What Is Trad ?????????

Tarbuster, you are trying to define the fine line between art and sport!

Your quest appears to be something deeper. Find the ring.

I tend to favor traditional climbing. For me there is a certain tension to the energy afforded by on-site ground-up climbing. Largo's "experiential voltage" if you will. Given my background and experience, the majority of sport climbs under the 5.12 grade tend to have too many bolts, the outcome is predictable and the exercise feels repetitive, such that the experience of leading the route lacks a certain zest.

Done from the ground up and on sight, a successfully achieved ascent has a very palatable internal energetic feel. The construct of a sport climb, which encompasses things like rappelling and succinct prior knowledge, a fairly sanitized and very safe protection scheme, and in a subtle way, yes even the communal lore of its construction -for me, these things sever the energetic tension of the route. We typically know how a route was originally done and I say that does matter. In ground-up style climbing, there is an aspect of emulation at play which is quite valuable.

When Werner says the route has a soul he's describing that energetic tension that exists for the route as a possibility. I get it more as a collusion of my internal striving with the canvas which the route represents. So for me it's a relationship and I like for that energy to be as fresh and whole as possible and ground-up climbing, whether I'm doing the first ascent or following in the footsteps of a pre-established ascent, the ground up traditional style effort does the best job of retaining that essence, best characterized as a completeness and a continuity, like an independent living thing.

So that's my sense of the peculiarly distinct internal reward conferred through trad climbing. It is something that should not be overrun. It's an artistic imperative that has fewer and fewer voices and outlets in our urbanized, formalized society. Spontaneous, fluid improvisation : we need to keep that heart alive and beating.

This stuff isn't just some glossy ideal that had a nice ring to it, no. I submit that at the cusp of the clean climbing revolution, a new sun began to rise; over the shoulder stuff lightened up, the climber became a fitter as opposed to a nailer and subtleties emerged in terms of the inherent demands and responses of moving quietly and controlled over serious ground. For starters it freed up a hand, which was no small gain.

Less is more not simply because it ennobles. Less became more insomuch as scant protection opportunities, such as on the Middle Apron for example, or in any parallel crack when deciding whether it was really worth it to muddle about with hexes or not; all this instructed the climber to control her internal environment to bridge the gaps over harm' s way. It sharpened perception and honed the ability to read the rock in pursuit of safe placement; all this under a time constraint.

Not to get all old guy on it: but learning to climb on nuts made cam selection a snap. When I look at the crack, having grown up with the number six stopper as opposed to the equivalent cam, I discern a variance with closer tolerance, if you will. As a consequence, I don't need cams with lots of range and excess weight.

Wiggling hexes into a crack was a thing one did whenever possible; as allowed by pumping forearms not merely through availability of placement. The vertical nut craft engineer had to apportion her resources much more carefully while making upward progress. This in turn imbued her with the ability to deal with less, thus the "diet rack'' ... and this out of need, not just from some arcane longing to demonstrate a minimalist proficiency.

This is why I like Eldorado climbing so much! That terrain presents a multiplicity of variables in terms of physical vectors to be considered when handling the rock because the holds point in all different directions, finicky protection opportunities confront the climber, engaging "the fitter" within, presenting the immediate need to grasp a kaleidoscopic puzzle.

In short, it's a long way from plug and go with nuts. So this has a lot to do with the unique perspective of the early trad climber. So, trad encompasses a minimalist ethic, not just because of what it doesn't do to the rock, but because nuts were a minimal artifice with minimal effect. That strengthened the climber's internally derived adaptive mechanism! This in turn developed self-reliance in the face of fear; much like the alpinist, though comparatively still more on the level of craft or game.

So when we speak of the environmental impact of trad climbing, it's not on a global level, it just didn't impact the environment much and that schoolyard spits out little boys and girls who develop a liking for minimal artifice when they step into the rock arena. As Gollum says "give it to me raw and wriggling".

All this isn't to say the modern climber can't just take all the terrific mechanisms available and do the same thing, but it explains why people today are much more likely to be over-geared. This, simply because in most cases they just haven't been exposed to a slim quiver as the only option. Back in the day, light was right simply because there was no other choice. That informed all of the systems; remember Chouinard when he espoused dispensing with the 10 essentials? Bring bivi gear and you will bivi? Well we were doing the same with our racks.

So this is where "rope, rack, and the shirts on our backs" came from more or less. We were used to minimal artifice in terms of gear, so our mentality was already imbued with minimalism and we eschewed other stuff when it came to longer free routes as a natural extension to climbing unfettered and quick. I believe that quote comes from guys who used to get it on in the Black Canyon. Light machinery is the ticket to speed in the corners.

Again, not to say that the modern adepts don't figure all this out in short order; but it was really the only game in town during The Golden Age of Trad. In short, that nutcraft stuff was often crap and one had to behave in kind. So all of this informs the development of the trad ethos. Form really and truly did follow function, yet it was the form of the climber. And so I'm saying the tail really wagged the dog. This is another reason why this whole trad thing is not immediately transferable to the modern vernacular.

As to the hardest trad climb under Warbler's definition I didn't get to put my meaningless two cents in......I'm still amazed by ratings and differences within the definition. 14d crack is a whole lot different then 11c slab apparently.....I keep bringing up Kurt Smith's "Burning down the house" as example but I guess I lack merit in the mention. Cracks are easy to protect and much safer and far less mentally taxing. A more physical exercise if you will. I will repeat again with risk of sounding stupid that I think Burning is the hardest trad climb put up under the Warbler definition. Put up ground up, on-site, no preview with the same rating as the B/Y and unrepeated! Why is it not rated 5.15? How come Honnold or anyone else hasn't climbed it? And who would deny what a grand adventure it would be to cast off on that journey? Is it beyond our grasp to accept it?

So sport climbing was born in part as a reaction to the narcissism of ego-driven, perversely run-out slab climbing? Makes sense.

All it did, or rather one of its unintended consequences, was help to show that sport climbing really needed to start happening because trad climbing was getting perversely extended in terms of its value system.

Much as we climbers hate rules, we do like to communicate. If we think of this discussion as one of arriving a better communication, I think we can arrive at something useful. If we intend, in contrast, to arrive at a consensus of the "best" style, forget it. We're too anarchic to accept that.

If I know that the Warbler did the FA in "trad" style, for example

"Tricksters and Traditionalists" - don't recall the word 'trad' in there and I doubt Higgins coined it.