UKH

What do people think about renaming Trad to something a bit more inspiring? The French call trad Adventure Climbing  I think this would better reflect the character of the climbing.

Many youths think Trad=old guys/girls climbing.

Rock Climbing.

Everything else is training.

That's not my experience in a decade of volunteering for my local student climbing club.

or even: just Climbing!

God no. Makes it sound like something Bear Grylls would call it.

Maybe it is a regional thing then?   Where I live people climb any pile of choss with bolts whilst never trying any of the quality trad.

Fair point I had wiped his very existence from my mind.

In South Africa the really adventurous stuff tended to be called 'country routes'.  This implies multi-pitch excitement including, but not limited to, Blister Bush, loose ledges, no belays, Cape Cobras, sunstroke, Puff Adders, impossible route finding, leopard, dehydration en route and exposure on the decent. 

As I've said ad nauseam since the ghastly term "Trad" took hold, it's just climbing. It's what climbing is. Other genres get qualified with a suitable adjective e.g. sport, indoor, ice, Winter and so on.

If you call it all climbing then I assume it is ok for me to slap a line of bolts in the Cromlech?

So clearly it is not all the same.

No idea how long you've been climbing for, but 'trad' is a fairly recent (as well as stupid and unnecessary) neologism. The other activities - e.g. 'sport climbing', 'bouldering', 'aid climbing', etc. - are already distinguished by their names.

Surely it has to be 'Wild Climbing' ?

Ledge shuffling?

Careful, Jim - that'll stick.

But they are all climbing too. The hint is that the second word is "climbing".  Trad is a subset, just like them, of climbing, so obviously needs a term to distinguish it from other forms of climbing. Trad works; no need to change it.

You are going to be very disappointed with yourself if you ever catch a glimpse of your logbook! 😁

Am I the only person who thought Trad stood for Totally radical ?

Yes

Contrary to what some people seem to think (and as you pointed out) it's useful to determine between rock climbing styles based on the protection method used. 

Trad being mobile placements, Sport being bolted at regular intervals, and Alpine being a combination of the two as decided by rock quality, route difficulty and the desired route character by the first ascentionist. For example, many routes in the northern limestone alps are bolted sporadically where placing gear is impossible and a fall would be serious, but expect you to place gear where available. 

In my opinion adventure climbing is describing the experience, surroundings and seriousness of the route where more complex factors such as poor rock, tricky gear, vast exposure or other factors make the route more 'adventurous'. 

Many more people enjoy sport climbing because it is very easy to be very safe -and the rock quality comes second to that. Trad can be very safe but relies on skill to a much greater degree and has a higher cost-entry. Instead of worrying about this too much I would simply suggest enjoying quieter, high quality trad routes in the company of like-minded individuals 😀

That sounds like something a 15 year old boulderer would have come out with 10 years ago

I also feel that "trad climbing" has an unfortunate set of connotations. It's also a pretty modern discipline, in as much as it's different from climbing with pitons or points of aid, but not the utterly unprotected and in some cases unbelayed climbing of the pioneers. Besides that, climbs like "Tribe" make me wonder if, far from being stuck in the past, trad climbing is actually the most futuristic form of climbing! Will we see 9a+ routes with leader-placed protection?

Modern Climbing - or "Mod" for short?
Futurist Climbing?
Space Age Climbing?
Liberated Climbing?
Autonomous Climbing?

I dunno... they're all more than a bit crap and now it seems that in the UK we're stuck with "trad". But, I guess the term is less important that what we do with it.
 

Let's be honest and call if 'Faff climbing'.

I do love it, but it is un-naturally 'faffy'...

legitimate excuse to buy more stuff climbing

'Full service'

Make of that what you will - God help us if Num Num's around....

Is that necessarily bad ? The yoofs with anything about them will work it out for themselves and the rest of them can continue to 'enjoy' Horseshoe and the Cuttings. 

that's Winter Climbing surely!

