When I was still a beginner I didn't understand the honor of leaving something until I deserve it. It is a crack climbers mentality (notice I didn't say trad), sport lines rarely command such beauty and thus reverence. This I believe explains the vast difference in mentality among the two disciplines.

*Trad climbing or Traditional climbing refers to climbing a route that is protected by placing gear on lead.*

Nope. There are thousands of trad routes that are bolt protected - Tuolumne fo example. Bolt protected face climbing has been around way longer than sport climbing.

and every time you fall you get lowered to the ground.

When people call themselves "trad" climbers, does that mean that they place gear, or that they adhere to the strict traditional ethics from before the sport-climbing movement in the 80's? By strict traditional ethics I mean no hangdogging (even on gear routes), no top rope rehearsals, and every time you fall you get lowered to the ground.

What I am getting at is that someone could be into climbing gear routes, but not be a traditional free climber.

The reason I am asking is that I see all these labels of "trad" this and "trad" that. When I think trad climber, I think of someone like Mark Wilford, John Sherman, etc.

This has been a really popular statement around the site these last few days, and yet it goes against every definition I have ever learned of sport and trad. Can you explain that? Not flaming or anything, I'm genuinely interested.

*Trad climbing or Traditional climbing refers to climbing a route that is protected by placing gear on lead.*

Nope. There are thousands of trad routes that are bolt protected - Tuolumne fo example. Bolt protected face climbing has been around way longer than sport climbing.

So if you're leading a route, place a few pieces of gear, then fall and are lowered to the ground, too tired or don't have the skills yet to free the route, how do you get your gear back? Leave it there? Get someone else to clean it for you?

sport climbing - ...any means used to install protection is fair, including any kind of aid, and rappelling.

This has been a really popular statement around the site these last few days, and yet it goes against every definition I have ever learned of sport and trad. Can you explain that? :? Not flaming or anything, I'm genuinely interested.

I'll agree with most of your definitions, but do you really want to put aid in the category of "Sport?"

I find the term "trad climbing" insulting. I think we should start a grass roots effort right here and now to re-identify the different types of rock climbing. I propose "real climbing" and "sport climbing"

I find the term "trad climbing" insulting. I think we should start a grass roots effort right here and now to re-identify the different types of rock climbing. I propose "real climbing" and "sport climbing"

but I can't bring myself to call someone a "trad climber" unless they are placing gear (FA excluded).

Trad climbing or Traditional climbing refers to climbing a route that is protected by placing gear on lead.

I'm not a fan of bolts, so showing up at a trad climb to find a line of bolts isn't going to make me happy, regardless of how they were placed.

I think we need some new terminology.

Rob

The roots of trad climbing lie in mountaineering. One doesn't usually repect a mountaineer who climbs peaks by way of heliocopter. No. A mountaineer is pretty much expected to climb the mountain from somewhere near the bottom to somewhere near the top.

A trad climber is a person who starts at the bottom of a climb and climbs to the top, without benefit of having prepared the route from the top down (either personally or through proxy). Trad climbing can include various climbing styles, such as free solo, free climbing and aid. As previously mentioned, protection systems are ancillary to the idea of ground up climbing.

A sport climber is a person who doesn't feel compelled to follow the mountaineering tradition. Maybe bouldering is the mother of sport climbing, quien sabe. Chris Jones certainly attributes a bouldering mentality to the creation of the first sport routes at Smith Rock.

But the idea of top down route preparation is certainly a hall mark of sport climbing.

Around here, we do both kinds... country AND WESTERN.

DMT

To me Trad and Sport climbing is a difference of mental approach. Trad climbers will sit at the base of a climb for hours on end mentaly following every crack and possible line on the wall. Much time is spend by the trad climber mentally working the problem before one ever clips or setts the first anchor.

To me Trad and Sport climbing is a difference of mental approach. Trad climbers will sit at the base of a climb for hours on end mentaly following every crack and possible line on the wall. Much time is spend by the trad climber mentally working the problem before one ever clips or setts the first anchor. Sport climbers will sit at the base for maybe twenty to thirty minutes untill they have visualy located all listed bolts, and a few newly added ones, and mentaly logged their locations.

You see, a trad climber has to hold yourself in the most obscure positions with one hand while trying to find the piece of pro that will fit the crack in front of you. A sport climber just has to hold on long enough to clip and hook. and then is onto the next move.

Trad Climber, "You are only as good as what you can on sight on a consistent basis involving all techniques, face, crack, OW, etc. (un pre prepared route)

Sport climber, "You can claim to be as good as what you can finaly send." (regardless of number of attempts and pre equipment)

Trad. also means not being able to just say "take" when you've had enough.

Trad climbing is when you pull on gear. Sport climbing is when you
pull on draws...

Once your sport buds get a little crack technique, though, which takes about 4 hours on the rock to master if you're already a good sport climber (like Alex Huber and about 50 other Euros who have freed El Cap with ZERO trad background), who do you think will be trad climbing harder, them or you? Based on what's been happenning on El Cap the past few years, I'd say them.

First, about the euros with no trad experience or background...Are you sure about this? Is this an actual fact or is this speculation on your (or someone elses) part due to the bulk of what is reported about them? Just curious.

Second, you really think it'll only take 4 hours to master crack technique? Ask Randy Leavitt how long it took him to master his. Ask anyone whos ever flailed on any offwidth how long it takes to master crack technique. Supposedly, in 4 hours, I should be able to cruise any 5.12+ crack.....Again..not meant to be inflamatory, just comments and questions.

