In sport climbing, you clip the rope through bolts that are already drilled into the rock. But in trad, there are no bolts. Instead, you place your own gear in cracks in the rock, and then clip the rope through your gear. The first time someone explained trad to me was about five months ago, when we were on a climbing trip in Kentucky. Perhaps because of the way my friends described it, I always imagined that trad must be a terrifying experience.
"There are two rules in trad climbing," they used to joke.
"Rule number one: All gear ALWAYS holds.
Rule number two: Don't fall."
A classic case of doublethink - simultaneously trusting and not trusting your gear placements. Not trusting, because if you're new to trad, you can't assume your gear will hold if you fall on it. But at the same time, you have to force yourself to trust it, because otherwise the fear of falling makes climbing impossible.
With these thoughts in the back of my head, I have to say I felt more than a little apprehensive on Sunday as we were hiking up to Lion's Head. But once we started climbing, I began see that although I had understood before how trad worked from a mechanical perspective, I had completely missed the point. Climbing with Ian and his friends made me realize that learning trad didn't have to involve fear or risk. And in fact, if it did involve fear or risk, it was because you were going about it the wrong way.
With them, trad was all about taking it slow. It was about never putting yourself in a situation where you didn't have all the time in the world - time to find the right piece of gear, time to find the right place to put it, time to do everything exactly the way you meant to. And time to appreciate the mountain and the climb for their own sake, not for the sake of achieving something competitive for yourself. We didn't climb anything that wasn't easily within our comfort zone, in terms of strength or ability. Instead of climbing to get better at climbing, we were climbing... for some other reason. Some reason that is harder to pinpoint.
When I took a turn leading, I found it surprisingly liberating to have no specific course set before me. No bolts, no leader. It felt strange to be free to choose my own way up the mountain.
When we finally reached the top of Lion's Head, the sun had already set, and the stars had already risen. The city and the ocean were spread out below, all around us. We emerged right next to the highest lookout point, marked by a plaque and a cairn for tourists and hikers. To our surprise, we heard laughter and smelled the unmistakeable smell of beer. A group of college kids had evidently hiked up before us to enjoy the sunset and the view. They stopped talking and stared at us as we emerged one by one, heavy with gear and ropes, from the edge of what looked like a sheer drop-off.
"Where did you come from?" they asked, almost suspiciously. Evidently the alcohol was making it necessary for them to think a little harder than usual. "Did you climb up here?" one of them said finally.
"Yes," we said.
And then, for lack of anything better to say, we wished them a good night and began the long hike back down.
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