Trad as a Fad?

[caribe]

Sport climbing is fun but somewhat vacuous athleticism by comparison.

where's the [like] button? Love the wordplay.

[caribe]

why hate on sport? can't we all just get along......

OMG!!! I am going to start fucking eating pork!!!

[dustonian]

HARAAM!!!

I want to see some pics of Kipp's "trad vacation" to Acadia NP...

Or of this exploit: http://www.redriverclimbing.com/RRCGuid ... te&id=2400

[caribe]

The purest form of climbing is a ground up first ascent of a climb on gear or solo. That will never change.

Yeah, ah . . . go out with Dusti for some of this action. He will accuse you have mwewing like a scared kitten on those dirty ass routes. I have never been more freaked out ever than in a dirty ground up situation.

[dustonian]

Indeed... and it remains unrepeated!! (although AG did climb up to the wet slab topout and then DOWNCLIMB the entire route!)... I gotta go do that thing. It would be a splitter gem with a minimal amount of cleaning... Andrew said it was already pretty clean up to the slab. Got some more dragons out there for you too Sir Arthur... my 4WD fuckbeast just died so let's trash your Suby!

[JR]

I have been talking to people about trad climbing recently. I got the following sentiment from the last three hard core climbers that I talked to: 'trad is coming back, it's getting popular again.'

This is how it breaks down...

"hard core climbers" are ego maniacs. So of course, whatever they are into seems like the best thing in the world .
Same reason your aforementioned Scin and Odub thought Trad was cool back then and Sport is great now..... because that is what they were/are into.

P.s. I only know this because I also think the world revolves around me baby. ME!

[dustonian]

I don't think anyone is under the delusion that there is any threat of a "trad resurgence" in the RRG... except maybe Arty and SCIN after a couple coldies and vodka-soaked gummy bears. Traditional climbing here remains the desolate backwater it's more or less always tended to be... a novelty item that's nice to have around and killer for sweltering hot days, crowded fall weekends, or "rest" days when your skin and fingers are too destroyed from snapshackling.

[pigsteak]

that's it...trad is something to do when there is no real climbing available, or when on vacation looking to take it easy. perhaps the best analogy for you old farts is that trad is like going back to a rotary dial phone of the 70's. sure, you can get a 'phone call' with all the cutesy clicks and spins of a little circle but with voice activated calling today why in the world waste your time with such nostalgia....

if it weren't for the illogical venom of some die hard traditionalist there would be more bolted cracks. placing gear on single pitch rock is a silly blast from the past. the only worthy outlet for cams is to hang from them and drill anchors.

all that being said, much of the "trad" I have experienced going up in the Red has been rap inspected, anchors thrown in BEFORE sending, a bit of scrubbing on rap and then "sending'...can anyone please tell me what is so traditional about that set of events? isnt that merely sport climbing sans bolts?

[dustonian]

"Gear climbs"... it's all the rage with the kids out west too. Unfortunately our rock is so soft here that on many lines it would be kind of suicidal (or homicidal, depending on agile your belayer is) to do otherwise. Art's climb he alluded to was just at the limit of ground-up sanity. Russ put in a super proud effort on Barbarian too. But unfortunately it's not really always advisable here unless you like aid climbing and dropping deathblocks on your belayer.

Some of us actually prefer trad/gear routes though from time to time, pugsteak... crazy I know.

[toad857]

even trad climbers can't escape the crowds: