Why do you trad climb?

So I've recently been hooked on trad climbing, more specifically crack climbing. This subject has been discussed a tiny bit on here, but I'm really curious to hear some more thoughts.

What makes trad/crack climbing so fun to you and why do you do it?

Also, out of curiosity...

How would you convince a non-climber that trad climbing is not as ominous and ridiculously sketchy as some people make it out to be?

Well I started climbing before it was even called trad but as rgold wrote it makes small climbs big.

Actually, I don't want to convince anyone about climbing. They can do it or not.

M Goatwrote:

How would you convince a non-climber that trad climbing is not as ominous and ridiculously sketchy as some people make it out to be?

Education, respect, and time.

Let them know as much as they want to know across more than one discussion. Tell them what you do to minimize risk. Be open to specific concerns. They will have some good questions. And, at the bottom line, you both want the same thing.

P.S.  Some of us do find a way to increase the sketch factor.  Statistics show it is so.

You know that there are plenty of trad climbers who don't gravitate to crack climbing? Nor do they gravitate to off widths. That said, trad climbing lets you go where you want in the mountains, not where somone chose to bolt a line. What more do you need to offer than freedom in the mountains, crags and faces of the world?

One trip to RRG to sport climb turned me into a trad climber. Definitely not my scene.

My Climbing Ethics changed instantly that trip. 

Multipitch

It’s not widely known but atop every trad climb there are cookies. I do it for the cookies. 

natural lines.

M Goatwrote:

How would you convince a non-climber that trad climbing is not as ominous and ridiculously sketchy as some people make it out to be?

I have a non-interference policy with non climbers but if I had to I would take top rope aid climbing (assuming they are open to the idea) or even take some falls on gear with a backup like a nearby bolt. 

There's are only a handful of crags that are fully bolted and the most sport routes are 1 sometimes 2 pitches- all the adventurous multi pitch routes go on gear. There are some fully bolted routes on predominately gear protected cliffs but you usually need gear to get to them. Lot of hard, high quality rock. It would be pretty limiting not to have trad gear unless you only like climbing hard sport at easy to get to cliffs.

Because I like to fill my pants with brown from time to time. 

A: To be competent

B: You want to be competent, don't you?

Fewer dogs and bluetooth speakers on alpine routes

There were not many bolts

Adventure

Like Jim Titt, climbing was trad by default when I started climbing. There was no path from gym, to sport to trad. You learned trad or did not climb.

I do enjoy sport as well, but Trad is more, and it is hotter salsa.... greater adventure.

It is more multidimensional than just clipping bolts, and I like having the extra responsibility of relying on my own ability to protect myself and my partner rather than depending on someone else's bolting and route concept. And as expressed above, while I love crack climbing, splitter climbing like Indian Creek is not really trad to me. The Creek is hybrid since while you are placing cams to protect yourself, you can usually get pro wherever you want it. Other trad climbng has greater protection and route finding challenges which I enjoy.

I like crack climbing. Trad routes tend to feel more adventurous and are more memorable. I don't like crowded crags, and sport crags are typically more crowded. I like placing my own gear to some degree; it adds a layer of problem solving, judgement, and self-confidence.

Still, I sport climb just as much as I trad climb. They are both enjoyable to me in different ways.

+1 to not need to convince anyone of anything. They can climb buildings if they have fun doing it, for all I care.

I think for me it was a natural extension of sport climbing, just as sport climbing was an extension of gym climbing (e.g. indoors to outdoors). Just as I feel like more alpine endeavours will slowly become a natural extension of single pitch trad. Although the technical difficulty may decrease somewhat along that line, the complexity is vastly greater. I feel that trad climbing is a great way to leverage my general experience as a climber, and also to expend it tremendously. I get a broader, richer range of experiences. And it does feed back to "simpler" forms of climbing - I've gotten ride of the fear of falling while sport climbing for a while, but I feel that even if you don't really fear falling per-se, it has always been somewhat harder to fully commit without restrain to moves above my draws (as oppose to the same move with a draw right at my belt). After a few season trad climbing, I feel I am now much closer to be able to perform exactly the same sport climbing regardless of my position wrt to the last clip. The opposite also carry obvious benefits - being a relatively stronger sport climber vs trad climber does help my exploration of trad climbing. Much easier to get your thoughts toghether while running it out on a 5.9 when you know that you can typically onsight anything for a number of grades above that.

So I can climb anything and everything.

M Goatwrote:

So I've recently been hooked on trad climbing, more specifically crack climbing. This subject has been discussed a tiny bit on here, but I'm really curious to hear some more thoughts.

What makes trad/crack climbing so fun to you and why do you do it?

Also, out of curiosity...

How would you convince a non-climber that trad climbing is not as ominous and ridiculously sketchy as some people make it out to be?

Because, Bouldering Sucks

I trad climb in part because there was no other option worth doing when I really got into climbing. The other factor was that I had been raised on a diet of trad hardman stories (think Dave Breashears' account of the first ascent of Perilous Journey) that really appealed to teenage me.

In terms of getting somebody to try it, I think the self-sufficiency that's built in has to be attractive to the would-be trad climber. All the gear-trust exercises in the world are pointless if they're not interested in the see-a-cool-feature-go-climb-it aspect that's at the heart of traditional climbing.