Oh yea, and if climbing with 50ft. runouts like the Hubers is not trad regardless of the gear, then what is it?

Second, you really think it'll only take 4 hours to master crack technique? Ask Randy Leavitt how long it took him to master his. Ask anyone whos ever flailed on any offwidth how long it takes to master crack technique. Supposedly, in 4 hours, I should be able to cruise any 5.12+ crack.....Again..not meant to be inflamatory, just comments and questions.

Peter Croft is a trad climber?

*This has been a really popular statement around the site these last few days, and yet it goes against every definition I have ever learned of sport and trad. Can you explain that?*

There are basically 2 kinds of free climbing on rock - crack climbing or face climbing. Here in Cali we have hundreds of relatively low angle granite domes. The routes on these domes do not necessarily follow crack systems - in fact, they rarely do. Instead you use face climbing technique, which involves frictioning and tiny edges. Of course there's usually no natural protection, so since the 1960's, starting in Yosemite and a few other places, climbers drilled bolts with a hammer and hand held drill for pro while leading the first ascent of these routes, usually from tenuous, insecure stances. These routes invariably had long distances between bolts due to the labor involved in stopping and drilling. Since the prevailing ethic of the day was ground-up, no one thought to come in from above on rappell and preplace the bolts, so in terms of style, for the first ascent anyway, these were considered trad routes.

A huge limitation of this approach, though, was the fact that you could only stop to drill on the lead if the rock was low angle enough to basically let go with both hands so you could hit the drill with the hammer. The best climbers were clearly capable of climbing the steeper faces, but the ability to protect it on the lead had not (and still has'nt) advanced. It was the Europeans, the French in particular, who, in the early to mid 80's, unhindered by the "traditional" ground up ethic, and with vast amounts of otherwise unprotectable, steep, crackless limestone, began to bolt on rappell, also using motorized drills which cut down the labor of drilling and with it the justification for sparse bolting, and "sport" climbing, for lack of a better term, was born.

It's pretty easy, though, to confuse a bolt protected "trad" route with a bolt protected "sport" route. Both are bolted face climbs - really the only difference, in this country anyway, is the bolted trad route tends to be low angle and runout, and the bolted sport route, steeper and not runout. But there are bolted trad routes that are not runout, and bolted sport routes that are. In my opinion the difference between sport face climbing and trad face climbing is not really protection, but difficulty.

Up to about medium 5.12, the modern sport route is little different from the hardest bolted trad routes of the pre-sport era - it basically took sport tactics (bolting on rappell) to push face climbing into hard 5.12 and beyond. The new ethic (or rather, lack thereof) meant that the extremely difficult, gymnastic moves that were practiced on boulders could now be used for the first time on actual climbs, and the artificial ceiling imposed by the ground up ethic could be dispensed with - the door to 5.13 face climbing was opened. There was widespread resistance to this among the old guard, who believed that all the old challenges would soon be bolted on rappell instead being left as bold ground-up projects for future generations, which did indeed happen, but when the top European sport climbers came to the US and did the hardest routes in the country with minimal effort, the final nail in the coffin of ground-up face climbing was driven. The new tactics also had the huge and unforseen benefit of opening up previously unprotectable and therefore untouched new climbing areas, a process which continues to this day.

This is hyperbole, but has basis in fact. When Huber came over here, he went to Josh to learn crack technique before going to try the Salathe. If I remember correctly it took him about four days to go from getting spanked on a 5.8, to flashing low .12s, and getting high .12s after a try or two.

JV

Achey is about as journalistically balanced as Sean Hannity, he slanted the editorial tone of that article (and many others) to suit his anti-sport agenda. It's ridiculous to state that Huber is anti-sport, he spent years hangdogging hard routes in Europe, how do you think he got so good in the first place? NOBODY gets that good without sport climbing.

Achey is about as journalistically balanced as Sean Hannity, he slanted the editorial tone of that article (and many others) to suit his anti-sport agenda. It's ridiculous to state that Huber is anti-sport, he spent years hangdogging hard routes in Europe, how do you think he got so good in the first place? NOBODY gets that good without sport climbing.

By the way, those "30 feet out on overhanging limestone" multi pitch alpine sport routes in Europe are more a product of expediency than adhering to ethics, basically on something that big it is simpler to climb up, hang from a hook and drill than it is rig a top-down civil engineering project on a 1000' wall. There really is no "trad vs sport" in Europe, there are guys in Spain and France you've never heard of who climb 5.14 sport, A5 on El Cap, waterfall ice and 8000 meter peaks.

*You threw a lot of unsubstantiated prattle out there. But without some facts, it's just your opinion. And you know what that's worth. Put up or shut up.*

Tell me what would you specifically like me to back up and I'll see what I can do for you.

*Then you take the same sportards bouldering and guess what? You find out that they really can't pull hard moves either.*

Your drivel is not worth responding to anymore. Bye

*Pot luck. Pick a point at random and back it up with with a source.*

Be more specific please

...and what do you mean, "a source"? My source is Common Knowledge

*Trad climbing or Traditional climbing refers to climbing a route that is protected by placing gear on lead.*

Nope. There are thousands of trad routes that are bolt protected - Tuolumne fo example. Bolt protected face climbing has been around way longer than sport climbing.

But the idea of top down route preparation is certainly a hall mark of sport climbing....A trad climber is a person who starts at the bottom of a climb and climbs to the top, without benefit of having prepared the route from the top down.

Rather than rehearsing the moves on a climb and hanging on the rope as in sport climbing, climbers work up to a hard route by doing many easier routes in “good style,” that is, from the ground up with no falls or hangs.