Traditional climbing

Traditional climbing (or trad climbing) is a type of free climbing in the sport of rock climbing in which the lead climber places temporary and removable protection while simultaneously ascending the route; when the lead climber has completed the route, the second climber (also called the belayer) will remove this protection as they ascend the route. Traditional climbing differs from sport climbing where the protection equipment is already pre-drilled into the rockface in the form of permanent bolts. Traditional climbing is still the dominant format on longer multi-pitch climbing routes, such as on alpine and big wall routes.

Traditional climbing carries a much higher level of risk than with bolted sport-climbing as the climber may not have placed the temporary protection equipment correctly while trying to ascend the route, or there may be few opportunities such as cracks and fissures to insert satisfactory protection (e.g. on very difficult routes). Traditional climbing was once the dominant form of free climbing but since the mid-1980s, sport climbing — and its related form of competition climbing — became more popular for single pitch routes, and all technical grade milestones from 8a+ (5.13c) onwards were set on single-pitch sport-climbing routes.

From the early 2000s, single-pitch traditional climbing returned to prominence as climbers greenpointed notable sport-climbing routes (e.g. Greenspit), and set new grade milestones (e.g. Cobra Crack at 8c (5.14b) by Sonnie Trotter, and Rhapsody at 8c+ (5.14c) by Dave MacLeod). In 2008, Beth Rodden created Meltdown, which at 8c+ (5.14c) matched the hardest traditional routes ascended by men. In 2023, James Pearson climbed the first consensus E12 with Bon Voyage, and in 2025, Connor Herson proposed the first-ever traditional route at 9a+ (5.15a) with his first free ascent of Drifter's Escape.