I don't see what's wrong with 'trad'. It's a great term! 'Traditional' is a bit of a mouthful.

I think you're onto something there:

Full faff climbing - mountain cragging with a decent walk in.

Half faff climbing - roadside trad

Skimmed 'zero' faff climbing - sport

Fully vegan climbing substitute - bouldering.

How about "real climbing" for trad and "cheat climbing" for sport?

Why do you care? Your profile suggests you do very little real climbing anyway.

I'd argue that they should be called fixed free-climbing (sport) and placed free-climbing (trad) with free soloing, aid climbing, bouldering etc all then being based off that.

Trad does have a somewhat conservative sound. Arguably it is a bit conservative though? As in, it seeks to be ethically conservative; it limits what you can do.

Climbing worked until someone decided to call it trad. 

Possibly, but then not many folk own and carry bolt guns. 

I'd think of it as more free-ing since you can go almost anywhere; you're not limited by someone having to have already set up where you can go.

You and the two lads from Cliffhanger who like it extreeeeeeeme

Climbing worked until it was felt sensible to differentiate climbing with leader placed protection from climbing with bolt protection.

I quite like Proper Climbing.

The French call multi-pitch sport climbing on loose rock 'terrain d' aventure'. Trad they call 'le Trad' 

When I climbed with the scouts in the 1980s it was called "rock climbing". A couple of years ago when I rediscovered climbing I was surprised to discover it had split into two (or more) disciplines, with "trad" sounding, wrongly, like a quaint, superseded discipline. When did this actually happen?

I'm not saying a word isn't needed, but it is the wrong one. It makes me think of three-day-long unaccompanied folk songs and steam railway enthusiasts. It smells of wet corduroy.

Climbing / sport climbing.

All you need to do is add the word sport and leave the basic "climbing " word alone. 

It might work in some contexts and with some groups of people but not by any means always. It's a bit like "hockey" - it means something very different to a group of British people and a group of Canadians. Hence we have the terms "field hockey" and "ice hockey" when the distinction needs to be made. Same with "football" in Britain and the US. Most climbers now probably do both trad and sport, so the distinction is frequently needed. Denying this is just being a bit pig-headed.

That's alpinism. None of this piddly training stuff you get in Britain.

In terms of context we are a UK forum. If we use the word "hockey"  it is fairly obvious which sport we are referring to, in the same way as using the word "football".  We don't need to say soccer to differentiate it from rugby.

Also, if we talk about soloing, most of us understand it to mean just that without having to add the word "free". If you want to sub-divide soloing into smaller categories, just add roped or whatever, but soloing means what it says and most of us accept this.

And I don't see how calling folk who don't fall into your way of thinking "pig headed" does anything to support your argument.

Le Trad ! Surely you must be joking Mr Bruva? If that’s true I guess it’s what they do at le weekend.

paul wood - YOU HAVE NO AUTHORITY HERE!!!!

ha ha  have a like (even if you don't want it!!)

Rocks and Shit?

But your argument falls down immediately because trad and sport are both mainstream in the UK. Like it or not, the distinction needs to be made and your way of doing it simply doesn't work.

I don't think that's true. In fact I suspect most people would think of soloing as "without a rope". There was a very long thread on this on here a few years ago. The distinction may need to be made. It certainly needs to be made where roped and free-soloing are both mainstream such as in Yosemite.

No, I think it is pig-headed to deny that the distinction needs to be made when it is a fact that most people already use the term "climbing" for all sorts of climbing; it is pig-headed to demand that everyone changes an almost universally accepted usage for something that is ambiguous and would cause great confusion.

😀

Alpinism: is that the one where you go camping without tent and climb using a cable car or a helicopter?

AS you said, it is context dependent: maybe you're right that ice hockey and  field hockey need to be differentiated in Canada:: that soccer and American rules need to be differentiated in the USA; but here on UKC if someone says they soloed Left Wall , you have a very clear idea of what they mean. 

