Intro to Trad Climbing

Traditional climbing involves placing one’s own protection — cams and nuts — instead of relying on pre-drilled bolts. With this come additional risks and additional rewards. Learning trad climbing will open up vast amounts of terrain to you, including the best of what Yosemite has to offer.

In this class, you’ll learn to place cams and nuts, and how to evaluate if a placement is safe or not. We’ll also do a crash course in crack climbing techniques, practice building trad anchors, and talk about the risks of trad climbing and how to manage them.

Required equipment: Harness, helmet, belay device. Rentals available for $10/person (select the rental package at checkout).

Optional equipment: A trad rack (if you have one), slings, cordelette, quickdraws