In reply to dinodinosaur:
> Going solo bouldering soon and fancied trying some hard traverses to remove the need for a spotter and reduce the risk of an injury.
Personally I found traverses harder to protect than strait ups if you're on your own. I suppose if you're shuffling along 30cm above the ground the whole way then fine but if it's a rising traverse then it's hard to know where to place the mat. You can rarely pad out the whole thing and you've not got any spotters there to move the pads along for you like normal so it can get a bit sketchy sometimes.
At least with straight ups provided it's not highball you're going to land in more or less the same spot each time so you can more effectively pad the area out.