Learning trad without a mentor?

Timothy Carlsonwrote: Are there any effective methods to safely learn to lead trad on your own? Finding an experienced mentor to show you the ropes (pun intended) is always stressed as the best and safest way to learn trad leading, which makes sense. Truth be told, I am not the most social person, and I find it hard to approach trad climbers and ask them to lend their time to teach me the necessary skills. I lieu of this, is there a way to teach myself the necessary skills to learn trad? I am tired of being relegated to sport climbing and bouldering, when there are so many cool and interesting trad crags in my area. Not that I have anything against sport or bouldering, but I want to expand my horizons. I have heard of placing gear at the base of cliffs as a way to familiarize yourself with placements. Is this an effective method? Or is it lacking an important piece of the trad process? Thanks! -Timmy

Timmy Shoot me a PM. I'd be happy to work with you.
I am in Calif a week or so every month operating my Window Washing business in Apple Valley and Victorville.
I've taught many people how to climb with gear and climbing in general.
My creds are, I have been climbing for 54 years, still alive, and haven't lost or injured a climber yet.

:-)

Dwain/ Cosmic

Edit: OOPS. I just went back and reread Tim's first post.
It was in 2017.
I'm sure he's pretty good at Trad 3 years later.

seeing as he doesn't respond..he prob didn't make it.

Josh Lipko wrote: The idea that you need to be “mentored” is often a way for boomers to make themselves feel better about their own climbing because younger climbers are stronger than them.

This is ironic because I usually hear younger climbers telling other younger climbers they need to be mentored. That being said, I also learned on my own without a mentor.

I don't think there is one reason across the board why older climbers tell younger climbers to get a mentor. I suspect there are different reasons depending on the person or situation. All I know is that I learned on my own. But I made some mistakes, and it took a bit longer to get the necessary skills. Thankfully I didn't die. My motivation for encouraging younger climbers to get a mentor is so that they will learn how to do things correctly for their safety and the safety of others.

My dad taught me some basics but after a few years of taking trad climbing seriously, I realized my dad's life experience climbing on gear was minimal and his own mentor was as old school as they come (rock instructor in the early/mid 70's in NH and VT).  I relearned how to climb trad after taking a 8 year climbing break, mostly on my own, but with some guidance throughout from more experienced climbers.  I never had a "mentor" (other than my dad when I was a teenager), but I think having a close knit group of climbing friends that are all reading and sharing knowledge is super helpful.  Like any new trad climber, I got very tunnel visioned into "Every anchor MUST look like this, every gear placement MUST look like this, and you never fall!" (thanks dad...) but the more I had compatriots to talk to and bounce ideas around, the more I realized exactly how much I didn't know.  

I think that's the hardest part about trying to teach yourself any climbing skill:  it's hard to know what you don't know.  climbing on very easy terrain with partners that were all hyper vigilante about safety helped me hone my skills and climbing with stronger climbers than myself gave me great feedback about gaps in my understanding. 

That said, I found John Long's anchor book to be the single most useful thing (pre youtube teaching I guess?) and pretty regularly will use it as my bathroom reading because I found it so easy to read and comprehend.  The pictures and diagrams are easy to understand and while they might oversimplify for many people, they made safe trad climbing much more approachable for me.  While I don't think it's necessary by any means for learning trad climbing, I also have found the AMGA spi book to be quite helpful when I'm trying to remember/relearn skills I rarely use.  I think that there is something fundamentally important about being willing to adjust your climbing based on acquiring new information and that can be very difficult.  Especially for brand new trad climbers, and those that really prescribe to "Won't teach this old dog new tricks".