My longtime climbing partner and I hiked up to Hallett Peak this past Friday. We did Better than Love Route and finished on Love for the final pitch.

Conditions were perfect. Upper 50s, no wind jacket needed, and probably could have wore lighter pants. We did it in 5 pitches with some simul on the scrambly sections at the top of the buttress. Then simul linked the pitch to the bolt and the nebulous pitch above that to a good belay for the crux last pitch. Pulling the roof on Love Route was a fun way to finish. Rope drag was honestly minimal the whole way. This was my first alpine climb in RMNP since moving to Estes and I have to say it was stunningly beautiful out there. Stopped at Emerald Lake to soak in the views on the way out.

Approach: 1 hr to the base
Climbing time: 3 hrs
Car-to-car: 6:15

Hiked up the Keyhole route two days later. Been eyeing the Casual Route on the Diamond this season. Longs is calling.

I’m looking for easy, well-protectable routes to practise trad climbing, ideally with some bolts as backup.
Any recommendations for crags or routes? General tips on gear placements and getting started are also welcome.

Is anyone on this thread a regular Seneca climber? I just got a little cabin fifteen minutes from the parking lot and would love to meet more climbers in the area. I go to my cabin regularly for repairs/maintenance but and would love a random last-minute connection for climbing when I need a day off.

Cool route! Would be 4 stars if the climbing was more sustained. We ended up scrambling like 6-7 of the 11 pitches.

After 5 days in The Winds and a couple sport climbing days in Lander we decided to try and get The Grand the day before our flight out of SLC.

Since I first saw The Grand from Delta Lake over 10 years ago, I’ve always wanted to climb the full Exum route. We weren’t sure we’d have time to do it all on short notice so we charged in at 1AM and soloed up the OS route. Car to car in 14 hours.

What we didn’t get in grades and exposure we made up for in intensity. I was a different kind of exhausted after that.

We will be back!

Are bear canisters required at the Grand Teton bivy zones (moraines, caves, lower saddle etc)? Seen some conflicting and older information going both ways but nothing on the nps site specific to those zones.

How bad are the marmots? Do they Mostly go for food or should I be worried about them chewing on gear while we are away from camp?

Hi, I'm just starting out on my trad climbing journey. I’m slowly starting to buy gear; I started with some Camp nuts I got as a gift, sizes 1–5. Today I found a great deal on BD nuts, sizes 5–11, and grabbed them right away because I thought they’d be a great addition to my set of nuts. Later, I read that they’re practically the same size.... They’ll definitely come in handy since I climb multi-pitch routes, but now I’m wondering if it would be better to buy larger nuts or if it’ll be enough to just buy dmm torque hexes now just for the beginning of the trad climb adventure?

Hello! I need help for good beginner trad leads in or near the gunks. I was getting into trad, lead many climbs, and then several months ago got derailed by injury, personal life stuff, weight gain, and haven't climbed at all. Are there any good beginner trad climbs to lead for confidence boosters and to get back into the swing of things as far as gear systems and placements go? Also any advice for getting back into climbing from a fitness perspective?

Was doing some test leads on top rope on this crack that no one has climbed before in a not so popular crag.

I suppose this is a type of sandstone. In the area there are quite porous sandstone formations, but you do find these dense grained faces like the one in the photo.

Some people i know say the rock is too soft for gear. It seemed solid to me in person. Additionally i weighted the gear n bounce test it with no issue, didn’t fall on it though. Is there anything in the photos that might say otherwise?

Great weather and a great climb. We traversed over to get the summit of Mt. Blue Sky (Evans) too! 🏔️

5 days in the cirque. Bagged NE Face of Pingora.
Attempted North Face of Mitchell’s Peak, got shut down when we got way off route about halfway to the bowl and had an epic bail. If anyone wants a few free nuts and a couple old lockers, they are up there somewhere!

All in all, a spectacular place to climb!

Hi all, I’ve got a week booked in Yosemite and looking for some easy/moderate multi recommendations to take my buddy on. He’s a a decently strong sport climber, newer to trad but has a lot of stoke.

We have 1 week booked in Yosemite. I know it’s going to be hot, but we’re both down to wake up as early as needed. We both have experience with multi pitch and have taken safety/rescue courses.

About me:
Been leading trad ~ 2 years. Pretty confident up to about 5.9, starting leading low 10s and feeling good on them but taking some falls. Super confident on Tahquitz 5.7s for reference. Tahquitz 5.6s are almost too easy. I’ve done multis as big as Time Wave Zero (23 pitches).

