Traditional climbing
Traditional climbing is a type of free climbing in the sport of rock climbing where the lead climber places temporary and removable protection while simultaneously ascending the route; when the lead climber has completed the route, the second climber then removes this protection as they ascend the route. Traditional climbing differs from sport climbing where the protection equipment is already pre-drilled into the rockface in the form of permanent bolts. Traditional climbing is still the dominant format on longer multi-pitch climbing routes, including alpine and big wall routes.
Traditional climbing carries a much higher level of risk than with bolted sport-climbing as the climber may not have placed the temporary protection equipment correctly while trying to ascend the route, or there may be few opportunities such as cracks and fissures to insert satisfactory protection. Traditional climbing was once the dominant form of free climbing but since the mid-1980s, sport climbing — and its related form of competition climbing — became more popular for single pitch routes, and all technical grade milestones from onwards were set on single-pitch sport-climbing routes.
From the early 2000s, there was a resurgence in interest in single-pitch traditional climbing as climbers began greenpointing sport-climbing routes, and setting new grade milestones for traditional routes. In 2008, female climber Beth Rodden created a new traditional climbing route at the same hardest grade ever climbed by a man with her ascent of Meltdown at. In 2019, Jacopo Larcher created what is considered the first graded traditional route with Tribe.
Description
Traditional climbing is a form of free climbing, which is performed in pairs where the lead climber places removable climbing protection into the route while ascending. After the lead climber has reached the top, the second climber removes this temporary climbing protection while climbing the route. Some consider the hammering in of pitons while climbing the route, as long as they are only for climbing protection and not to aid progression, to also be traditional climbing.Traditional climbing differs from sport climbing that has in-situ climbing protection already pre-bolted into the route, and the lead climber just clips their rope, via quickdraws, into the bolts as they ascend. As a result, sport climbing is therefore a much safer, and less stressful, form of free climbing. Traditional climbing differs from free solo climbing where no climbing protection is used whatsoever.
First free ascent
With the greater popularity of sport climbing, traditional climbing evolved to embrace some of its redpointing techniques in qualifying a climb as a first free ascent. The previously controversial practices of hangdogging, and headpointing are now accepted by the leading traditional climbers.From the early 21st century, traditional climbers began to introduce the derived term 'greenpointing', to describe completing an ascent of an existing pre-bolted sport-climb but only using "traditional protection".
History
As 20th-century rock climbers began to free climb, they often used traditional climbing techniques for protection. Early traditional climbers relied on crude, and often unreliable, forms of homemade "passive" climbing protection such as pieces of metal or chockstones attached to slings.With the development of "active" traditional climbing protection in the 1970s—called spring-loaded camming devices —the grades of technical difficulty that traditional climbers could safely undertake on crack climbing routes increased dramatically, and new grade milestones were set on new traditional climbing routes. However, by the mid-1980s, the leading traditional climbers were again facing technical challenges with minimal possibilities for traditional climbing protection, that required them to accept significant personal risks – Johnny Dawes's 1986 ascent of Indian Face being a notable example.
File:1633A3515.jpg|thumb|Jonathan Siegrist on The Path 5.14a R, 8b+, at Lake Louise
At this time, French climbers such as Patrick Edlinger began to pre-drill permanent masonry bolts into the almost "blank" faces of Buoux and Verdon for protection ; this became known as sport climbing. It led to a dramatic increase in climbing standards – all future new grade milestones would be set on sport climbing routes. The increased safety of pre-drilled bolts also led to the development and popularity of competition climbing and the emergence of the "professional" rock climber. Sport climbing then became—and remains today—the most popular form of single-pitch rock climbing, although traditional climbing is still popular in multi-pitch climbing and in big wall and alpine climbing in particular.