As for climbing, it doesn't really matter what you call it: people who have been doing it from before the point where someone stuck the trad label on it will continue to just "climb" and I doubt that the lack of differentiation between their activity and other variants will adversely affect their enjoyment of it and even their discussions about it. They will cope.

My logbook suggests I don't log my climbs on UKC.

And it is absolutely clear that trad and sport climbing need to be differentiated in the UK. 

I'm sure you will, and probably within the group of climbers you hang out with - if it works for you in your circle that is fine. But, as I said, it is pig-headed to impose that understanding generally when most of the UK population already take "climbing" to mean trad or sport ( or possibly other forms of climbing) and need sub-divisions.

Sub- divide away. And enjoy your climbing.

My interest is preserving trad climbing for the next generation.  I see less and less people doing trad and significantly less young people doing it.  I am predominantly a trad climber (I have been for 30 years).  I am also a parent of two kids 16 and 18 that both climb (sport and bouldering).

For sure some will find trad but you would be blind not to see the swing towards sport climbing.

As soon as the 40/50/60 year olds on here duck off the scene who then will prevent widespread getting retro bolted?

Shuffling along ledges for the terminally unfit and inept?

Oh sorry I thought you asked for what do people call it when I trad climb.

How about Brexit Climbing, or Imperial climbing or maybe Vertical Gardening.

Sadly, I think you may be right in what you say. Certainly on Yorkshire limestone many once-busy trad crags are now all but deserted.

If the younger generation don't want to climb trad it's their loss. I mean, in some ways it a shame that classic routes are becoming overgrown through lack of traffic, but then surely what that means is that the next person to climb them has an experience more like the first ascensionist?

I shall. As will anybody else who values clarity of communication and not having confusion and misunderstanding.

First, you simply have it wrong with, "Many youths think Trad=old guys/girls climbing."

Second, many youths (in fact about 50%) of youths are actually women, possibly more that 50% of hard climbing youths and I guess you're only thinking of boys. I think you might need to join the modern age.

Third, WTF should we care what non-believers think? That fact we don't call it "Rad Climbing" or whatever exciting monikier you think appeals to the sort of youth that want to do rad and exciting things only serves to keep jerks off the crags, which is a good thing.  If it is that effective I'm happy to rebrand to "shit loser climbing for sissys"

Call me alarmist but I don't think much trad will be around to be rediscovered. If current trends continue there will be no-one left who's bothered. Retro-bolted trad crags are very popular and are feeding an appetite for more of the same.

Call it Barbara if you like, it really doesn't matter 🙂

If no-one's bothered, why does it matter? I don't know about you, but I climb because I like to, not out of a sense of historical obligation.

I don't.   Proportionally fewer, yes, but not in absolute numbers.

This really is what UKC is designed for

Pitch your idea to the BMC, they have vast experience on rebranding.

The instant sport climbing happened we needed two designations for climbing.  Trad consists of a set of attitudes and approaches that go well beyond what type of protection gear you are using; making it simply a matter of gear comes close to entirely missing the point.  "Climbing" and "sport climbing" as a way of designating two very different genres makes no sense, precisely because they're both climbing.  You can't simultaneously use a term comprehensively and as one of the distinguished genres.  If our forest had just two types of trees, say maple trees and oak trees, we wouldn't speak of the two types as "trees" and "maple trees."

At least in the US, we can trace the birth of the trad designation to the essay, Tricksters and Traditionalists, written by Tom Higgins (RIP 2018) in 1984; see https://www.tomhiggins.net/index.php/style-commentaries/13-tricksters-and-t....  It still makes interesting reading.  It may be that this essay is the source of the trad designation world-wide, I don't know enough to assert that.

