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emperorI'm hoping someone else will answer the related prompts about indoor climbing, bouldering, sport climbing, and ice-climbing, but this is a short piece about how great trad climbing is :-)
Briefly, trad climbing is what most outdoor climbers did before sport climbing (where routes have bolts in the rock for you to clip to) was invented - you place your own protection (nuts, hexes and cams) in the route as you go, and your second takes them out as they follow you up. This means that the leader needs to be able to follow the route up the crag (based on a more or less useful guidebook), and place appropriate protection. Unlike sport climbing (where you tend to push your grade and fall a lot), the aim is to climb routes cleanly on your first attempt. Trad grades have two components, one describing how technically difficult a route is, and the other an overall indication of how tough the route is. For example, a route graded HVS 5c would probably be well-protected and have a short crux sequence, a route graded HVS 4c would be more sustained and/or hard to protect.
If you want to go outdoor climbing in the UK, most of the crags are trad-only. That notwithstanding, what's so great about trad, given it's probably riskier, and certainly more complex than sport climbing? Paradoxically, despite all the iron-mongery, it feels like quite a pure form of climbing - just you and the rock, and precious little sign of your passage once you're done. There's something pretty adventurous about standing at the bottom of a crag, looking at a line, and then getting on and climbing it - and a great sense of achievement when you get to the top! I also like that fact that I can find my own way up the rock, and make my own mind up about when to place gear - I'm not constrained to the red plastic holds, nor to where someone else thought a good place to clip was.
Also, the mountains in the UK are so damn pretty, and stopping on a belay ledge half-way up a mountainside to appreciate the width of the view in all three dimensions is just amazing. It makes my day every time!
[I am happy to answer trad questions in comments]
Briefly, trad climbing is what most outdoor climbers did before sport climbing (where routes have bolts in the rock for you to clip to) was invented - you place your own protection (nuts, hexes and cams) in the route as you go, and your second takes them out as they follow you up. This means that the leader needs to be able to follow the route up the crag (based on a more or less useful guidebook), and place appropriate protection. Unlike sport climbing (where you tend to push your grade and fall a lot), the aim is to climb routes cleanly on your first attempt. Trad grades have two components, one describing how technically difficult a route is, and the other an overall indication of how tough the route is. For example, a route graded HVS 5c would probably be well-protected and have a short crux sequence, a route graded HVS 4c would be more sustained and/or hard to protect.
If you want to go outdoor climbing in the UK, most of the crags are trad-only. That notwithstanding, what's so great about trad, given it's probably riskier, and certainly more complex than sport climbing? Paradoxically, despite all the iron-mongery, it feels like quite a pure form of climbing - just you and the rock, and precious little sign of your passage once you're done. There's something pretty adventurous about standing at the bottom of a crag, looking at a line, and then getting on and climbing it - and a great sense of achievement when you get to the top! I also like that fact that I can find my own way up the rock, and make my own mind up about when to place gear - I'm not constrained to the red plastic holds, nor to where someone else thought a good place to clip was.
Also, the mountains in the UK are so damn pretty, and stopping on a belay ledge half-way up a mountainside to appreciate the width of the view in all three dimensions is just amazing. It makes my day every time!
[I am happy to answer trad questions in comments]
