Best Beginner Trad Routes??

[Cody]

Hello, I have been TR and sport climbing for a little while and I would like to break into Trad.

Any recommendations on routes that are easy and safe for first time trad lead?

[jonny2vests]

The easy routes at Sugarloaf, The Commonwealth (both at Murrin) and Daycare at the Smoke Bluffs all provide nice straight forward climbing where you can place lots of gear from stable positions.

[hevyduty]

h Hey jonny wheres Daycare at the bluffs! never heard of the crag ? area?

[hevyduty]

hey Cody the best crags to learn to trad climb are in the bluffs ,The Sugarloaf is abolted easy sport crag ,the Commonwealth crag is great crag but its not place to learn to place gear, its tall and tricky!The Nursery ,Call it A day,tunnel rock Lumberland 2nd Ave,Respiration rock have some of the best easy trad routes in the bluffs go climb them Hevy

[jonny2vests]

h Hey jonny wheres Daycare at the bluffs! never heard of the crag ? area?

Oh, yeah, Call it a Day. Daycare is in Skaha I think. Stupid.

FWIW, I think Sugarloaf is better for your first day ever, than any of of the bluffs crags. You can even do a mini multipitch on Lieback Crack.

[hevyduty]

hey j The easy climbs at 2nd Ave are some of the the best easy routes in squamish at 2nd Ave you have the opportunity to climb 4 two pitch routes,under 5/10 . At lumberland you have 5 options for two pitch routes starting at 5/6 . Have u climbed at 2nd ave yet? cheers Hevy

[Mike C.]

My vote is for Call it a Day or Second Ave in the Bluffs. If you want first time climbers to lose interest in rock climbing in under five minutes, then by all means take them to Sugerloaf.

[jonny2vests]

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[jonny2vests]

If you want first time climbers to lose interest in rock climbing in under five minutes, then by all means take them to Sugerloaf.

We're not talking about first time climbers, Cody wants to learn to trad lead. Impressing them is low on the agenda because they've already been around the block a bit.

I think the gear at Second Avenue is both fiddly and on some routes, sparse.

[Drew]

Have spent 20-odd years walking right by the 2nd Ave stuff because the crag was so broken and rambling it wasn't inspiring enough to scrub.

Sugarloaf suffers from being busy, but the routes are some of the best easy trad around - solid, well-protected, wide variety of gear to place. Great place to learn gear placement on lead.

Funarama also has lots of well-protected easy trad leads. Squatter's Rights and First Class in particular suck up gear and are long enough you can place a lot of it.

[jonny2vests]

The Sugarloaf is abolted easy sport crag

Just noticed that. Maybe you're talking about the Sugarloaf in Skaha?

[jstod]

FWIW my girlfriend just did her first gear lead a few weeks ago, at sugarloaf. She'd led a fair bit of sport prior and had followed/cleaned a lot of gear too so the objectives for her first lead were for her to get used to choosing which gear to place and for me to check the quality of the placements.

At sugarloaf you can get a good stance every two feet or so, making it very easy to sew it up. Also, the climbing can be easy to the point that falling is virtually a non-issue if you've climbed and led a bit of sport before. Downside to that crag is the crowds but we were lucky enough to have it for ourselves that day.

From sugarloaf it has been an easy transition to some of the 5.8's at commonwealth and the new crag around the corner.

Julian

[jonny2vests]

Yeah totally agree.

And once you've polished off the easy stuff it turns out there are some pretty good routes lurking away at Sugarloaf; Stairway, Orphan & Holiday in Cambodia (perfect early 5.8s), then there's some good harder stuff too; Thriller off the Void, Heavy Charge, Hot Wire, Block & Tackle, there's barely a shite move at the entire crag.

I think naysayers are too quick to dismiss it having only seen one side of one block covered in beginners.

[Cody]

Hey, thanks everybody for the suggestions! Can't wait until Saturday to hit the rock.

Since the my first question was answered so well I'll ask another. I don't have the funds to buy a rack of cams but I can afford nuts/hexes.

How many of what sized pieces would you suggest getting to get me started?

Thanks a lot.