Royal Robbins quipped that "sport climbing is the child who wants to eat its mother," and I find that to be apt over and over again.  Trad climbing continues to make adaptations that make it more and more like sport climbing.  In the US, many so-called trad climbs have bolted anchors at every belay, making for an entirely different undertaking that one can bail from at any point with impunity.  At some of the upper levels, it is now true that the only real difference is the type of gear---or whether there is any gear or not. 

It seems to me that only two regions of the world have managed to sustain the trad genre in the face of the bolting onslaught.  The UK is one such place, and the sandstone areas round the Elbe (Germany and the Czech Republic) are another. Neither of these have much in the way of big walls, but the trad approach makes small climbs big, both mentally and physically.  In that sense, it preserves at least some of the adventure that would otherwise only be available in remote areas requiring extensive travel and substantial investment in the associated costs.

So as I see it, the UK is one of a very few keepers of the family jewels.  It would indeed be sad if it gave away a precious inheritance.  I agree that "trad" isn't the sexiest term one might invent, but it seems to have been around for nearly 40 years, with "adventure climbing" the only plausible alternative I've heard.  But really, the idea that a name change is what's needed to draw youth to the genre seems to me to be far-fetched.  Firstly, they aren't that dumb, but secondly, maybe trying to level off the population on trad climbs isn't a bad thing.

I've felt more like I'm having an  "adventure" on  big bolted multi-pitches in sport honeypots - eg Telendos - than I have puntering about at Stanage. On the other hand, a single pitch on the Llyn felt proper Famous Five. Adventure requires a lot more than just placing your own gear. (Fortunately, since on the Llyn there's usually nowhere to put any.)

You've reminded me - trad has, in practice, already developed a new name: outdoor climbing.

It is climbing. It used to be climbing and still is. 

The genres are a Marketing creation to part you with your cash. 

"Sir, you cannot possibly climb on Scafell wearing a sport climbing harness, the universe will implode" 

Thanks rgold. I agree with much of what you have to say.  I do however think that more of the trad climbing in the UK has gone thank you might think.

Where do you climb? In the South West I see quality crags deserted. Stanage I agree gets enough traffic.

That is exactly my point. 

Appologies for confusion "Many youths think Trad=old guys/girls climbing" was not intended as a sexist remark.  I meant old men and old women. It would have been better thus:

Many youths think Trad=old folks climbing.

Yes, and some may think that cooking = old folks cooking, or hill walking = old folks hill walking. Simply incorrect.

My main objection is it reminds me of trad jazz, my least favourite form of jazz. It always reminds me of portly gents in fancy waistcoats playing reassuring favourites to a captive audience. Which is nothing like being above a worrying wire unsure of the next move.

I live in Cambridge so climb wherever I can.

If a crag appears deserted when you are there, so what ? Those crags are clearly just out of fashion at the moment.  I don't see that as a 'problem ' that somehow has to be 'solved'.  The crags will still be there in their natural state for future adventurous generations to re discover.

Good point. What about post-bop climbing? Or modal soloing?

Topping out: can we also delete this term from the contemporary lexicon?

Not all trad jazzers are old - bit like not all trad climbers are old either.

youtube.com/watch?v=bBINhDYXoEg&

But both take skill and practice.

See that looks like the sort of 2* VS you'd romp up on a good day, leaving you with a satisfied smile. I'm having to reconsider now.

Is that because of the crag though? Wye, Avon, Cheddar. I get the most enjoyment out of trad climbing but personally, a lot of the time, there are better local sport climbing options than those listed above. 

I'm not particularly attracted to the dethatched, poorly (or anciently) protected blocky bands between shale that Wintours generally offers. I'm not interested in padding up polished slabs with weird moves and massive runouts between 60-year-old pitons that you get in Avon. I don't want to be skating around on weird feet whilst fighting the foliage at Cheddar. As a weak new climber, it's incredibly difficult to get into trad in this area. There are a few polished trade routes below HVS but once you've done those there is very little else that isn't overgrown and/or dangerous. It's become really apparent to me in this past year that whilst there is loads of climbing around Bristol, I really have to look hard to find things I actually want to do. People always tout it as an amazing place to live as a climber but in reality the only good thing about it is it has good motorway links to places with better climbing. 

