What is Trad Climbing?

In sport climbing areas the rock has been pre-prepared with fixed metal bolts and rings drilled and glued in place permanently. But in trad climbing areas there are no such permanent placements – instead the rock usually has natural features – cracks, holes, gaps and protrusions – that not only serve as hand and/or foot-holds, but can serve as handy places to put temporary protection such as cams, nuts, hexes and slings. This is the essence of trad climbing – placing temporary hardware on your way up the rock, that you can clip the rope to to stay attached and safe.

Is it scary?

Trad climbing can seem like a scary concept to most people, and learning to place the gear well is an art – but with the right mentor and adequate practice you will not find that it is not nearly as daunting as it appears. Additionally the rope skills needed to effectively manage the session are much more complicated than in sport climbing, but again a structured course will teach you this. Once those two small hurdles are overcome, you will discover an all new amazing and incredibly rewarding aspect of climbing that you never knew existed!

What will we learn?

On this course you will learn to:

Adjust belay habits to suit traditional rock climbing
Prepare your gear prior to leaving the ground ready for safe, efficient climbing
Identify the best type of gear for a particular rock feature
Build multi-point EARNEST anchor systems using trad gear and your rope
Return at the end of your session without leaving any of your equipment behind
Recognise the most common trad climbing mistakes and easy methods to mitigate them

Prerequisites

The participants start this session with knowledge of indoor “lead” climbing, and will have a lead-pass from any indoor climbing gym.

Location

This course is held on an outdoor location on real trad climbing routes. The area we climb at and the grade of the routes will be tailored to the group participant’s skill levels.

Duration

12 hours contact time, split over two sessions.

What do we need to own/bring?

The only piece of equipment you need to own before this course is a standard climbing harness suitable for lead-climbing indoors. All other climbing safety equipment is provided by Melbourne Climbing School, however if you own any of the following equipment please bring it along with you – learning with your own equipment is far better and will provide a great start to your outdoor climbing experience!

Helmet *
One locking biner suitable for belaying
One belay device
If you own a chalk bag, rope, quickdraws, slings and any other sport- or trad-climbing equipment please let us know prior to the course, and we can plan to teach you using your own gear instead.

* Helmets are worn on all outdoor Melbourne Climbing School courses – but as with all of the other climbing safety equipment, we have these if you don’t own one, and we will not charge any extra for their use on the course.

Closed footwear such as tennis shoes are fine for learning on if you do not own climbing shoes.

Non-climbing gear: You will need to bring suitable clothing and footwear for light hiking, and your own lunch and water for the day (and a camera!).

[C2C April 2026 Cohort] Single Pitch Trad Climbing