Traditional climbing
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Traditional climbing. Before the advent of sport climbing, traditional climbing (trad) was rock climbing. Trad climbing ethics emphasize the skills necessary for putting routes up in the first place. Routefinding, gear placements, self control, and good downclimbing skills are all essential. It is a style of rock climbing in which routes are climbed from the bottom up, preferably first try, using just the climbers' body to progress up the rock. The protection is placed by the lead climber as they ascend, and used solely to catch the climber in the event of a fall, rather than to aid upward progress. It is a form of free climbing. An exception to the above description are bolted face climbs which were put up in the trad style and tend to be on the scary side. Repeats on a route such as the world renowned Bachar-Yerian 5.11c are still rare.
Traditional climbing emphasizes the adventure aspect of rock climbing -- in fact, it is sometimes called "adventure climbing" in Australia; as such it contrasts with sport climbing, which emphasizes the athletic aspect.
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[edit] Trad climbing in the United Kingdom
Britain has a long tradition of "clean" climbing, (no hammer or pitons) especially on gritstone. home to some of the boldest climbs in the world.
- In the United Kingdom, "traditional" means that all protection is placed by the leader and removed by the following climber.
- In early 2006 Dave MacLeod, renowned climber out of Glasgow, Scotland, climbed Rhapsody (E11/7a) at Dumbarton Rock (Scotland) for the world's first E11 grade.
[edit] Trad Climbing in Australia
Major Trad areas:
- Arapiles: Solid sandstone trad climbing with the occasional bolt on the harder lines. ~ 2000 routes in a small area.
- The Grampians: Sandstone and quartzite, huge area.
- Blue Mountains: sandstone
- Point Perpendicular: Sandstone, top down, sea cliff climbing.
[edit] Trad climbing in the United States
Traditional climbing emphasizes the skills necessary to do first ascents. Most of the so called rules or ethics are geared along this line of thought. Adventure and exploration are inherent parts of rock climbing. Traditional climbing has gone through various incarnations often defined by what it is not. Originally it was climbing and the goal was to get to the top by any means possible. With the conceptual separation of rock climbing from aid climbing, trad became defined by the ideal of minimizing the use of aid through the development of a set of guidelines often referred to as Trad ethics. A set of guidelines that tried to define what was fair game and what wasn't. Sport climbing came out of a refusal to accept the limitations of those rules.
In North America, a route may be described as "traditional" even if there are bolts already in place on the route, as long as these bolts were placed while on lead, rather than rappel, and only where absolutely necessary for safe passage.
Major trad climbing areas of the US:
- Yosemite Valley, California: Home of the Big Wall
- Tuolumne Meadows, California: alpine meadows and solid granite domes. Primarily bolted trad climbs
- Tahquitz, California
- The Needles, California: High Quality
- The Black Hills, South Dakota: History
- The Gunks, New York:
- Joshua Tree National Park, California: over 4,000 routes
- Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado: high alpine climbing
Notable trad climbers
- John Bachar
- Peter Croft
- Roger Briggs
- John Long
- Ron Kauk
- Jim Bridwell
- Lynn Hill
- Bob Kamps
- Tom Higgins
[edit] Trad in the rest of the world
Compared to the U.S., Australia, and U.K., there are few trad climbing areas in mainland Europe:
- Valle dell'Orco (Gran Paradiso national park, Italy)
- Val di Mello (north of Lecco, Italy)
- Handegg (Switzerland)
- The upper needles of Chamonix (France), only climbable in summer.
- Farther north a superb area with nice summer temperatures and killer friction is Bohuslän on the west coast of Sweden
- Even farther and with much more rain are the huge granite walls of northern Norway, Lofoten Islands above Narvik, Nissedal south-west of Oslo
Other parts of the world:
- Squamish, British Columbia, Canada
- Powell River, British Columbia, Canada
[edit] Sources
See "Tricksters and Traditionalists," by Tom Higgins from Sierra Club Ascent Magazine, 1984 and a 2006 update to the article, as well as other articles on definitions, history and controversy surrounding "sport" and "traditional" climbing, all at author's website: www.tomhiggins.net
[edit] See also
- Trad versus Sport
- Climbing equipment
- Rappelling
- Downclimbing
