Why would anyone who knew what they were doing climb in the Pinnacles at all?

Not all Sport climbers are the problem. It is the people like YOU who make averyone else think we are a group of idiot climbers, You my friend have the problem. Lets all quit bashing eachothers choice of climbing style, and get along please.

This is in response to maculated's post about sport climbers

I agree. I had a few friends I was trying to show how to do it. They of course were anxious to climb so went off when I couldn't hold their hand. Few hours later I had a bud with a broken ankle. He blamed the loose belay, the belayer said it was bad spacing. Well they were both right, that they were both wrong.

His name is phil. So naturally it segued into jokes. "What do you call a retard stuffed into a crack?" Phil.

For me, I'd say don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong. I recently had a team-mate get 40+ stitches in his face because he ate it riding down a mountain. He blamed his tires, the road, whatever. The fault was his, he didn't have the skills to do that descent at that speed. Climbing is the same way.

Don't be so quick to judge, Adam.

Well, I only have about a dozen or so trad leads and 1/4 that in aid leads on gear under my belt so I guess that categorizes me as a trad n00b. I've seconded/cleanded dozens upon dozens more but not lead. My placements are good to marginal. Getting better with practice. You can only spend so much time in ground school. I'm at the stage in my climbing where I feel like the only way I'm going to learn and feel more confident is by getting out there and doing it. So the method to my madness is to lead super easy trad routes, like in the 5.6 and below range. I can climb 5.6 easily so by sticking to these low grades right now, I can really focus on my placements. There is no way I'd get out and even attempt to lead something at my ability level right now because I'm still in the learning process. And further, there is no way that I'm going to restrict my learning process to the ground. People just need to exercise common sense. If you're a gumby, lead gumby routes like me and move up as your ability progresses. Don't think that just because you can second or sporto 5.10 that you can trad lead 5.10. With an attitude like that, in some cases, you might as well be soloing.

more important is to have two good pieces between you and the ground. That means that at the beginning of a climb, you need to sew it up. Then as you go higher, you can space your pieces out more if you feel solid. That way if your second piece does pop (no-one's perfect, and sometimes you have to make do with just okay placements) you've still got another piece to keep your ass off the dirt

It's the damn sport climbers man. I can't rid myself of them.

Trad gear does blow. You are right in stating it is usually from a bad placement. Sometimes that's all you get. Who here hasn't had a trad piece pop on them at least once? If you say no, I doubt you have been doing trad for long.

Mac, just wondering, if his 2nd piece popped, was he several pieces above it and the whole thing zippered, or was his 2nd piece his top piece?

Here the thing, I am increasingly running into people willing to jump on a 5.8/5.9 climb and claim they know how to place pro after thinking about it. I'm not saying this guy did that, but people do, people around me do . . . that's horrific. It took the founders of modern climber a lot longer to attempt that kind of stuff, and they REALLY had to think it through. Cam placement may be intuitive, but I have still seen them pop or get placed incorrectly. All of it, ALL OF IT is serious business.