[Fiend]

I am not sure why this debate is just confined to top end E grading. If I ever pulled my finger out to go tradding again then given the choice I would find the french grade and some form of risk pointer more useful than an E grade + tech grade.

Sport climber

In deep water soloing the original english grades used at Swanage have been ditched for French grades (the world's favourite grade) and a risk (S) grade by Mike Robertson without fuss?

Possibly because DWS is a very different kettle of fish (literally) than normal trad?? Trad with all it's ropes and woggles and hard landings has been around for centuries and has a grade system that's evolved and worked for that. Soloing something above water is a new concept and thus not really comparable.

Although personally I think it's bollox and uninformative and would much rather they kept the trad grade for DWS because at least I'd know how scary it might be and how hard the crux was rather than just an overall level of physical difficulty that's usually applied in situations of obvious safety i.e. sport. Ideally give them a directly comparable S-grade instead of an E-grade that takes into account the landing'n'shit. S5 6a is equivalently adjectivally hard to E5 6a par example. But it seems people like the idea of overriding grades outright and making people learn new systems, rather than making the smallest and most elegant changes.

[Moo]

but everybody I've discussed this with in the North Wales scene (none of whom are active on website forums) agrees that it is a good idea.

   All of them read website forums though and Geldard is instrumental in all this and doesn't he climb with Robins and McHaffie. 

I'd like to hear Birkett's take but we'd need a translater

[Pantontino]

I am not sure why this debate is just confined to top end E grading. If I ever pulled my finger out to go tradding again then given the choice I would find the french grade and some form of risk pointer more useful than an E grade + tech grade.

In deep water soloing the original english grades used at Swanage have been ditched for French grades (the world's favourite grade) and a risk (S) grade by Mike Robertson without fuss?

Wainwrights' suggestion with regard to the top grades is I think useful from media point of view as it reassigns a bit of deserving kudos to the first onsighter to have 'permission' for the symbolic granting of an E grade but is really just a side(show) issue.

Whilst I like your open mindedness, I'm not sure I agree - I'm quite happy to keep E grades for established routes that have been done ground up or onsighted.

DWS grades - hmm, interesting comparison.

[slackline]

... Geldard is instrumental in all this and doesn't he climb with Robins and McHaffie.  

Really?  Thats not what it reads like from Jack's write-up here

[Jaspersharpe]

Nobody has addressed what is probably the most important point (raised by Stu)........

I stand by the 'not one iota' comment. It's the only logical conclusion from the current state of affairs: the media's relative treatment of sport climbing, bouldering, ice climbing and trad climbing are not set by the 'juicyness' of the grading system or the mathematical sizes of the numbers contained within. Instead, it is dictated by the impressiveness of the ascent, modified by the perceived interest of that discipline to the readership.

In the same way, adopting a separate grading scheme for headpointed routes is not going to make them any less hard, and thus no less attractive to magazine editors who want to pimp the "world's hardest traditional route". The rags will trumpet the next top-end headpoint just the same, and include text along the lines of "which might translate as E13 in the onsight grading system". In fact, you might end up with onsight ascents being devalued as any conversion between E-grades and your new headpoint system which appeared in print would be at the mercy of journalists, instead of top climbers with reputations to protect. This would allow rampant speculation as to the equivalent E-grade. Think how puny an E8 onsight is going to look if Mick Ryan can get away with saying that echo wall could be as hard as E14!

What difference would all this grade fuckery actually make? This is one of the points you seem to have chosen to ignore Si. 

[shark]

But it seems people like the idea of overriding grades outright and making people learn new systems, rather than making the smallest and most elegant changes.
[/quote]

The French sport grade is widely understood thanks to climbing walls and sunrock and scarcely a new system. It is a good measure of whether you are up likely to be up to the physical and technical challenge of a route. The only thing to then decide is if you have the balls for it.      

[Pantontino]

You are ignoring rational argument in favour of clutching at a misguided way to right the percieved injustice that you see occurring.

That is just your opinion, i.e. You 'think I' am ignoring etc...

I'm here and I'm listening.

[Fiend]

Nothing has been committed to print yet. If any of you convince me otherwise I would change my view (part of the reason I brought up Adam's article is that I wanted to hear more views). So far I haven't read anything here that has particularly swayed my view of the situation,

What about the following that Johnny and I have asserted or demonstrated:

1. It is obvious that it is a media/personality/publicity issue not a grading issue.

2. Many of Adam's premises are unsupported or have unsupported implications (i.e. the implication that punters do not understand that onsighting a grade is incomparable to headpointing a grade).

