This article is part of a series on trad climbing. It answers the question “What’s trad climbing?” by covering the history, style, and ethics unique to trad climbing. For more on becoming a trad climber check out, How to Become a Trad Climber. If you’re looking to buy your first trad rack, check out How to Choose Your First Trad Rack.
What’s Trad Climbing?
Trad climbing (short for “traditional” climbing) is a type of climbing in which the lead climber uses only hands and feet on natural surfaces of the rock to move upwards, and carries and places all gear necessary (commonly called “protection”) to clip their ropes to, in order to protect against falls. For a complete explanation of the other different climbing styles, check out The Different Types of Rock Climbing Explained.
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Protection
“Protection” (aka “pro”) is the general term for gear that secures into a crack in the rock in such a way as to be capable of bearing weight. Before the 1970’s trad protection largely consisted of pitons, which are non-removable pieces of metal that have been hammered into rock. The invention of removable protection helped fuel trad climbing’s popularity and evolve its style and ethics. There are two main types of protection: passive and active.
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Passive Protection
Passive protection is known by many names. “Nuts”, “stoppers”, “Rp’s”, “chocks”, “wires.” And there are many styles for what is basically a piece of metal with a cable drilled into it. These work as protection when the metal piece is jammed into a rock crack and clipped to a rope. Lightweight and inexpensive, passive protection is used by most trad climbers.
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Active Protection
The most common type of active protection is the camalot, aka “cam”. Cams have a trigger that, when pulled, retracts the metal lobes, making the device narrower. Once placed, the trigger is released and the lobes press against the rock with an outward pressure. Cams are easy to place and quite versatile due to their range of motion. However, cams are also heavier and more expensive than passive protection.
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What’s Trad Climbing?: The Process
As trad climbers ascend the rock, they place pieces of protective gear into cracks or holes in the rock. Once that protection is secured, they clip their rope to the carabiner that’s attached to the end of the protection piece. Now if they were to fall, their last piece of protection would stop them from falling all the way to the ground (assuming their belayer doesn’t let the rope slip). Learning when and how to use different types of protection efficiently and safely is the distinguishing challenge of trad climbing.
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Trad Climbing Style and Ethics
To answer the question “What’s trad climbing” we must look at more than just the technical components. Each type of climbing has its own style and ethics.
Style
Style refers to the rules by which we approach the challenge of moving upwards on the rock. Trad climbing is a form of free climbing, and has an emphasis on a “ground up” style, which means starting the climb at the bottom without pre-setting any gear or aid. In contrast, sport climbing involves pre-drilling bolts before climbing. Trad climbing also has a strong philosophical focus on exploration and adventure, while sport climbing, for example, focuses more on difficult climbing move sequences across rock faces that couldn’t be protected with traditional gear due to lack of cracks, holes, etc.
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Ethics
Ethics refers to how climbers as a group work to preserve the rock and other natural resources for future generations. For example, the shift from non-removable protection (pitons) to removable protection was a huge change in climbing ethics. Legends like Royal Robbins and Yvon Chouinard were among the first to promote this “clean” style of climbing. One of the main draws of trad climbing is that you can feel like the first to climb a route (even if you weren’t), because there aren’t any signs of climbers having come before you.
Why You Should Try Trad Climbing
Trad climbing is a fun and demanding type of climbing. The mix of self-sufficiency, exploration, and adventure make for a continually interesting and challenging experience. While it requires more money, gear, technical knowledge, and personal responsibility than other forms of climbing, it’s a worthy pursuit and once tried, most climbers don’t want to stop.
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