1) The most obvious lesson is how placing gear is the bread and butter of any extensions of trad climbing (lead rope solo, mixed climbing, alpinism etc…) . I was so focused on getting my lead rope solo system perfect, but it didn’t even have the chance to catch me because my gear blew. In other words, nothing mattered because my placements were bad.
2) Just because I could have pulled through the moves doesn’t mean I can lead it. Not only does the route need lots of trad experience for the ‘trad sense’, it also called for a stronger mind that didn’t hesitate on the dyno. Essentially, I was punching above my weightclass.
3) Get cams. I feel like smaller cams could have fit really well in that crack in retrospect. Perhaps big hexes (which I had) have their role, but small cams have their role too.
4) Actually make sure to have experience before going out alone. I feel like my past successes on unroped ‘big climbs ’ in Scotland and in UAE tricked me into thinking I was better at trad than I am. It seems to me that every discipline of climbing essentially requires a feeling of ‘starting from zero.’ While perhaps I was good at ‘big mountain stuff’, I needed to start from zero in trad.
5) If forced to go out alone, be conservative. The reason why I went out alone was because of the ‘entry-level job paradox’ in finding a climbing partner. Perhaps I would have been resourceful rather than reckless if I had spent that day running laps on severes or HS’s rather than E1s. I had done the same in my first Scottish winter, where the bulk of my initial experience in winter was solo and self taught, but very conservative, between grade I-II. It was a very large oversight for me not to follow that blueprint.