Traditional returned to single-pitch prominence when in 2003, Swiss climber Didier Berthod greenpointed the bolted sport climb Greenspit to create one of the hardest traditional crack routes in the world. In 2006, Canadian climber Sonnie Trotter greenpointed The Path to create one of the world's hardest traditional climbs at the time. Trotter, and other leading 'trad' climbers such as Dave MacLeod, led a resurgence in traditional climbing by creating new grade milestones on routes such as Cobra Crack and Rhapsody. The increased prominence of traditional climbing attracted the leading sport climbers who began to repeat—and create—major traditional routes. In 2023, when British climber James Pearson created one of the world's first E12 'trad' routes with Bon Voyage, the first repeat was by sport climbing legend, Adam Ondra.
Protection
Equipment
Traditional climbing requires more rock climbing equipment than sport climbing as the lead climber needs to carry, and insert, protection devices while climbing the route. The choice of equipment carried will depend on the type of route being attempted. Some of the most difficult and dangerous traditional routes offer very little opportunity to insert protection into the rock, and thus the lead climber carries very little protective equipment.Classic traditional climbs often involve crack climbing that offers greater opportunity for inserting protection – into the crack itself – and the lead climber will carry a lot more equipment to secure their safety.
Two main classes of protection are used in traditional climbing, namely: "passive" and "active". Passive protection devices include nuts, hexcentrics and tricams, and are metal shapes attached to wires or slings, which can be inserted into cracks and fissures in the rock that will act like temporary sport climbing bolts. Active protection consists of spring-loaded camming devices, which are cams that dynamically adjust to the size of the crack or fissure in the rock, but also act like temporary sport climbing bolts.
Risk
The traditional climber has two key concerns, or areas of risk, when placing the protection equipment while leading the traditional route.The first concern is related to the quality of the protection placements. Where these placements are considered good and will hold the climber in the event of a major fall, they are called "bomb-proof". However, when the placements are poor, and there is uncertainty that they will hold in the event of a major fall – risking a "zipper-fall" – they are described as "thin". For example, when Johnny Dawes freed the traditional climb Indian Face in 1986, the protection was so thin, Dawes assumed if he fell, the protection would rip out, and he would fall to the ground.
The other concern is the distance between the protection placements. Where there are many protection placements with small gaps between them, then any fall will be short and less onerous; even if one placement fails/rips-out, there are more placements that might still hold. However, large gaps between placements – known as a "run out" – means that any fall will be larger and will place more pressure on the existing placements to hold the fall. Famous extreme traditional climbs such as Master's Edge and Gaia have notorious run-outs, where even if the protection holds, the falling climber has a high chance of hitting the ground, as spectacularly shown in the opening sequence of the 1998 British climbing film, Hard Grit.
To reflect the greater risk of traditional climbing routes over sport climbing routes, an additional grade is often added to the route's grade of technical difficulty to reflect the risks. In the United Kingdom, this is known as the "adjectival" grade. In the United States, it takes the form of a suffix.
Grading
The grading of traditional climbing routes starts with a sport climbing grade for the "technical difficulty", and an additional "risk grade" to reflect how hard the lead climber will find protecting the route while ascending. Some sport grading systems, particularly the French system, offer no additional "risk grade", and are thus less likely to be used as traditional climbing grades. The most dominant grading system for traditional climbing is the American system, which for traditional routes can add the "suffix" of "R" for risk of serious injury in any fall, or "X" for routes where a fall at a particular place, could be fatal. For example, a famous but serious extreme North American traditional climb is Sonnie Trotter's 2007 route, The Path in Lake Louise, Alberta, which is graded 5.14a R.One of the most detailed, and still widely used, traditional grading systems is the British E-grade. Two grades are quoted; the first being the "adjectival grade", and the second being the "technical grade". The interplay between the two grades reflects the "risk grade" of the route. For each "technical grade", there is a normal equivalent "adjectival grade"; for example, for the technical grade of "6a", the normal "adjectival grade" is "E4". Where the "adjectival grade" is lower than normal, for example, E3 6a, that means the route is much safer and easier to protect. When the "adjectival grade" is higher than normal, for example, E5 6a, that means the route is more dangerous and harder to protect. For example, one of the most famous and dangerous extreme British traditional climbs is Johnny Dawes' 1986 route, Indian Face, which is graded E9 6c, or 5.13a X under the American system.