Additionally, are there any less committing ways to get trad experience--top rope while placing gear?

Thank you!

Mason Curtis wrote:

Additionally, are there any less committing ways to get trad experience--top rope while placing gear?

Go find some not-crowded 5.10 and 5.11 cracks and aid climb them (using clean gear, of course). After you aid a crack, do it again using just cams and then again using just stoppers.

Yes, your gear will "only" be holding body weight, but you'll learn quickly what kind of placements are good and which aren't so good.

And do not skip on the stoppers. In many places stoppers are better placements than cams and one can carry a lot of stoppers for the weight of one cam.

I’m presuming you’ll start out on single pitch trad routes, which 99% of the time have bolted anchors, so i wouldn’t immediately worry about anchor building yet.

I would argue you should be 100% solid at leading bolted 5.8 before venturing into trad. The most common way to get injured trad climbing, is placing poor gear, ( or no gear) in areas with bad fall potential. Top rope mock leading is great way to get the feel for it. 

Top rope while placing gear is an excellent place to start.

Also, some sport routes also have some gear placements, so leading those on the bolts plus adding supplementary gear is good.

Weight each piece while you clean them. Bring a long sling and clip to the piece and step on, or clip with a PAS and bounce your body a couple times. The point is to learn which placements are good vs. bad, and also train your lizard brain to trust the gear.

When you do your first few trad leads, pick short routes and over-place gear. As soon as the previous piece is at your waist or knees, place the next. The point is to have as many pieces between you and the ground as possible. Rather than just using cams, make every other piece a stopper, to conserve cams and also get practice doing it. Take your time; this is not about completing the routes, it is about getting practice placing gear. Also, by having so many placements, you are kept safer while you learn which placements are good vs. less good.

Have fun and have a goal. Maybe find a longer term project to be thinking about. You are learning trad for a reason, I'm sure. For most climbers taking up trad climbing is to get on routes that are inaccessible otherwise and not necessarily to push grades.

Lots of good advice in this thread https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/200343178/looking-for-a-trad-gear-needed-on-bolted-route-route

Very important to push your grade OR push your gear, but not both. Start trad leading on routes that are dead easy for you so that you can take your time in solid stances fumbling with the gear and learning to use your eyes or fingers to assess what size and type of gear you need to place.

Be sure to know your descent route before starting up. Even trad climbs with bolted anchors don't always have intuitive or straight-forward descents. Read the beta on MP or in your guidebook for every route you attempt when you are learning.  

If you're comfortable leading 5.10 sport you should start leading 5.5 to 5.7 trad routes. Aiding in order to learn to trust gear is good advice, as is using passive pro. Try to learn multiple ways to achieve the same goal, as you will find yourself creatively challenged by trad. Good luck.

Seconding routes with more experienced leaders.

The top suggestion so far is Brad Young’s regarding finding a good 5.10 or 5.11 finger crack. Just study techniques to avoid falling on a piece that is connected directly to your belay loop. You don’t need etriers.

Second for me, separate from aid climbing, is L Kap’s about challenging your ability to move up or to place gear, but not both at the same time.  Time honored.

Someone wrote a book just for you.

https://www.abebooks.com/9780899972558/Traditional-Lead-Climbing-Surviving-Learning-0899972551/plp

Stagg54 Taggart wrote:

Someone wrote a book just for you.

https://www.abebooks.com/9780899972558/Traditional-Lead-Climbing-Surviving-Learning-0899972551/plp

Ha, I have this book from about 20 years ago. Has it been updated? I remember that even then it referred to a bunch of obsolete gear. No ding on the author, and basic concepts are mostly the same, it's just that gear and techniques evolve. 

I know its kind of the old fashioned approach but I think going out with someone experienced and following them on relativly easy for you climbs were you can really focus on understanding the gear you remove is very worth while.

When I've been introducing people I also have found a lot of merit in spending time on a quiet bit of rock just placing gear at ground level and then clipping in to hang and bounce.

A lot also depends on where you climb if its natural anchors then learning about building quick, efficient and safe anchors has to be a priority.

Great topic! Double-checking knots, redundancy in anchors, and clear communication are my top priorities. Have you come across any near-misses that changed the way you approach safety? Learning from real experiences is invaluable. If you're writing an assignment on safety or practical experiences, lastminutewriting.com/assig… can help you structure your ideas and make your paper more impactful. Last Minute Writing service writers can assist in crafting a well-rounded argument for your assignment.