There are a few gems like Flywall, Shorncliff, Goblin Combe and Suspension Bridge Buttress, and they rightly get a lot of traffic. Unfortunately, a vast majority of routes locally are not worth the risk they offer. If I'm going to be climbing rubbish, I want it to at least be something I can try harder on and be able to fall off.

I don't think there is a lack of people climbing trad in the SW, look at Pembroke or Kernow. It's not unusual to find routes you want to do at the good crags occupied. On these big, quarried inland limestone cliffs, it really doesn't surprise me that there isn't the popularity there once was.     

That's not true. Outdoor climbing is most often used to mean simply "not indoors" by wall-bred climbers, so actually usually means, in fact, sport climbing.

I don't mind that but my teeth set on edge when someone says "sending".  Unfortunately "sending" is also prevalent in mountain biking circles. 

Trad does not bother me quite as much in fact it could be seen as a "badge of honour"

Al

That is simply not true.  None of the retro bolted crags have gone back to their natural state.

Sport will always be popular because it is "easy". While some crags, perhaps the ones better suited to sport, are falling into disuse, my impression is that trad is very much alive and well though perhaps just not necessarily in the same places (perhaps just a sign of grass climbers becoming more discerning).

Also in pre response to any LGBTQXYZANTIAGEISIST activists that might be lurking in the shadows ready to pounce on those not 'careful or cautious' enough to avoid using gender/age/sexual orientation free terms:

Get over yourselves, this is a discussion about pre texts! Come on you moderators, get your arses in gear and help us out here!

Regarding the terminology, I've been teaching climbing for 40 years, a few of them in Canada, where they use the term 'gear routes' as opposed to 'trad Climbing'. But to take a general stance, why change our own terms for the sake of change? It's worked thus far. 

BTW, I'm not going to respond to any replies because I know that there are some lefties here who will no doubt perpetuate arguments that have f' all to do with the originator's valid point. 

Safe climbing! xxx

Real climbing 

We could call it Kenning, after a well known, highly opinionated, prophet of the true faith.

C'est tout à fait ça !  

Sending has moved outside oudoor sport and incudes car fandom among its users. It seems to be used for particularly stupid bits of tear arsing such as when leaving motor shows with a bunch of phone wielding geeks in attendance.

Mince alors!!

You're interpreting my tongue in cheek comment a little too literally, Robert!

Sorry to disagree, Graham but up in the Dales this is not true at all. Crags that have been deemed 'out of fashion' by a relatively small group, with little or no outside input, have been retro-bolted. The situation shows no sign of changing. If sport is your only (or main) concern then there is no problem.

I think Scotland may be further behind the 'curve' of what's happening in the Dales. Probably due to a much greater proportion of big routes on big cliffs. Any sensible analysis of Scotland would see it as absurd to imagine all trad disappearing any time soon. Over the summer I could see for myself a likely future for many (currently) trad crags. At Moughton Nab there were lines of cars on both sides of the road down below. Just round the corner at Crummackdale it was deserted. When the current retro-bolters have finished at one crag they look around for other likely sites. My prediction is based on the extrapolation of this fact. Of course, they will give up at some point - no-one lives forever. What then, a few years from now? All those people who prefer sport and have done everything will look around and see 'undeveloped' crags and some of them will either ask questions or just go ahead and bolt them.

Intelligent Climbing.

Trad climbing is problem solving climbing requiring brain; it requires brain to route find, brain to place gear, brain to set up a belay, brain to rescue yourself when it all goes pair shaped.

Sport climbing should be renamed Clip'n'grunt; No route finding just look for the next bolt, no thinking about placements, no need to think about anything in fact! 

... and then there's I really do think I'm going to live for ever climbing for the real adrenalin junkies out there.

