5 Mistakes You MUST Avoid When Trad Climbing

5 mistakes when trad climbing which are all very obvious, but we are all prone to doing.
Pete takes you through some of the things we neglect or make errors in without even realising.

Timestamps
0:00 Not using gear wisely
1:28 Too much 'Sport Slack'
3:00 Placing gear as if they were bolts
5:57 Using a single rope
8:03 neglecting jamming

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[Knucklepants]

Love that there is absolutely 0 introduction, Pete hasn't got time for niceties and how do you do's, straight in there, serving facts.

[Yakushii]

Just wanna say, getting right into the content of the video is such a breath of fresh air.

Most youtubers would have had a 7 minute intro explaining who they are, why they're making the video, outlining their credentials, begging people to crush the subscribe button and molest the bell etc.

[Govanification]

This is great timing, I was talking about some similar topics yesterday at a crag. Specifically placing more than one piece before a crux if gear failure there would be a certain groundfall, we saw so many people runout to the crux, plug one small cam when they could easily put in a 2nd, and then take or fall on it like they're whipping on bolts. Sure, I've never had a piece pull that I fell on, but if it's quick and easy to give yourself some life insurance then why not?

[kidMedia]

Excellent discussion. At 70+ I'm pretty much a retired (trad) climber. I started my climbing in Yosemite in the early 70s, so I saw and participated in the introduction of nuts, sticky rubber and eventually camming devices. Indeed, it is cams that lead to mistake number one. Just too easy. Sometimes you see videos of pitches where the climber isn't carrying a single nut and the crack has all these superb hex and stopper opportunities.

[jakelevi]

Sometimes I tend to be a bit too conservative placing gear because I don't want to place pieces in one location that I might need higher up. Recently I've decided to try placing gear more liberally near the start of the route (and also above ledges), where the consequences of falling are greater, and allowing myself to be a bit more conservative higher up the route, where the consequences of falling are less severe (as long as the quality of the placements are good), having a tendency to save more useful pieces of gear in case I need them for the anchor. So basically varying how much gear I place as I progress up the route depending on the consequences of falling at each potential placement

[brightair]

Great video, thanks for the great tips, and all the rest mentioned below in the comments. As a trad climber of 4 decades I have seen most all these errors done more than once. A couple times to calamitous results. I haven't read through the whole list of comments, so maybe this has already been mentioned, but at 6:39 you sling a tree with double ropes, meaning you are going to have to pull a whole rope's length around the bark of the tree to retrieve your ropes. Now, if the tree were overhanging the route it would be bad enough for the tree, but here it's even worse with the friction caused by the ropes running over the cliff edge, meaning one must pull even harder to retrieve the ropes. This is horrible for the tree bark and may even kill the tree if more than one party uses this technique. Please sacrifice a long enough sling and a carabiner and hang your anchor point over the edge or as close to it as you can, and save the tree for another party, if not for the life of the tree itself and all the creatures that depend o n it. Thank you. PS. I love double rope climbing especially as my favorite climbs are long trad multipitch.

[stitch]

Really good info, Pete, and thanks for reexplaining the reasoning for double rope belay. It wasn’t much of a thing in the US in the 80s and 90s, but I was aware of this technique being used in Europe. We tended to use single or double runners to more align the rope to reduce rope drag. Saved double ropes for ice/mixed climbing. Cheers.

[Mitzbergatc]

So concise, to the point, without chit-chat. Love it!

[matthewlueder]

Could you make a tutorial on how to use double ropes?

[ledzep]

the fact that you went right into the list resulted in me subscribing

[vault_climbing]

Absolutely agree, especially with number 3 - lots of "sport" climbers I have climbed with try and place gear, exactly where a bolt would go, as they feel more comfortable, when, in fact, its the opposite. They also seem to use cams ALL the time, and they stay away from wires and nuts, good comments and another great video.!

[PB-skjn]

Rating system:

A) Good
or
B) PPP

(Purely psychological protection) :)

[Mike_Outdoors]

I like playing rack roulette, I take whatever I think I need and end up running most things out... amazing video as always :)

[LoveAndClimbing]

I'm an American and I have to agree with you totally on using double ropes. At first it seemed like it was just more faffing but the abseiling/rappelling difference is *huge*, and using them to reduce fall distance has kept me off a serious groundfall at least twice that I can recall.

[robertrider]

I just love how the video goes straight into the information.

[brianhamilton]

Great instructional vid on trad gear, long overdue on YouTube! Thanks Wide Boyz!

[soarwing]

really enjoyed the flow of this video!

[mgunthe]

Nice video. Hard work to condense all that info in to such a short piece and you made some great points. I learned some things. You've got a new subscriber.

[rockclimbinghacks]

Great advice. I learned the value of jamming on a trad route that i had only toproped before and never used the jams. Of course, when it came time to lead it I was more scared so i looked for any additional security and I found that in a bomber fist jam. Such a wonderful feeling.