What was your first trad lead?

My friend wanted to go trad climb in Pway and I was psyched. Well we show up and I follow him up some routes and I am exhausted at how physical it is. Eventually we meander over to "the roof." Well the base of the climb is wet.  I put him on my back and he can place the first two cams then climb up the rest. Well we still are not tall enough this way. So I climb up him and try to place a cam. I am wobbling a bit but place half a cam into the crack and slip off him, clinging to life on this one cam poorly engaged two cam lobes. He gets back under me so I have balance again, it is still wet so place another cam, then the bottom pops but I am holding onto the higher cam now. I am mostly just locking off now trying to lean in, to place another cam. Place another cam and then have him lower me back to the ground. He french frees up it and finishes it. I then send it on TR through the wet streak. 

Don't know if placing 3 cams 12 feet off the ground counts as a first lead but it was memorable none the less. 

Tingey’s Terror, 5.7 4 pitch in Little Cottonwood in UT. Had followed one easy trad pitch months before, had a half rack and some nuts. 

The Great Arch at Stone Mtn NC in the mid-90's; I was probably 16. I remember my rack was a single set of BD Nuts, a handful of Tricams, a few BD slung Hex's, small Metolius PowerCams, finger sized rigid-stem Friends, BD Camelots #1, 2 & 3, and some Petzl Spirit Draws. We always took Entrance Crack up to the tree ledge and had to run it out quite a bit. My dad followed.

"Don Juan" 5.6 at Unaweep Canyon in western Colorado, spring 2012.

 At the insistence of my trad mentors, it was all passive gear, including some reslung SMC Camlocks and a tube chock.

One of them followed to assess my placements. At the top he said "Well, it's a good thing you didn't fall!"

Part of my first rack:

Princess Puppy Lovrwrote:

My friend wanted to go trad climb in Pway and I was psyched. Well we show up and I follow him up some routes and I am exhausted at how physical it is. Eventually we meander over to "the roof." Well the base of the climb is wet.  I put him on my back and he can place the first two cams then climb up the rest. Well we still are not tall enough this way. So I climb up him and try to place a cam. I am wobbling a bit but place half a cam into the crack and slip off him, clinging to life on this one cam poorly engaged two cam lobes. He gets back under me so I have balance again, it is still wet so place another cam, then the bottom pops but I am holding onto the higher cam now. I am mostly just locking off now trying to lean in, to place another cam. Place another cam and then have him lower me back to the ground. He french frees up it and finishes it. I then send it on TR through the wet streak. 

Don't know if placing 3 cams 12 feet off the ground counts as a first lead but it was memorable none the less. 

That sure was a long reply to not answer either of the OP’s questions.

My first lead was Tony’s Happy Christmas Crack in the RRG. In my experience you get real used to gear after your first fall. Now how long it takes you to commit to the point where you might actually fall depends on the climber. 

Shady Ladies (5.7), Icebox Canyon, Red Rock.  Would recommend - it eats all kinds of gear but if you go up with a single rack (as you should), it's long enough that you'll start to run out of cams if that's all you place, and you'll need to get creative.  Will also teach you the value of extending your placements. 

Something in the smith rock lower gorge

Wheat Thin, CoR, sometime around 1989 or so…

First lead was on the beginner wall at Crow Hill in Leominster MA. Fun easy climb with great passive pro down low and nice cams higher up. Never forget that excitement when I got up over the ledge. After that climb I came down and just wanted to keep going and plug more gear. 

Not my first trad lead but doing Intertwine at Crow is another great lead on mostly nuts that just feels great. Super fun finger crack would recommend that climb #1 at the crag. 

Crow hill is not that great of a crag for quality of climbs (why does the rock feel so slippery at times?) But it was a great place to learn placing pro and I lived ten minutes away at the time so I could get out there during the week several times, in the summer, and develop the lead head and feel good about placing pro. Great place as a newer trad leader to get my footing. 

Funny enough whenever I say I learned to climb in Massachusetts people usually bring up Crow hill like its some classic spot. 

Poison Oak Crack at Woodson in hiking boots and protected (?) with a SMC camlocks

Rich Azierskiwrote:

Betty 

Betty first leaders unite 

The Beckey Route on Liberty Bell in Washington Pass was my first lead of any kind. Followed it the day before. I feel lucky to have had that as my first lead— trad climbing and a route to a great summit right off the bat, that's what climbing is all about.

South Arete. South Early Winter Spire, Washington Pass.

Next day, Becky Route. Liberty Bell.

Would like to make it back again, nothing like Washington Pass.

Horseman in the Gunks, November 1982.

Chouinard cord slung Hexes, Saddle Wedge stoppers Bonatti  offset D carabiners, a Stitch Plate, tied super tape slings (red) and a green Mammut 11mm rope that was so fuzzy it looked like a caterpillar. EB,s, Levi’s, a wool sweater with a nylon wind shell, all topped with a wool Tam. 

it was 40 degrees F with sleet and fog. I loved every minute of it. Same day I lead Shockly's Ceiling, CCK and High Exposure.

i was in way over my head. I followed the 19th Century Alpine admonition "The Leader Must Not Fall!" I didn’t, and my questionable placements and the antique fixed pins were never tested.

I was absolutely HOOKED on the whole thing!

Oh, and I lived to tell the tale. 

I lead about a dozen 'mixed' routes on Mount Lemmon and Cochise Stronghold, so my first ever cams placed were on Peacemaker (mostly bolted 10a).  My first all gear lead was The Bong, 5.4 in Josh.  Got passed up by a free soloist, which scared the shit out of me.  Didn't really understand the whole walk-off thing, and definitely didn't realize that the walk-off was basically a 5.4 downclimb.  Great memories, later that day I "TR flashed" Hobbit Roof (a 10d right next to the bong) and very nearly worked up the courage to lead it but decided against it, which I somewhat regret.     

I'm fairly certain it was Sweat.

Sweat 5.7

Rich Azierskiwrote:

Betty 

A man of great class.

High e on a warm january day 2021. Was quite the adventure. Rack of 7 cams, a handfull of nuts and hexes. Used all my gear and was wigged out on p3. But what a fun adventure, def got me hooked, climb a bit harder than 5.6 now

Scout Route at Scout Rock, South St. Vrain. I don't tick routes very consistently, and was surprised to read that I had a detailed description of this one. Otherwise, I would have recalled nothing beyond the fact that the anchor bolts, to my horror, had been chopped. (Luckily I had two cams left and plugged them in).

I also remember following this route a few summers later and thinking to myself, "I led this? Yikes!"