ClimbThrough: Trad Climbing Youtuber

Hey guys what’s up?

My name is Kuba Lacina and I am addicted to rock climbing. I am also a Youtuber. I want to tell you all about that, but for you to understand the idea behind my channel, I will tell you a little backstory first.

It all started in my home country, the Czech Republic. Yes, that’s the place where people climb sandstone towers using knots as pro. That wasn’t me. I started with sport climbing as most people do. I haven’t discovered trad climbing until I moved to Manchester, UK.

At that time I didn’t really know what to make of the whole trad climbing thing, so I spent A LOT of time top roping (what the hell, right!?) and bouldering. I was still convinced that sport climbing was the only style worth pursuing. Luckily, not having a car and the closest outdoor venues being bouldering and trad only, made me reconsider. After months of this, I bought my own rack and together with a couple of friends we started leading. Looking back, we hardly knew what we were doing and I still think that we only just got away with it a couple times.

One of our first trad climbing trips was to Burbage North. It was raining in Manchester but as we entered
the Sheffield side of the Peak District, the sun came out. Psyched for the weather, we got on some easier climbs and everything was going great. With my newly gained confidence & ignorance, I found myself tying in on the sharp end for Knight‘s Move HVS 5a. Flailing on the initial layback moves above the smallest nut I had on my rack, I quickly realized that I was either going to finish the climb or break my legs. Somehow I got to a break, placed a bomber cam and topped out. I have just climbed a piece of rock with nothing but my body, a couple pieces of modern gear and loads of luck. Sitting on the top, all sorts of thoughts were racing through my mind: I am alive! Trad is rad!

Having graduated to a trad climber, I took the responsibility to educate myself very seriously. Every day
I would spend a ridiculous amount of time watching trad climbing videos (I still do… :D), with people like James Pearson, Steph Davis, Hazel Findlay, Alex Honnold, and countless others. I admired them, looked up to them but I couldn’t really relate to someone leading E9 if I was hardly leading VS. We’ve all seen the videos of professional climbers talking about their projects, right? “You grab these two tiny crimps, put your foot on the smallest little thing and dyno for a slopy gaston.” All that while your only piece of gear is a micro cam five meters below you. Don’t get me wrong, I love those videos, but how many of us have a need and motivation to climb routes like these?

That made me think, what if I could inspire climbers that were just like me? Starting to lead trad but not really having someone they could relate to in terms of trad climbing difficulty. At that time, I was already putting up some climbing vlogs on Youtube, but I felt it wasn’t going to be THE thing to inspire people to go after their ticklists that were seemingly out of reach. I needed videos that would teach beta in a fun and relatable way.

That’s how I came up with the concept of ClimbThroughs. A video that essentially walks you through the climb, gives you beta on the key moves, the gear placements and gives you an overall idea of what to expect from the route. I always show the route from both the first-person view and from the distance as needed, making it easier to find rests and gear placements from the ground. I like to call CTs the rock climbing version of what is known as WalkThroughs in the gaming world. In those videos, gamers play computer games, show their audience how to go through all the levels, get bonus items etc. The difference is that my version encourages people to engage in a physical activity and to go beyond their comfort zone, rather than having them stare into a computer screen. That is my ultimate goal, not only for people to have fun while watching my videos, but to get the most out of them by going out and climbing the routes I talk about themselves.

Now that you know why I do the stuff I do, go check it out! In this episode dedicated to Every Last Rock,
I climb an iconic route at Stanage, The Left Unconquerable E1 5b. This compelling line with 3 stars
and 1890 logged ascents on the UKC has been on my ticklist for a while and marks my first E1 onsight.

 

And when you are done with watching the video, don’t be a stranger and let me know what you think!
Then turn the computer off, grab your gear & a couple of good friends and head to the crag.

See you there!

Kuba