r/tradclimbing

My friend got some pics of me on a super fun climb I sent yesterday, cornflake crack at the north side of looking glass in NC! I unfortunately only had time for the first pitch, but looking forward to getting back on for the second.

The crux is a traverse that is pretty close to the ground and can cause a lot of rope drag. So I tied into both rope ends. I don’t trust many people to belay me with an ATC but luckily an expert belayer was at the crag. I untied one end at a stance and was switched to a gri-gri

I’m trying to up my crack game by climbing at least 2/3 of the badass cracks at northside, to prep me for Squamish this summer. Really hard to find crack practice around here. Any southeastern crack suggestions in the 5.11 range would be welcome! (Shade only please)

Accomplished my first Trad Lead on Captain's Log 5.4 at Peterskill, Sunday, May 4th, 2026. Marking exactly 8 months since I first stepped into a bouldering gym on September 4th, 2025, at 41 years old and learned what a V0 was.

What a rad 8 months I've had. Onwards and upwards 🙌

My rack that I bring out with me. Give me ur thoughts

The 0.3 C4 has since been replaced with a 0.3 Z4.

Trad pro that doesn’t make the pic/make it out anymore: larger tricams up to the big white/big green tricams, miscellaneous nuts

This is my TRS anchor from yesterday. I went overkill because I wanted to try as many things as I could and use a lot of gear. I was curious if anything here looks like it could be improved in any way! So please pick this apart.
The orange climbing rope is just clipped to the bowline so I can have the rope run down, touch the ground, and then come back up so I can keep the pile on top of the cliff.
I cloved into a bolt on one of the anchor strands since it was there, because why not. It’s the only bolt. The other has been chopped by a loco dude around here.

EDIT: Thank you everyone for the feedback! Sounds like this is NOT standard practice and not something most of you would have crafted, but it is also safe and there isn’t much wrong with it. I apologize for the crap photo with rope running everywhere to confuse the viewer. I will totally be hitting the books as it’s been a minute since I’ve flipped through John longs book. Give me a little while and I’ll be back ;) don’t you worry. But seriously thanks everyone for pitching in. Glad some of you had a laugh as well!

We're all familiar that cams vary in size from company to company. Cam-parison.com illustrates that pretty well.

I think I found a pretty good mix of cams and sizes to optimize the most overlap between sizes for the companies I like to use (BD, WC, DMM, totem). For example, a red dragon is the smallest red cam, and the wild Country friend is the biggest red cam.

EDIT: I posted the wrong picture, but it's basically what I wanted. I use a blue totem, not a BD C4 0.3, and BD #3, not the dragon. Here's the link to what I found to be what I think is optimal.

Leader and follower each have a handful of nuts, a handful of alpine draws and a couple of quick draws

Charlize Theron has a #2 and #4 metolius ultralight, and later we see a BD C4 #2.

Each climber is seen using daisy chains to go indirect

Gates in or gates out? Why not both?

Belaying a wintery multipitch route with a black diamond ATC - interesting choice…

Belayer is about 90lbs lighter than me. Used the horizontal crack at the bottom to prevent her from launching if I fell. The nuts would not have moved from an upward pull. The rope was not clipped into the bottom sling as pictured while I was climbing.

I am currently mostly sport climbing, as you can probably tell from the draw lengths and the cams and brassies being very fresh.

The first trad gear I got were the alu nuts. I use them to fill in the sparse bolting common in my country. The blue offset has already saved me from a ground fall. I later got the hexes (30% off) when I have encountered placements too large for the nuts.

I am looking to expand my skill set into proper trad this season. So when I received my OT pay, I decided to get the cams and brass nuts I have been eyeing for a year.

How would you rate this rack? I'm looking forward to adding some wear to the fresh gear.

Me and my Roomate have slowly been accumulating gear, and have been buying cams etc. for cheap whenever we have the chance. Got a bunch of stuff for free as well. Have a pretty good mix of new stuff and older, but overall feel like we are in a pretty solid spot to get on most of things we want to here in CO, but definitely feel like we could add some more smaller stuff, but would love to hear your thoughts.

After a huge amount of effort, I’ve secured a reliable way to bring Krukonogi gear into the United States.

The first shipment has already nearly sold out, but I still have a limited number of front points for Petzl crampons available. If you’ve been looking to upgrade your setup, now’s the time.

I’m also officially opening preorders for the next shipment—spots are limited.

Images (2–3): Krukonogi FL11 (A TN) Front Points
https://www.climbingbooty.net/product-page/krukonogi-fl11-a-tn-front-points-pair

Preorder List & Contact:
climbingbooty.net/contact-4

P.S. Not listed yet: Krukonogi just finished their first picks for the Hydras (image 6). Two styles available — PH00 (A, TN) and PHS00 (A, TN).