3. At least one of his grading arguments is logically flawed, at best begging the question and at worst a bare assertion fallacy.

4. His arguments about grading could equally well give rise to a situation of new grades providing LESS information and discouraging onsighting rather than providing more information.



P.S. Isn't it somewhat ironic that two of the people currently arguing with you are two people who are both *very* supportive of onsighting rather than headpointing in both action (at their relative levels) and opinion....??

[Fiend]

The French sport grade is widely understood thanks to climbing walls and sunrock and scarcely a new system. It is a good measure of whether you are up likely to be up to the physical and technical challenge of a route. The only thing to then decide is if you have the balls for it.      

Actually there is an adjectival grade for that, what a good idea eh

Climbing walls & sunrock != DWS.

[Pantontino]

but everybody I've discussed this with in the North Wales scene (none of whom are active on website forums) agrees that it is a good idea.

   All of them read website forums

You've no idea at all if that is true as I didn't name names. Even if I did, how would you know? And anyway Caff wouldn't know what a computer was if it landed on his head!

[IanP]

But then also that Rhapsody (under his system) would be 8c+ R and The Hollow Man 7a+ X.

Now, call me stupid if you wish but I don't find it astonishing in the slightest that a route ten (yes ten) grades harder in actual difficulty is possibly three E grades harder in overall "E grade difficulty" to climb.

The whole thing smacks of bitterness to me and I'm not really sure why people are kicking up such a fuss.  

But isn't that exactly how the E grade works? Great Slab is 6a (maybe more likely 5+) X and gets E3, any number of E5's are 7a R - thats 6 or 8 grades for only 2 E grades, so 10 grades for 3 E grades seems absolutely fine.

Call me stupid, but if perfectly protected 8a is E7 then 9a is E10, 9b is E11 and 9c is E12 I have a bit of difficulty understanding where E11 and E12 fit in in comparison to what is being achieved in sport grades.  I don't know what Steve Mac thinks obviously but I don't imagine he considers his quick ascent of Rhapsody to be the up there with say Overshadow on his list of most significant achievements over the last few years.  
 
From what I've seen and others on here who know the route have said I have no problem believing that Walk of Life is a really major achievement quite possibly of real historic significance in terms of difficulty (only the future will tell I guess) on a magnificent piece of rock - I just don't quite understand what the grades at top end now mean.

[Pantontino]

apart from how it could be applied to grit routes. Obviously these differ dramatically from sport routes - Font grade + risk assessment would work much better here.

Yes. Unfortunately this will make the whole messy idea even messier.

Si, did you not take Grimer's point about how the first true onsight would be awarded? No one can get to the ability to onsight such routes without picking up beta. So we'll never get true onsights. The only line that could be drawn is between ground-up and inspection/ practice from ab/ top-rope. A rather less impressive line, but one marking true progress in style.

The answer is to educate everyone, whether E1 or E10, that top-roping is poor style. What we really need is a Leo/ MacLeod with pure ethics and the ego to promote them.

For me it is the first ground up ascent that is the mark in the sand where a route deserves an E grade.

[Fiend]

Pantonio, the new wave of onsighters and the people who support them are great. As someone who is excited, supportive, and respectful of that climbing ethic, and to be honest wants the same thing as Adam i.e. greater respect and acknowledgement for onsights, here's what I suggest:

1. Don't spend any time writing articles about new grading systems.

2. Don't spend any time re-writing established trad grades for guidebooks.

3. DO spend time getting more footage, photos, and reports of onsights.

4. DO get these lads talking about, showing off, and promoting what they're doing.

5. DO spend the time speaking to any and all climbing media to ensure their activity gets reported and highlighted.

[T_B]

Playing Devil's Advocate a bit I can think of some crags (Reecastle in the Lakes) where the gear on the harder routes tends to be pre-placed and in a way F8a+ would make more sense for these things than E7. But even if someone was to on-sight Burnt at the Stake (E7 7a), F8a+ would still be the more useful grade! I.e. you need to be able to on-sight F8a+ to on-sight this route. If you can shuffle up some Gogarth choss fest E7 on-sight, it doesn't mean you're going to get up E7 at Reecastle on your first go!

So grades aren't perfect. What you need to do is provide the supporting V/Font or French grade in the text.

On-sighting whether it be in Sport climbing or trad is highly regarded as far as I can see.  As numerous others have pointed out, I don't see the issue here being the (imperfect) grading systems that we use, but one of the current N Wales trad shufflers not getting enough kudos. Get blogging chaps!

