Recommendations for a first trad lead?

Get out of J-Tree and hit the Bachar-Yerian in Tuolumne. All subsequent leads will feel much less serious.

DKheat wrote:Get out of J-Tree and hit the Bachar-Yerian in Tuolumne. All subsequent leads will feel much less serious.

That route needs a few more bolts to make it safer. We should retro rap bolt it :)

Take the trad class from Bob Gaines, super way to start.

NeilB wrote: +1 for The Bong. Straight forward gear placement and great climbing all at 5.4. Sew it up (which means place lots of gear, in case you didn't know)! Also, Sail Away is a good one and was my first lead on gear.

Sail Away sews up and is short, but man...as a first lead for a guy just out of the gym for the first time?

Sandbag. Not the place to start.

The Bong. Not only is it easy and easily protected, it's a great intro to Joshua tree without being too intimidating. The climb is easy. The gear anchor is easy, but like a lot of routes at Josh, benefits from a lot of extension, and the downclimb is heady, but fun, and you better get used to it if you're planning on getting around at joshua tree. You're going to be doing a lot of it.

Have you looked at Mt. Rubidoux? When I started climbing, I did enough homework to know about John Long's anchor book, but not enough to know about sport climbing, so I got a few pieces of gear and took Long's book along with whatever poor sap I could grab to belay me and headed to Mt. Rubidoux. No crowds, loads of short crack and face climbs...

One time, while trying to set up a pair of opposing, equalized nuts at the start of Smooth Sole Slab, a soloist asked if he could climb the route while I worked on that. He soloed the route in moccasins and came back around, got his bike and left, all while I was still setting up those nuts. Ha! Other than that, I was able to spare getting in people way while i worked out the kinks. I'm no pro today, but looking back, I'm glad I cut my teeth at places like Rubidoux and Big Rock instead of getting in everyone's way at Joshua Tree and Tahquitz.

Starting in more obscure areas will also get you accustomed to the rock, and give you time to learn stuff like the fact that trying to set up opposed nuts instead of placing a cam as your first piece is pretty silly. Ha!