Everything You Need for the Perfect Trad Dad Weekend

The routes are decided, the campsite is booked, the bags are packed, and the family has given the OK. It’s time for the perfect trad dad weekend.

Close your eyes and imagine you’re embarking on a weekend entire of 5.fun on your favorite multipitch with your best climbing buddy. You’re driving down the highway listening to classic rock and retelling the same stories you’ve told a thousand times that you’ll retell again around the campfire later tonight.

The sun is shining, the sky is clear, and the traffic is minimal. You fill up at a small gas station, and it’s the last you’ll see of civilization until next week. You send your last “Love you, talk to you later” text before you lose service, and the weekend truly begins.

You ease off the gas and roll down your window when you hit the dirt road. You take a deep breath and inhale the dusty air before a slow smile spreads across your face. You continue your pace until you find your campsite in the trees/desert (wherever your trad dad weekend takes you), and you’ve finally arrived.

5 Must-Haves for the Perfect Trad Dad Weekend

1. The right partner

You can’t just take anybody out for a trad dad weekend. You must enlist the other trad dad who will understand your every move. And your every ache and pain.

You can’t have the same conversations with a young gun about your child starting soccer when all you want them to do is start the trad life. You can, but your connection attempts will be met with blank stares or uncomfortable laughter.

The perfect trad dad weekend needs two crusty climbers who can relate to each other. Who are you taking?

2. A route you’ve done a thousand times

No Trad Dad weekend is done right if you’re only climbing new stuff. You need to romp up that classic that you did before it had bolted belays.

Besides, you don’t want any surprises. You’re just happy to be out there and getting after it.

Plus, you’ll have all the beta dialed! Or, at least, you should, right? You’ll know where the sneaky jug is in the back of the crack on pitch three and how you can cut down on your send time if you extend pitch 2 to that next big ledge.

3. A scary traverse or runout

What else are climbing stories made of? When the weather is perfect, the company is welcoming, and the climbing is immaculate, you need something to tell stories about later.

That’s where the scary traverse or runout comes in. And remember, a perceived runout is still a runout when you tell the story later. Your partner knows you were only three feet above your last piece, but why would they mention it? (Choose your partner wisely).

Suppose the runout game isn’t your forte. In that case, you must have the scary traverse—the delicate balancing on slippery feet (this route is a classic, after all; plenty of others have polished those footholds; make sure you mention that when you tell the story later).

4. Pepto Bismal and/or Tylenol

Being a little realistic never hurt anybody. Sleeping in the wilderness isn’t as easy as it used to be - You have a morning stretching routine now; embrace it.

As you know, indigestion can strike at any time. Although not as gnarly as rockfall or a sudden thunderstorm mid-route, it can feel just as serious.

If you tried to dirtbag it and sleep on the ground like in your younger days, have those painkillers ready. And be honest, what else will help after all those beers the night before?

5. An abundance of climbing stories

What else are you going to talk about? It’s a weekend full of doing what you love above all else (besides your family, you tell yourself). You have plenty of climbing stories about the days before all the lightweight gear and the modern climbing shoes; this is where you let them loose.

Remember when you got lost trying to find the route and had to bail off that choss pile? Or when you realized you forgot the route beta when you were hours away from home? (before cellphones) Or how about when you were twenty feet above your last piece and on a scary traverse?

A perfect trad dad weekend will have an abundance of climbing stories. Some are sad, scary, and funny, but all are rad.