[Fiend]

If you can shuffle up some Gogarth choss fest E7 on-sight, it doesn't mean you're going to get up E7 at Reecastle on your first go!

As anyone will be able to tell very easily from the relative tech grades AND the style of the crag.

Totally agree with the last paragraph though.

[nik at work]

Pantonio, the new wave of onsighters and the people who support them are great. As someone who is excited, supportive, and respectful of that climbing ethic, and to be honest wants the same thing as Adam i.e. greater respect and acknowledgement for onsights, here's what I suggest:

1. Don't spend any time writing articles about new grading systems.

2. Don't spend any time re-writing established trad grades for guidebooks.

3. DO spend time getting more footage, photos, and reports of onsights.

4. DO get these lads talking about, showing off, and promoting what they're doing.

5. DO spend the time speaking to any and all climbing media to ensure their activity gets reported and highlighted.

Thought this was worth reading again, good advice in my opinion.

[abarro81]

I don't think there's a need to change the system and broadly agree with JB, fiend etc..

If hard onsighters want more kudos/sponsorship then they need to go back and get some nice staged photos of them looking scared/stacked with big maximuscle and prana logos clearly visible and then write a nice little piece for the websites/mags. If their mates think they deserve more kudos then they should take more nice pictures of them for the mags and pimp them out whether they like it or not. If people just generally want to see more GU and o/s stuff in the media they should write to the mags/websites and say so. etc.

I like knowing rough french grades for routes, and it would be wicked if the new guides had some of this info. This could either be in the grade in the guide eg. 'Right wall E5 6a (F6c ish)' or a note in the description 'F6c climbing if it had bolts in' or just a list in the back similar to graded lists. Notably, i consifer this info as MORE inportant to me for onsights than headpoints.

DWS - it feels a lot more like doing a sport route than a trad route most of the time, hence french grades make a lot more sense to me that trad here.

[Fiend]

Ta. This is assuming they want the publicity of course. For the quiet onsighters and the media-shy, sobeit, but they wouldn't be concerned about the issue either...

[Moo]

Ta. This is assuming they want the publicity of course. For the quiet onsighters and the media-shy, sobeit, but they wouldn't be concerned about the issue either...

Not all top climbers are pimps.

[shark]

Actually there is an adjectival grade for that, what a good idea eh
[/quote]


But the E grade isnt just a Risk grade as you know. Some people are bolder than they are strong, others stronger than they are bold. The E grade is a blunt instrument that attempts to fudge the two key aspects which most people consider when deciding to try a route or drive to a crag having looked at a guide.        

[webbo]

back in the day when sports routes used to get 2 grades i.e. 7a+ and E5 6b or even E5 6a or possibly E4 6c i could get more info from the trad grade as to what to expect.
on a side note this system was really good for list addicts as you could have a list of  trad routes and sport routes but only needed to do sport routes.  

[Fiend]

Simon: two key aspects, as said before those are bloody obvious from the crag type / rock type / description etc etc. No-one is ever in any confusion about what Edge Lane or London Wall are going to be like from both sharing the same grade.

Admittedly if all you ever had was a french-style topo of grades and lines on a very minimal diagram with no descriptions of crag, crag area, nor climb itself, then yes it would be confusing. Thankfully we have a grading system and generally good guidebook information - it works.

[abarro81]

It's not always so obvious though Fiend. There are certainly eg. E5 6as where you might not be able to tell from the floor how much you're earning your grade for boldness and how much for hardness. That's why I'd go for normal system and french grade.. saves me having to trawl the web to find out how hard the climbing on everyhting I want to do is! Probably horrendous for guidebook writers though...

[shark]

Simon: two key aspects, as said before those are bloody obvious from the crag type / rock type / description etc etc. No-one is ever in any confusion about what Edge Lane or London Wall are going to be like from both sharing the same grade.

Admittedly if all you ever had was a french-style topo of grades and lines on a very minimal diagram with no descriptions of crag, crag area, nor climb itself, then yes it would be confusing. Thankfully we have a grading system and generally good guidebook information - it works.

You are hardly making a good case for the informativeness of the E grade if your answer is that you need to look elsewhere for clues.

I'm not saying it is a useless way to grade things but better more useful alternatives are possible.

[Fiend]

You are hardly making a good case for the informativeness of the E grade if your answer is that you need to look elsewhere for clues.

Yeah looking elsewhere for clues....somewhere really obscure LIKE THE GUIDEBOOK DESCRIPTION BELOW THE GRADE RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES OR THE PHOTO-TOPO OR THE ROUTE ITSELF.

This isn't France. We have very functional guidebooks and a very functional trad grading system.