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What is Tradisfaction? Why get so excited when you see someone send Autumn for the first time? B3 is just a 11b, so is Fuzzy Undercling? Do you see anybody really wowed when they send Fuzzy?

Anything with the Manimal is cool......

When I think of all the perfectly beautiful days I've had climbing, the killer days that made me glow as I sunk back into my life, it's pretty clear that the bestest of the best were the days that involved gear.

It feels less like running on a treadmill staring at a TV and more like kicking it down a cross country path through a forest. For me it's just intangibly, and qualitatively cooler.

Trad is Rad (Always was always will be) -- Bumper Sticker at the waterstone.


Doesn't matter if its going up bed time again or following Gary up High Test at Seneca trad is always leaves a neat feeling that sticks around a bit longer.


Also for a few months after hand surgery I couldn't crimp on anything but a brused hand makes for a nice tight hand jam.

sport climbing is for cheese puffs too chicken to plug gear.

trad climbing is for cheese puffs too lazy to push the limits of their physical abilities.

trad allows you to spend a day miles up synching with another.

sport climbing allows you to kick back in the company of many friends all at once.

sport climbing opens climbing to the masses

trad climbing pits you mano a mano against the rock

....sounds like a toss up to me.

i dont climb hard sport, so i cant talk on the feeling of really pushing your physical limits and the projecting a route till you send mindset. i imagine there is a huge rush and reward with that process. i rarely give a route more than a few goes and that prevents me from sending the real hard lines, im cool with that. within the realm that i climb there is nothing more exciting than a traditional line. but i cant even begin to put a reason on it. if i go out and climb a moderate to me 5 star sport line and a moderate to me 3 star trad line, most the times the trad line sticks with me longer. not even sure why, it just does.

I don't have a lot of "mileage" when it comes to trad. I can say though that every single trad line I have ever climbed demanded and received my full attention. Many times on easier sport routes I'll hold a conversation with people on the ground, stop to take my shirt off if its hot, maybe towel off my forhead in August. When plugging gear I'm thinking about two things, the movement, and gear placement. My guess is its underlying fear that really has my attention but the scope of that fear is narrowed to those two things.

I still get that same thing on harder (for me) sport routes.

I'm with the fluffer on this one.

RRO wrote:i dont climb hard sport, so i cant talk on the feeling of really pushing your physical limits and the projecting a route till you send mindset.

People don't project trad lines?

im sure they do, i just cant talk about them. and i bet if you looked at all "project" style climbers the vast majority would be focused on sport. i dont project any style of route, about 5 tries is the most i have on any route i have ever sent. thats why i dont climb hard trad or sport thats something i want to work on this fall but i have said that for many falls. its all relative