I am still a learning trad leader, but the main thing is slow yourself down and do things right. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. As others mentioned, you want to downgrade early leads so they're comfortable as you will spend a lot more time than you expect initially placing gear as compared to clipping bolts, so you'll need the endurance and comfort to do so. 

Biggest thing is having a plan for self or partner rescue, as that's by far the most complex scenario you will encounter. 

https://climbingdangers.net/

You might find something of interest in this article I wrote...

Hi Mason, I have been thinking about what to write for a day. A lot of contributions here are good. But if you pick one as your go to guide, Phylp's "Climbing Dangers" would be a great choice, because a recurring theme in her article is the mental aspect, and it is your brain more than anything that can keep you in one piece. In particular the part "BEING PRESENT; PAYING ATTENTION", should  be every climbers mantra. All the time. It doesn't mean,  to me, focusing on all the minutiae all the time. The big or whole picture is just as important, and recognizing where you are in the big picture will tell you how to manage the minutiae. 

Obviously some guidance is more than just useful. A class is good. Following a skilled leader is good. Leading a skilled leader would be great. 

Something to add, whilst trad climbers like to present ourselves as the only true climbers due to the imense complexity and danger of trad climbing this is mainly bollocks to make use feel better about being too weak for sport climbing   .

The truth is it isn't that complex(*) and most trad climbing is super safe, if (and its a big if) you know what you are doing. So get stuck in, seduce a trad Daddy, Mummy or Non-binary Parent Figure down the local wall to do a bit of mentoring, start slow, read some stuff, go on a course if you want and most of all enjoy.

Thinking back to my early days the biggest thing I learnt was about the cock up casscade. Very often the initial mistake can be trivial if you stop, think and assess before acting so you don't make things worse.

* This is especially true about anchor building  

Edit: Oh yeah and helmets, helmets and er helmets.

Get your hands on as many copies of Accidents in North American Mountaineering (ANAM by the AAC) as you can. I would suspect there are any number of used copies on the market for cheap. Maybe your library has some copies.

Assuming you progress and start having bigger objectives you can start learning specific route hazards in addition to just general concepts.

Eric Craig wrote:

Hi Mason, I have been thinking about what to write for a day. A lot of contributions here are good. But if you pick one as your go to guide, Phylp's "Climbing Dangers" would be a great choice, because a recurring theme in her article is the mental aspect, and it is your brain more than anything that can keep you in one piece. In particular the part "BEING PRESENT; PAYING ATTENTION", should  be every climbers mantra. All the time. It doesn't mean,  to me, focusing on all the minutiae all the time. The big or whole picture is just as important, and recognizing where you are in the big picture will tell you how to manage the minutiae. 

Obviously some guidance is more than just useful. A class is good. Following a skilled leader is good. Leading a skilled leader would be great. 

Paging phylp phylp…. Maybe she (or someone else) can post the link to that Climbing Dangers document…. A great summary of all the things that could possibly go wrong. I can’t find the link at the moment.

EDIT: Well, I obviously was not paying attention! Oops. Thanks for correcting me, Neil, and to phylp for the link. 

Daniel Joder wrote:

Paging phylp phylp…. Maybe she (or someone else) can post the link to that Climbing Dangers document…. A great summary of all the things that could possibly go wrong. I can’t find the link at the moment. 

Look about 4 comments up  

Take a good, long look at phylp's million-ways-to-die document, then revisit the "How common is mental illness..." thread if you still have questions   

Seriously.

In terms of real advice, here is all I can offer:

Take full, 100% charge of your own safety, from the very start. Regardless of your technical proficiency, number of pitches led, or other arbitrary levels of "experience," from the very first moment, you will exercise the final say over every single action you take while climbing. Do not let yourself be swayed away from your own judgement by a far more experienced partner who insists you do things her way. She may be 100% right - but that is for YOU to decide, not her. Experts make mistakes too.

Rock climbing is dangerous. We hear ourselves say no one should die from a hobby, but the real truth? Some of us will die pursuing this hobby. It is inherently dangerous. In the starkest terms, some of us will die climbing. Maybe one of us today. I don't write this to be morbid or to ooooooo, scare you off. You're already here, so you've already accepted the risk (whether you know it or not).

Yes, people are going to die while climbing, as it is impossible to remove all risk and all consequence, from the sport (though gyms try, every day).

What do you do with information? You take charge of your own safety, that's what you do. You read everything, you visualize everything, you talk to others, you open your eyes, mind and heart to new ways of doing things, but always through the lens that its YOU who decides your safety. Always.

Just like you're doing by opening this thread! Keep doing it, and never stop and you too one day may be "50-years in" on this dangerous sport.