I agree 100%. Where I live the sport is mostly on the crappy looser bits of limestone that were not deemed worthy of initial development as trad.  Many of the poor sport routes are getting polished whilst two and three starred trad routes are getting vegetated.

Sport climbing, especially recounting involves a huge amount of problem solving, though not always of the same kind as trad climbing.

Recounting?! Redpointing.

Climby McClimb Climbing

These days kids like single word brand almost unrealted to the service they provide:
Amazon
Facebook
Google

Trad climbing could be rebranded:
Throbbing
Gearfear
RE:AL
UKrack

4FUXAkE

Really suprised that in 500 replies no ones mentioned that in Italian and Portuguese guide books it’s called ‘Classico’ (classic protection) 

Much better than adventure climbing. Potentially better than Trad. 

I like to call it 'civil engineering on the fly'

In the US, many so-called trad climbs have bolted anchors at every belay, making for an entirely different undertaking that one can bail from at any point with impunity

Unfortunately the same applies widely in The Alps and The Dolomites. And many seem to say "What's the difference - you still have to do the moves?" not realising that commitment is half the game. As someone said of another aspect in this thread, it's all about the money. The long time guardian of a very popular Swiss hut, and therefore of the mountain it serves told me he regretted the fact its classic moderate route was now thus bolted but that he'd done it himself having been coerced to do so by a combination of the Club Alpin Suisse and the local council - the  hut/ mountain was not drawing enough £££$$$€€€ to the village and this was seen as a way of popularising it. It worked.

By the way having heard and read of him I'm an admirer of the late Tom Higgins but if as you say he might have been responsible for popularising the term "Trad" he'd be off my Christmas list!

Classic Climbing would work except that we already talk about classic climbs which might be trad or sport, so their could be confusion.

What baffles me is why some people object to "trad" anyway; it seems to me to be entirely appropriate. The objectors seem, in fact, to particularly value its, well, traditional nature.

Indeed.  Its far less of a misnomer than, say, adventure climbing.  I mean something like The File is a fine climb, but its hardly adventurous - practically road side and with as much perfect gear as you can carry.

Oh god no there are no 'classic' sport climbs. Nothing that involves a drill can be such.

Of course there are. 

Ultimately, replacing the word "trad" is only an issue for those who use the word in the first place.  I can imagine a similar situation arising with "send" in years to come: replacing it with something  will be problematical  for some but not for others.

Brown Trouser Climbing?

It was always rock climbing. I object to boulderers and indoor climbers renaming our sport. The term trad is totally naff, and I never use it.

Nobody is renaming anything. It is still all rock climbing. They are just subdividing it so that, where necessary, there can be clarity about what kind of rock climbing is being referred to.

Do you also object to the subdivision of climbing into rock climbing, ice climbing, alpine climbing etc? Presumably not, since you are happy with rock climbing. So you are being completely inconsistent.

I actually suspect that your sort actually just objects to the existence of sport climbing and therefore the need to make the distinction.

Well, maybe if you climbed a bit harder....

Never liked the phrase 'trad climbing', I prefer to call it 'proper climbing'.

'Classic' is not a grade I dont think.

Proper climbing is soloing. Sullying the purity of a route with brutish mechanical contrivances is most definitely improper.

agreed

Maybe we should subdivide further?

"Today I'm out with the moleskin trouser brigade" -  mountain trad
"Going sea-gull wrestling" - sea cliffs trad
"Gonna skin me elbows and shit me pants" - grit trad
"Goin' do like the old folks" - sport climbing somewhere sunny
"I'm going out to waste some time and get mi'sen proper midged..." - Yorkshire outcrop sport
"I'm going out to give some quickdraws a good doggin" - Malham, Kilnsey, etc.

Or molehill trad - should the 'brigade' happen to be small and furry, and live underground; they wear moleskin trousers too.

