Trad Diaries: Progress & Goal Setting
“It’s too scary, I can’t do it, climbing is stupid”
“YES! The perfect place for this cam!”
“Blehhh…”
“That pitch was so cool!”
“Can you take in please? Anymore?… More?”
All things you might hear from me in the same day at the crag, or even on the same route. Traditional, more commonly known as ‘trad’ is the style of climbing where climbers place gear into the rock as they ascend to protect against falls. The second climber in a pair will ascend after the lead climber, and remove the gear from the rock, leaving it clean. My relationship with trad climbing is mixed. Some days I feel really confident, I have very little fear (although there’s always some) and I’ll lead pitches as long as they’re comfortably within my grade range. Other days, I can’t find any holds, I struggle to find gear placements and any little slip or moment of feeling scared will throw my confidence off for the rest of the day and it’s unlikely that I’ll be able to recover it. It is an ongoing learning process.
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I first learnt how to trad climb in May 2021 when I attended a ‘Learn to Lead’ course taught by Giles at Glenmore Lodge with my partner Ant. I wrote a blog post about my experiences of that course last year which you can find HERE, as well as covering it in Issue No. 6 of Beta Magazine. When we attended the ‘Learn to Lead’ course, we were both proficient at leading sport and seconding on trad routes, as we’d been on an ‘Intro to Trad’ course with Katie Mackay and had a little bit of a head start before coming to Glenmore. During our week with Giles, we learnt how to place gear and judge whether it’s a 5/5 – a ‘trustworthy cup of Yorkshire tea’ gear placement – or a 1/5 ‘flakey public transport that’s unlikely to show up’ gear placement. We learnt how to set up belays at the top of routes and on multi-pitch routes, how to abseil, swing leads and stay safe on multi-pitch routes. We gained lots of tips and tricks for things like organizing gear, learning your climbing partner’s preferences for racking up and the most effective ways to pack your climbing bag. All of these things help contribute towards a smoother and overall more enjoyable trad climbing experience.
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Since our course at Glenmore Lodge with Giles, we have been practicing our trad climbing when we can. We live in North Yorkshire and have fantastic access by car to lots of lovely grit stone close by and also some lovely limestone in the Yorkshire Dales. We’ve trad climbed in the Lake District, North Wales and Cornwall. I personally have progressed a lot, not so much in terms of my grade when it comes to leading but I’ve gained more confidence on the whole. However, as I mentioned before, it can be up and down. During a recent day out at Bosigran in Cornwall, I led a pitch on a route Alison Rib. There were a couple of bold moves but I wasn’t too phased. I figured out how I was going to climb each section, down climbed if I needed to find the suitable piece of gear or rest, and then progressed on up. After our lunch break, I decided I would stow my bag at the top of the crag so that I could climb without it on my back and not have to walk back down to the base of the cliff after we had topped out (finished the route). The guidebook marked out scrambles and downclimbs along some gullies, so I chose one to head up to the top of the cliff. I would question the scramble definition, as the particular way up that I took to the top of the crag essentially turned into a little bit of a solo and that really freaked me out. Afterwards, I couldn’t build much confidence back and I spent the next route seconding and constantly asking to be taken in tighter.
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I’m interested in learning more about why I react in that way to certain situations, figuring out what the triggers are and how to keep my confidence levels up during trad days. When I was invited to attend a ‘Next Level Trad’ course in August at Glenmore Lodge, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to learn some more skills and hacks that will help me increase a more sustained confidence in my trad climbing ability.
I think there’s something about climbing with an instructor that can really empower climbers. You’ll probably do everything in the same way as you would if the instructor wasn’t there – but their ability to reassure you, give you tips along the way when you might struggle is invaluable. As well as building confidence, I’m hoping to learn more rope skills, do some more abseiling practice and if the opportunity arises, I’d quite like to learn cliff climbing skills, i.e., having a fixed rope for abseiling in and how to navigate all of the necessary logistics and inevitable faff that comes with trad climbing.
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I’m going to update you on how the course goes afterwards, and I’ll also be posting about it on the Beta Magazine Instagram account @betamagazineclub when we’re on the course to show you what a ‘Next Level Trad’ course is all about, where we climb, what we get up to and all that good stuff! Make sure you tune in around 24th – 26th August 2022 for a top notch climbing time and insight into the course.
By Emily Ankers
Co-Founder and Editor of Beta Magazine
Insta: @betamagazineclub