My buddy:
Newer to trad, as in just started. Good sport climber, he just spent the last 3 months in SEA climbing every day. He’s probably a stronger sport climber than me now. He’s comfortable leading 10+ sport. Done a good handful of multis but nothing huge. He’s super eager to learn trad and wants to do big objectives with me eventually. He’s happy to follow on anything.

What I’m looking for:
I’m really just looking for climbs that will be fun for both of us. I don’t want to be “that guy” in Yosemite that’s super slow holding the wall up because they took someone inexperienced, but I also don’t wanna be stuck climbing 5.6s all day if possible haha.

We were thinking of starting on some easier 5.6, 3-4 pitch to start. But if possible moving on to some longer or harder climbs.

Would love any recommendations! Also advice on which walls will be in the sun/shade for which parts of the day since we’ll be climbing in the summer.

Found someone selling a bunch of pretty old trad gear (anyone know the model on the cams) for 700€ dollars you guys think it’s worth it? Seeing as new cams go for almost 100€ each it seems like a deal to me, just basket hitch the cams with new slings and they are good to go right?

Major Kong Rides the Bomb.

I am not a comparatively strong or skilled climber. I have even aged into the trad dad classification at this point. I want to always foster a welcoming community that doesn’t shame anyone for ignorance or inability. And yet there are a few things that drive me nuts for indiscernible reasons.

I hate when people use “trad” as a noun or pronoun as opposed to as an adjective. “Let’s go trad climbing.” Is A+. “I want to learn trad.” Gives me the ick, and I don’t know why. “Do you climb trad?” As opposed to, “Do you trad climb?” Just makes me irascible, which I don’t want to be!

I value gyms and the increased access they grant but I started climbing outdoors, and while I have come to terms with the dominance of indoor climbing and how its environment naturally leads to a competitive atmosphere amongst other issues, watching people slowly enter the broader climbing culture is often inspiring and exciting but has these cringe elements I find creeping under my skin.

For anyone who might not be familiar, trad is a shortening of the word traditional, which I believe was added in front of ‘climbing’ to distinguish it from bolted sport or sports climbing which really took off in the 1990’s. Traditional climbing, free climbing, aid climbing, sport climbing, big-wall solo free climbing; it’s all climbing.

This is a non-issue, and I’m certainly not about to start policing people’s language unless they ask for advice. How can I learn to accept this convention? Does anyone else feel this way? Should the sub be re-named ‘r/climbingtrad’?

Photo is a classic at Lovers Leap.

Amazing 0.4 finger crack

Super Direct on the West Face of Snowpatch. Awesome route! The crux corners were both full rope length pitches, pitch 2 was definitely my favourite.

Summitted with perfect weather on July 8. Incredible climb in an incredible location.

TLDR: We accidentally got off route and had to do some weird stuff to get back

Let me start by saying I’m not very experienced with traverses and especially not with lead down climbing. I’m aware of certain twin and double rope methods but that wasn’t available in this situation. Would love to hear everyone’s best tips and practices for down climbing and weird traverses!

Context:

We ended up off route at an anchor outside of the main chimney. We needed to get back into the chimney to continue the climb. However, we exited through a tricky offwidth that neither of us felt confident about down climbing/protecting and a fall didn’t look good for the leader or follower. There was a large chockstone in the chimney that I had my partner lower me to from the anchor and I climbed up from there.

After I led the pitch my partner rigged a double rope rappel down to the chockstone and tied into the rope that led up to the top anchor with a figure 8 on a bite. He radioed that he was on belay, and cleaned his rappel. He let the rope trail behind him and climbed the pitch.

I feel like there was a much easier way to do this that will be painfully obvious once it’s pointed out and I will be facepalming. So feedback will be much appreciated.

The main issues I see with our method are:

1. Opened the door for human error.

-Rigging the rappel alone/tying in alone for the follower
-Without radios it would’ve been difficult to communicate when follower needed to transition from rappel to belay.

1. Relied on us having enough rope for the rappel and the entire length of the pitch

-The rope had to go from me at the top belay, down to the chockstone, up to the lower belay, and back down to the chockstone in order for the follower to rappel and recover the rope

1. Risk of the rope getting stuck behind the follower

-Follower can retie into the end, but that would leave loads of slack during the transition

1. Time consuming

The system was clunky, but everyone lived, and it didn’t seem overly dangerous or risky with the factors we had in play.

Maybe the best option is I just need to get better at down climbing and protecting in those situations.

Rei is having a 85% off sale and the 60cm of webbing comes out to under a dollar vs a normal sling which is 10 bucks.
Is it safe to do this I saw some people saying you should sew the tail ends on a water knot with this configuration