A few select pieces have small surface scratches from practicing gear placement... between the fridge and the kitchen counter.

I'd make the recommendation that when you call someone you dont know a moron that you should respond to what they wrote instead of sharing the meaningless drivel that immediately comes to mind.

OH SNAP!

Best. Movie. Ever.

OH SNAP!

I took your recommendation, before you even said it. Does that mean I'm psychic?
I read your post, it was not meaningless drivel- it was just moronic.
Seriously, learn to clean gear- unless you want to be another donater to blueeyedclimber's gear fund.
Learn to clean gear by placing the gear while chilling at the bottom of the crag, maybe while you're friends are climbing, maybe while the leader is faffinf, maybe when your buddy is taking a shit in the woods.
Practice placing gear, and cleaning it. Learn to look for the slot/ramp/imperfections that nuts slide into to reach their seated place. learn how to track them back along that path so they come out easily.
The last thing you want to do is deface the route by leaving gear behind or having to break rock by wildly hitting the nut with your key to get it out.
And, once your buddy lead a route (that you cleaned- hey, wow! amazing! learn by doing!) you lead a route.

If at this point anyone is thinking "You lost a lead, your buddy got one" then you're a jackass.

Your continued misunderstanding of my original post is unfortunate at best.

Thank you for yet another fantastic lesson from the Sungam school of lead climbing for internet fucktards. Lets see if I can summarize. Your saying that you dont need to leave your rack on a route after you climb it? FUCKING PROFOUND!!! Holy shit, imagine all the clueless bastards you have helped with this gem!

But thats not all, you have also touched on another "oh so important" lesson. The situation whereby a climber must "break rock by wildly hitting the nut with your key to get it out" is affecting our community more than ever these days. What surprises me is that they didn't think it was important enough to devote a whole chapter of Freedom of the Hills to this serious topic.

Anything else you wanted to add to this conversation? I think you need one more tangential reply to cement your status as a hero to 14 year old gym climbers everywhere...

Oh look. Another potentially useful thread taken over by an argument over semantics complete with quote war.

Yeah, and nary a mention of gear whoring in all of it.

Hey, I would've responded sooner, but my hands rack was on the computer chair, and I didn't want to move it until I'd finished making my sandwich.

[snip]
===Gear Whoring===

Simply stated this is the art and science of amassing as much climbing gear as possible, regardless of usefulness or condition. This simply cannot be overstated: gear whoring is the heart and soul of trad climbing. Phases of gear whoredom are as follows:

[snip]

I have no idea what that means but it sounds BAD-ASS.

I assume he meant he has a rack of just hand sized pieces, thus implying the rest of his rack must be simply ginormous.

why's that?

Technically, its a wide-hands rack, and its a son-of-a-bitch. I hate that size, but I've got seven #3 camalots! Seven!

BTW, other than obvious gear whore street cred, what possible motivation could you have for amassing seven cams to protect a size that as far as I know nobody actually likes climbing? Planning on going to Indian Creek and performing some kind of multi-pitch sick wide hands penance-fest?

Technically, its a wide-hands rack, and its a son-of-a-bitch. I hate that size, but I've got seven #3 camalots! Seven!

Which do you consider to be the most important concepts a climber needs to know before trad leading? In addition what do you think are the most commonly overlooked conepts of trad leading, whether they be small or big.

The most important principle for using trad protection, especiallly but not exclusively if you are just learning, is redundancy. The idea is to develop a system you trust while maintaining a healthy scepticism about the reliability of any one piece. Try not to put yourself in the position of having a single piece, no matter how "bombproof," between you and disaster.

Placing more than gear than seems to be essential requires discipline and endurance, marks of a good trad climber. Failing safely is a better longevity option than betting the farm on a single piece.

Nonetheless, all climbing to some extent, but trad climbing intrinsically, involves risk. A lot of climbs have places you better not fall from, and this is part of the essence of trad climbing---performing in a cool and controlled manner when confronting a risky situation. Neutralizing danger, not just by protection skills, but also by climbing skills, is part of the game. (Unaulterated difficulty unencumbered by concerns of mortality is the province of sport climbing.)

Arguments about whether or not falling is a good idea always have these provisions: "if the gear is bomber, go for it," which is fair enough, but such pronouncements avoid the real problem by defining it out of existence. Many accidents happen when the bomber gear turns out not to be bomber. The climber (1) misjudged the pro (something that is quite possible for experts, let alone beginners), (2) failed to build sufficient redundancy into the system, and then (3) misjudged their ability and went for it in a situation when they were not well protected.

As for judging pro, I concur with the posters who recommend aid climbing. Redundancy is a state of mind combined with the will to carry it out. The most difficult issue is how to climb without falling when falling is a bad idea. (For example, if there is one piece between you and the ground and you can't back it up, then falling is a bad idea.) Here I think modern trends can inculcate bad habits. Gym climbing, sport climbing, and bouldering all emphasize moving up in the most marginal of situations. There is a risk of developing a tunnel-vision mentality that, first of all, accepts marginal moves even though the consequences of failure are catastrophic, perhaps not even noticing that the climber has gone from control to high risk status, and secondly, that blinds the climber to both the need and the opportunity to climb down to rest, regroup, and yes, in some cases, to retreat. Mental discipline is the primary tool for avoiding these situations, but this discipline is not something acquired in the gym or on sport climbs.

Here are some exercises that may be of some use:

(1) When climbing in the gym or on sport routes, try to be conscious of how marginal you are. (This does not mean reducing the difficulty level, just striving for heightened awareness.) From a trad perspective, falling may be ok, but an unexpected fall is not good. Know when you are on the edge.

(2) A lot of falls on steep ground happen when the leader runs out of gas. Try to develop a sense of your "half-way point," because this is one of the moments when you have to decide whether to move up or down. For example, a gym exercise is to select a challenging route and then see how high on it you can get and still climb all the way back down without falling.

(3) Develop the mental habit of filing away "retreat data." This can make the difference between stepping down and falling. (For example, when you step over a small roof, the holds underneath disappear. Did you make a mental note of features above the roof that will help you locate the holds underneath?)

(4) Don't neglect the building of a base of climbing below your limit, climbing in which you are relatively comfortable but are also frequently in the "must not fall" zone. A steady diet of well-protected hard climbing at or near your limit, while essential for raising your climbing level, may shortchange you on control and calmness when things get dicey, as they will, sooner or later...

First of all.

Gear Whore.(Fuck I only have 4)

Second of all.

How small (girly) are your hands ?