fixed and/or preplaced gear that aren't bolts as a traditional way to climb

You could have "trad" routes that were climbed in a "non-trad" style. This seems to be the case I think for much of the UK climbing. The pro is generally terrible or sparse and the consequences for failure were so great that pre-inspection, top-roping and pre-placing gear is generally considered OK. And hence falls into the category of traditional (according to British history).

As far as I am concerned Traditional climbing involves hammers, pitons,bolts, shoulder stands, direct aid, iceaxes, crampons

folks with inflated opinions of their STYLE of climbing being better than anyone elses to the point of bolt wars and endless bla bla bla about how we did it in the seventys. That ain't trad climbing. It's just annoying.

tradition[ truh-dish-uhn ]
noun
1. the handing down of statements, beliefs, legends, customs, information, etc., from generation to generation, especially by word of mouth or by practice: a story that has come down to us by popular tradition.
2. something that is handed down: the traditions of the Eskimos.
3. a long-established or inherited way of thinking or acting: The rebellious students wanted to break with tradition.

I think what's been lost is the distinction between an onsight and a redpoint, probably because the difficult "trad" climbs we hear about now are so hard a redpoint is assumed and an onsight with no pre-placed gear, inspection, rehearsal or whatever, would be extraordinary if not impossible.

Stop trying to impress with endless categorizing. Its not working.

A climb is what it is, the variations are endless.

There seems to be a general trend in climbing culture to call ascents of
routes with fixed and/or preplaced gear that aren't bolts as a traditional way to climb.

In the outdoor industry, people call the newer dyneema grid fabrics just 'dyneema', and it leads to much confusion because there is such a thing as full dyneema, not just grid.

I'll re-read the OP.

Rock $ Ice

It wasn't immediately apparent to me that it was ever a typical trad climb.

It just a problem with comprehending what R&I is saying.

It's interesting that the OP took what he took from it.

but while inspecting the route Findlay discovered that much of Chicama's pre-placed pegs were now rotten due to years of weathering from the sea.

"Some of them fell out whilst I was working the route," explains Findlay. "Two of them snapped when we tried to get them out, which means that you can't use the same placement and have to find another spot for the pegs to go."

Findlay replaced enough pegs to make Chicama protectable again, and after three days of preparing the route she was ready for the lead.

No...it's about minimizing risk, which implies that risk is there.

so protection is [often] pre-placed and the moves are worked on top rope before the final performance.

Old people... give it up (OT)

How, in a sane lexicographic world, could that be anything other than traditional climbing?

The main thing here is to stay 6 posts ahead of the

Old people... give it up (OT)
thread.

Ah the sounds of Yosemite in the early 70's.....LSD, mescaline and peyote induced, nothing quite like them.

So can anybody define "trad" in 25 words or less? I'll give you 50.

OK - 100, but that's it.

WTF IS trad climbing anyway?

Resting on gear while freeclimbing? Not even considered.

And if I recall, jstan etal were pretty damn picky about exactly how those routes got done - how they were protected, how the moves were figured out - that nit picky stuff.

A lot more people than just the 'Chosen' few cared about this stuff. Lets not turn trad climbing into more glorification of the golden years boys.

unwashed masses

Sure do, sounds like you have an Alter [sic] in your home you kneel at to worship our righteous fathers.

You mean the geniuses that pounded steel for 20 years and only quit because the Brits stared [sic] using machine nuts on cords?

Thanks, we found another typo. It's not that there's anything wrong with giving credit where credit is due, it's the incessant glorification of it. Climbing is a very simple sport. We're talking about what trad climbing is. It's almost too dumb to have been invented by anyone - it just IS.

I remember reading a Verm story about a baboon that climbed its way into a pickle, had to do a desperate dyno to get out and proceeded to furiously masterbate upon reaching firm ground again.

I found this over at rockclimbing.com...

Why all the distaste (vehemence) for RC.com? I mean, this has come up before. I see familiar faces there. The rock here is nicer, that's for sure.

Trad climbers got stuck with the "traditional" name as a counterpoint to sport climbing. In fact, every generation of climbers has violated tradition by choosing to abandon at least some of the cherished rules of the previous generation. This is at least partially because the previous generation had already gotten about as far as possible within the context of the rules they adhered to.

Typically, the role of the previous generation has been to complain bitterly about the transgressions of the current generation and, in so doing, prevent at least some of the outrages that result from the drive of outsize egos for accomplishment.

I think sport climbing upended this conservative process by being something different and parallel to what came before, rather than an evolution of it. Although we don't like to say so in this country, the presence of risk and the way in which it is confronted lies at the heart of what is now referred to as traditional climbing. Sport climbing has banished risk, at least the forms of risk inherent in trad climbing, in favor of other aspects of climbing, and as the sport climbing mentality spreads, it becomes increasingly difficult to even communicate about the distinctions between the genres, not least because of the irrelevant formulations such as bolts vs. gear.

Consider a trad climb with a risky section. It's been done many times, but now there is a contingent of climbers who want to put a bolt there. Why? Because that part of the climb is risky! More people could enjoy it if there was a bolt, and the community has a "right" to the route.

But the risk is exactly why the trad climbers don't want the bolt there, although somehow that never seems to be made clear. Trad climbers see controlling the risk through the use of gear that may not be bomber and the practice of self-control under pressure as one of the intrinsic challenges of the sport.

Putting in that bolt destroys part of the essence of the climb for the trad climber. People may not like this and may not agree with it, but they should at least understand that there is a genuine and irreconcilable conflict between the preservation of risk and the desire for a risk-free environment.

Saying that risk is intrinsic to trad climbing does not mean that trad climbers want arbitrary risks. Trad climbing isn't a collection of stunts like how many cars you can jump your motorcycle over. The risks of trad climbing are the ones intrinsic to the environment: unknown territory ahead, no cracks for pro, no stances to drill from. This is why those who say "just don't clip the bolt" are utterly clueless. The bolt modifies the environment and makes a former intrinsic risk into a stupid stunt.

I grew up in a time when all climbing was trad climbing. I have nothing against sport climbing, and because of the decreased risk I find it increasingly attractive as I get older and more brittle. But I also would have found the sheer pursuit of difficulty in sport climbing compelling when I was young, strong, and less likely to snap on impact. I just wish the the practitioners of the two genres would learn to respect the traditions of each (yes, sport climbing is now old enough to have traditions too) and not try to impose their perspectives and preferences on the other styles of climbing. The UK is the only country that seems to have really managed to do this.

Unfortunately, there is a substantial asymmetry in the two outlooks that puts trad climbing at an enormous disadvantage. Trad climbers, by and large, are about leaving things as they are. Sport climbing is all about permanently modifying the environment to provide a certain type of experience. Someone with a Hilti will put in a bunch of bolts somewhere, and then we hear that they should be left in because who wants to start a bolt war. According to this view, the Hilti owners have free reign to do whatever they want and the rest of the climbing community just has to be resigned to it.

Of course, the sense of entitlement that allows a self-appointed guardian of communal safety to bolt trad routes will never be fully constrained to the placement of protection. Once one type of environmental modification has been embraced, the barriers to other types become fragile, and that is why we are seeing more and more chipping, even in former bastions of traditional values like the Gunks where the owners of the land explicitly forbid such actions.

Better hop a train before summer hits.