Reading Dave Cook's book Breaking Loose about his 1989 bike-ride-to-Australia-with-climbing, the "trad" name didn't exist then, and when there was a need to distinguish it from sport climbing, he called it "adventure climbing" - a phrase which must have had some currency in the UK as well back then.

(Cook, who worked for the Communist party for many years, also says in the book "sport climbing is an imperialist endeavour". That's slightly tongue-in-cheek, but he makes a good case).

How about mobile toprope, as that is What trad is in essense. 
 

’cause in sport someone decided where to bolts are, where as in trad you decide where you place the protection. 

So, Robert, given your predilection for subdividing things, would you consider it important to categorise "trans women" differently from "women"?

Or would you rather refer to the latter as "trad women"?

Just asking .......

I do read some tosh on here. If the placement of the bolts is significant, it's badly bolted. If the bolts simply mean you can forget about managing risk and concentrate on the hard technical climbing, it's sportclimbing. Different, not lesser.

That is actually quite a good analogy, though I think you mean differently from "cis women". The distinction does sometimes need to be made, yet quite a few people object to the term "cis woman" in a similar way to how some people object to the term "trad climbing". In both cases I think it often reflects a prejudice against the other category.

No, if the analogy is to work properly it is simply "women" , which accords with simply "climbing".

My only experience of bolted climbing was in Mello. I don't know whether the routes in question were "badly bolted"  but they were widely spaced to a degree where  you couldn't actually forget about managing risk. Possibly a corollary of climbing  slabs with bolts rather than the steeper ground which is normally more associated with them.

Yes, and insisting on that rather than accepting "cis" or "trad" when needed to make the distinction with "trans" or "sport", does, I think betray a similarly prejudicial mindset against the latter categories.

I think cis must relate to big multi pitch - as in cisalpine. 

Just play the game., Robert: do women need subdividing?

'Trad climbing with bolts' (oxymoron, I know) may be the most apt expression for routes which have bolts but where you're gibbering from one bolt to another.

Different areas, different histories, different cultures. So it goes...

Mick

What about left handed, right handed? I mean do we see this in the future FLWGA (First Left handed Women speaking Gaelic as their first language Ascent)...

Albeit speaking Gaelic shouldn't really affect ones climbing (perhaps stating what the climbed after wards)... But neither does being female (ok, there are differences. but variance inside the gender is also quite big), should we add also BMI, height, span, and some sort of flexibility variable to the mix?

I think there's already been an article/ thread about making grades more inclusive to reflect differences in body types.

Naturally protected climbing or Natural for short?

Yes, as I have made clear (when the distinction needs to be made). That is precisely why it is a good analogy.

I had a climbing trip to the Dordogne in the ‘80s. On some of the routes, you could tell a hard move was coming when a bolt appeared (two for a very hard move), then nothing on compact limestone and still doing ‘spicy’ climbing. That was the local version of an ‘equipped’ route at the time, and even with some wires jiggled in here and there it was still entertaing 

I can't think of many things much less natural than the engineering marvel of the cam! I think a more appropriate meaning of "natural climbing" would be unprotected soloing - climbing in its purest form.

In the latter, the rock itself 'decides' where protection can indeed be placed ...

Yes, it's not the protection device which is natural, but where it goes.

One term which I think is already in use is "gear climbing".

I like the idea of the first English fat bloke to climb E2

But then you are, in effect, grading the climber not the climb.

Al

I don't know about renaming trad, but 'Gearfear' is an excellent turn of phrase and has lodged right in my tiny little mind. 

"Dave, I can't move, I've got the gearfear"

I think Don Whillans claimed that prize some time ago.

It was 6/1/21 and mostly about routesetting and how it was not generally kind to people of a shorter stature.

If only one could 'decide where to place protection'. Many a time I've 'decided' I must place some protection and not been able to because there's nothing to place it in or on.

Here in South Africa, we use the term "Natural" for the (removable) protection, so maybe "Natural climbing" as opposed to the more artificial/fixed forms...