Titled: "TRAD CLIMBING 101"

Hey all, just wanted to drop a post letting everyone know of my day coming up. On Friday a friend and I are going to be taking the day off work and headed to this place call Tahquitz. It is about a 500 ft rock on the side of a mountain. The style of climbing that we will be doing is called Trad (short for traditional). Normally there are things bolted into the rocks however in Trad climbing there is nothing and you bring gear to stick on the cracks in the wall and that attach to your rope and that is what keeps you from falling. My friend is a good climber and knows what he is doing which is good because I have never done Trad climbing myself so it will be an adventure. The rock is about 4 or 5 pitches, depending on where you are going up. A "pitch" is where a guy climbs up a certain distance while he is being belayed by a guy on the ground, then he anchors in and belays for the guy below him to catch up. That would be one pitch. You do that all the way up the rock. The most dangerous part is called the "lead". Understandibly, it is the one going first and "leading" the second. It is dangerous mainly because the "lead" has to climb above the last anchor that was placed, so if they fall, they not only fall back to the last anchor, the fall the actually twice the distance. I wont be leading so if I fall, the belay will keep me tight so I wont really go anywhere. A big fall would be if somone is say 15 ft above their last anchor and so if they fall they fall the 15 feet down to the anchor and then since they were 15 above it they still have another 15 feet of rope, so they fall a total of 30 feet before the rope catches them. Here is an example of what I am talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhwDkVmvjC8 so a 30 ft fall a couple hundred feet above the ground is quite the rush.

Dont worry, it seems crazy but is actually pretty safe if everything is done properly. I will try to bring my camera and get some pictures. It will be a fun day.