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General Climbing Discussion

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Gym climbing vs trad? 21-Jun-2006 At 1:16:30 PM steph

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My advice is get to know the people you see at the gym, you'll find most of the boulderers will head outdoors fairly often to climb trad and would most likely have a spare helmet and some experience to share. After seconding a lot of outdoor stuff, you might do a lead course, start collecting trad gear, and then head out yourself.

The best things you can do to learn to lead trad are to place tonnes of gear (at ground level), getting it checked by someone; to set up anchors and get them checked; and then second 1000metres of outdoor rock (cleaning) before getting on the sharp end yourself.

You'll also find that you will be climbing much lower grades on natural climbs. Don't expect to climb anywhere near your limit in the near future. (Mainly because trad gear is there for safety but you do not want to test it) A fair few trad climbers go years without falling on their gear.

Anyway happy leading.....