Traditional Rock Climbing
Traditional climbing (also called trad climbing) is a way of climbing that requires skills useful for creating routes in an exploratory fashion. Before there was sport climbing there was the normal style of climbing which did not require any help.
Trad climbing usually involves the leader ascending a section of rock while placing their own protective devices as he/she climbs. Route finding, effective gear placements, self control, and good climbing skills are essential. Normally, such climbs are not previewed or rehearsed on a top rope (with or without tension), and emphasis is placed on passing difficult sections on the first try. As a form of free climbing, only the limbs and body of the climber are used to effect upward progress, and protective devices are placed solely to catch the climber in the event of a fall.
Traditional climbing includes placement of all forms of protection, including bolts, while leading. In its purest form such placements are done without any aid from the rope. Bolting in traditional style requires standing on natural holds, drilling a hole and hammering in a shaft and hanger, a difficult and time consuming process.
Because of this difficulty and the once prevailing ethic of minimizing bolts as they permanently mark the rock, traditional bolted routes often entail more distance between protection bolts than sport climbs. Not all bolted traditional climbs are “run out” between bolts; nevertheless, traditional climbing has now become associated with “bold,” “adventurous” if not “scary” climbing with minimal protection and the possibility of long falls.
The majority of the protection placed while leading a traditional line does not consist of permanently installed bolts, but of removable protective devices such as spring-loaded camming devices, aluminum or steel ‘nuts’, hexagonal-shaped chocks, and their variants. Carabiners and nylon slings are then used to connect the protection gear to the climber’s lead rope, so that in the event of a fall, the rope can be used (by the belayer below) to ‘catch’ the falling climber.
Modern traditional climbers very rarely place bolts, except in the case of establishing difficult new lines that lack the features necessary to place adequate removable gear. It is also considered extremely bad style to install new protection bolts on existing climbs that can be completed without them.