What was your first trad lead?

I got into trad back in the beginning of may this and after many months of following, cleaning gear, and practicing placing last saturday i did my first trad lead! “5.7 crack” at Sauratown, NC. It was awesome and I cant wait to lead more. What was your first trad route, and how long will it take before im not terrified when i lead lol  

Not sure I would call it a trad lead, more of a solo. Started with a high drawer step, a big pull, then a mantle. That got me to the first ledge, also known as the counter top. I took a break and ate a cookie. After that the blank face on the refrigerator wall was successfully surmounted via the toaster block variation. After cutting my feet loose I belly flopped on top. I whooped at my success. Then my mother came into the kitchen and pulled me off the top of the refrigerator. I thought it quite achievement for a 2 year old. Later that summer, I went to Yosemite where I was kept on a short rope. 

Cleo's needle at Devil's Lake.

Cornflake Crack

Mine wasn't too far from Sauratown -- https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105874054/jim-dandy -- with kudos to Tyler for handing me the rack and letting me go for it.

The immortal Fingertrip. 

Goat Crack 5.3 in Little Falls NY. It was soaked to the bone, maybe 40°F out, and I was just starting college so I only had one set of nuts and a couple quickdraws, couldn't afford cams yet. That was in 2015. I just was so psyched on climbing.

I have like 40 cams now thankfully but have been bouldering a lot this past year to get in better shape for hard trad climbing, and I gotta be honest that bouldering is a lot more fun! But as much as I love bouldering and sport climbing, I find nothing quite as inspiring as the best, most striking trad climbs out there - hard cracks especially.

Table Manners and Bandito, a couple 5.8s in the Grotto. I then proceeded to get spanked and deeply humbled in Joshua Tree by anything above like 5.5. In fact, for a while I think I had bailed on more routes than I led.

The variation pitch to the left of the chimney pitch on Cathedral Peak. Followed After Six in the dark the night before as my first exposure to trad

I believe it was Standard Route on Whitehorse in NH. I was maybe 13 or 14 and it would have been around 1981. I'm pretty sure that my partner had never climbed before.  Had me on a hip belay, and I imagine that I would have been wearing a swami belt (is it inappropriate to use that term? That's what they were called...). 

I had read Robbins' Basic and Advanced Rockcraft about 15 times and then convinced a great aunt of mine to buy me a rack of nuts and a rope. The nuts were these bullet hard things that if I remember right were called Campbell Wedgefasts. Really bright anodized colors...but hard as diamonds. I think about a third of them would just fall right out on any given pitch. No idea how I walked away from that one. 

Nol Hwrote:

Goat Crack 5.3 in Little Falls NY. It was soaked to the bone, maybe 40°F out, and I was just starting college so I only had one set of nuts and a couple quickdraws, couldn't afford cams yet. That was in 2015. I just was so psyched on climbing.

I have like 40 cams now thankfully but have been bouldering a lot this past year to get in better shape for hard trad climbing, and I gotta be honest that bouldering is a lot more fun! But as much as I love bouldering and sport climbing, I find nothing quite as inspiring as the best, most striking trad climbs out there - hard cracks especially.

Me too!! Goat in the freezing rain after the drive from Syracuse 

"The Steps" on the East Wall of the Carefree Boulders just north of Phoenix. I can still smell the desert creosote and the rough granite... It was 1975, so cowbells and some bigger stoppers. We thought it was rated 5.2 or so, but today would likely be 5.6. It was the go-to first lead for most of us youngsters at the time. Good times and, luckily, we all survived. The place is now a golf course/resort, so no climbing allowed unless you hire one of their guides through the resort (or know someone). I always had the fantasy that, if by some weird fluke, I were to become as rich as Bill Gates, that I would buy up that resort and turn the golf course into campsites for climbers. ; )

Daniel Joderwrote:

"The Steps" on the East Wall of the Carefree Boulders just north of Phoenix. I can still smell the desert creosote and the rough granite... It was 1975, so cowbells and some bigger stoppers. We thought it was rated 5.2 or so, but today would likely be 5.6. It was the go-to first lead for most of us youngsters at the time. Good times and, luckily, we all survived. The place is now a golf course/resort, so no climbing allowed unless you hire one of their guides through the resort (or know someone). I always had the fantasy that, if by some weird fluke, I were to become as rich as Bill Gates, that I would buy up that resort and turn the golf course into campsites for climbers. ; )

This man dreams of doing the lord’s work. 

Congrats on the first trad lead, and thanks for putting it up for me :) Don't remember exactly my first trad lead, but I have a couple of first-ish leads that were quite memorable!

Fat Dog P1 only (5.7); bailed out right to the bolted anchor. Same day the accident happened on Dinkus Dog. Pretty sure this was my first actual lead

Edge of a Dream (5.7); Very awesome beginner lead with some amazing exposure pulling around the ledge. Maybe second lead

Fruit Loops (5.7); Just the first pitch, but it is awesome. We will have to do this one next time we get out to Rumbling Bald :)

Resurrection Ramp (5.7); Another great moderate that is a good first lead. I remember running it out after pulling around the lip

The Crack (5.7); Very similar style to your crack lead at Sauratown. Wanted to try this on a sport trip and it did not disappoint. All the climbs on this little wall are fantastic

Three Pines, 5.2, Gunks. Spring 1973. Rack was 6 nuts and 5 pitons.

At that time in climbing, there was no such thing as sport climbing, thus there was no "trad" distinction - it was just rock climbing.

Candy Corner at Seneca Rocks....Set off on that climb with a set of stoppers, 4 or 5 cams, and a few hexes. Looking back on it now it's a wonder I survived those early years of trad climbing.

"Twinkle Toes Traverse"  in the Pinnacles. Circa 1977. Slung the garage door handle but refrained from grabbing it. 

Weissner Slab, 5.4, Ragged Mountain CT, 1972

First Mulit-Pitch was Belly Roll, 5.3, Gunks, October 1973. Hope to get back there in October 2023 for my 50th anniversary

Calypso, Eldorado Canyon

Bottoms Up, Red Rock

My first regular trad lead was on a little crag outside of Sequoia (Squirrel Creek) and on my next one, I took my first first-piece fall on the next pitch I led (and didn't deck fortunately). But my real first trad lead was on an inside corner my friends and I found on a sandstone building on my school's campus. It led up to two adjacent windows we could sling to set up a TR. We aided it while a more experienced friend soloed next to us and inspected the placements, and my other friend took a zipper when the top two pieces popped, which was very scary and exciting but resulted in zero injury so it w as fine.