[SA Chris]

Fiend, I have a good wall here for you if you want to bang your head against it.

(BTW I am up to speed with your logic and agree 100%).

[shark]

Well that's all very patriotic (though I should point out there are trad routes in France on MOUNTAINS) but you are again avoiding the fact that the E + tech grade doesnt tell you as much (in theory) as a french + risk grade.

In practice it might not work very well but a bit of expeimentation would be the proof of the pudding. Guides using french grades for trad routes in addition whether in a graded list or the description would be a good start.  

[Fiend]

but you are again avoiding the ???fact??? that the E + tech grade doesnt tell you as much (in theory) as a french + risk grade.

 

    

[grimer]

Conversely, i have often done routes abroad that would be much more informative if they had E grades. An example, in Yosemite, both the regular route on the Rostrum and Astroman get the same grade, 5.11c. If i am telling anyone about them, it alsways feels more appropriate to call the Rostrum E4 6a and Astroman E5 6a.

[tc]

Sorry, that got a bit confused. My post should have read:

What the fuck is a "hypothetical onsight"? Is this like a conjectural flash? A suppositious redpoint?


I claim the E grade only when I've done the route in good style. Otherwise, it goes something like "I did xxxxx BUT..."

[Stu Littlefair]

Simon,

I don't know to what extent you've digested or disregarded the points already made that the proposed system:

a) is not necessary (as there are better ways of promoting onsight climbing)
b) won't help promote onsight climbing anyway
c) adds a layer of complexity which isn't needed (one grade for onsighted routes, one grade for headpointed routes on gogarth, one grade for headpointed routes on grit - where does it stop?)

To some extent whether you agree on (a) is a matter of perspective, we don't really know about (b) and whether you think (c) is important depends on how bothered you are by the status quo, so rehashing those arguments won't persuade anybody.

To be honest, most of the suppositions in Adam's article are just total rubbish. Many of them have been dealt with above, but let's look at his assertion that we aren't sure of the boundary between E7 and E8 and that this is because E-grades for headpointed routes are meaningless, which he backs up with a single example. I mean, come on! Does he think there are no examples of routes which straddle the E3/4 boundary, or the HVS/E1 boundary? Putting that aside, of course the grades of these routes are going to be inaccurate - they don't exactly get as many ascents as 3 Pebble slab now, do they? And these routes only get onsight ascents from people pushing their limit, at which point variations in climbers strength's and weaknesses probably make more difference to the perceived difficulty than the actual difficulty of the route. The point I'm making is any grade confusion here is not really anything to do with headpointing. Hardback actually makes my point for me, doesn't it: this route was put up ground up, so according to Adam and Co. the grade has to be more accurate than a route like End of the Affair, which was graded by "guesswork". But guess what - the grade of End of the Affair has gone unchallenged, whilst people are suggesting an upgrade for Hardback. I think this pretty conclusively rubbishes the suggestion that E-grades for headpointed routes are "meaningless".

A final word on the matter - I think a shift to Adam's system would give less useful information to potential onsighters than a french grade and danger rating. The main reason is the E-grade can account for the insecurity of the climbing, whereas Adam's system doesn't do that neatly. You might say this is grit-specific, but there are plenty of insecure mountain routes and how insecure a climb feels makes a massive difference to the E-grade of a route. The Indian Face is a good local example. Under adam's system this would get 7b+ X, or something. Compare doing Indian Face with, for example, doing 50 for 5 on bad gear. The two experiences wouldn't compare in my opinion, but would get a similar grade in Adam's system. On the other hand, I'd give the two very different E-grades; perhaps E7 and E9. (Don't come at with the old standby that the difference would be obvious from the ground - in the example I've adpoted, yes. But there are plenty of cases where it isn't obvious from the ground, especially on the mountain routes/sea cliffs we're talking about).

[Stu Littlefair]

Niall makes my point about the lack of information in adam's proposed system quite well. I find US grades absolute shite for trad climbing. For a start, there's just far to much range in the PG/R/X rating to let me know if I'm going to be a bit wobbly, or absolutely shit my pants.

Adopting a similar system for trad routes in britain would probably make me avoid those routes until I got some 2nd hand information from someone I trust...

[grimer]

But Simon, don't you think that awarding the ascent for the ground-up is making things very open to the need for a whole book of rules.

What about certain examples:

Jordan Buys doing Carmen Picasso after his wife brushes it and preplaces a wire. This ascent is ethically flawed in some ways, but still a really cool ascent. Is it cool enough to get the FGUA?

The situation where a climber will get friends to continually top rope a route so they can see where all the moves and runners are before climbing it ground up. Obviously perfect, and they would be awarded the FGUA, but not so cool

Someone trying The bastard Practice on the Cromlech, on sight. They get pumped, rest on the peg in fear, then climb on to the top. Come down, pull the rope, then do it first go.

I wouldn't like to have to judge these, or the thousand other examples you would need to deal with. Add to this the fact that even with your ear to the ground, you are only ever going to hear about a select number of ground-up ascents. Can you know for certain who did the first ground up ascent of Atomic Hot Rod?


All this just points out the difficulty of the system. If the idea behind the shift in grading systems is to give due recognitio to ground-up style climbers, then there must be another answer.


It's a shame for all those great climbers that they are around when the number of great new routes seems so few.

[grimer]

Good debate by the way. be good to get a few more in support of simon's / adam's views on, as our man in the red van is fighting a lonely battle at the minute.

[Pantontino]

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. 

I haven't ignored this at all, it is Stu who failed to acknowledge the logic of what I have been suggesting, namely that the adoption of the new headpoint grade would by default make an event out of the eventual ground up ascent.

The E grade is attractive to editors/journalists because it suggests in one very snappy soundbite that the same game that Joe Brown was playing back in the day is the same one that is being played now, but now to the nth degree. Joe climbed E2 back in the 50s, look we now have E12 - a full ten grades harder.    How impressive is that, how eye catching etc. Unfortunately the implicit comparison is deeply flawed. They are two very different aspects of climbing, the former is traditional ground up stuff and the latter is essentially sport climbing without bolts, and has a lot more in common with redpointing (the clue is in the name) than it does with trad onsighting.

(sorry for disjointed nature of replies, there are so many quick posts it's hard to keep track)

[Fiend]

If someone wants to post up the article with Gresham's reply, I'll be sure to give that one a thorough going over too...

[shark]

Conversely, i have often done routes abroad that would be much more informative if they had E grades. An example, in Yosemite, both the regular route on the Rostrum and Astroman get the same grade, 5.11c. If i am telling anyone about them, it alsways feels more appropriate to call the Rostrum E4 6a and Astroman E5 6a.

I agree - especially if you include a special squeeze caving grade for the Harding Slot which along with the enduro pitch bumps it up to E5. The grading and climbing in yosemite is as warped and idiosyncratic as gritstone - and so quite fruitful for grading examples. If everyone was multilingual in grading systerms you could use whichever system most closely made sense for each route.

[Stu Littlefair]

I do accept what you're saying that reserving the E-grade label would make the first onsight more of an event.

The point I'm making is that if your ultimate aim is publicity you won't get media attention unless you have good photos and a story to tell. And if you've got those things an editor is going to give magazine space to it anyway. Changing the E-grade is an ineffective step to take.

Take your Joe Brown at E3 and JP at E12 example - you keep coming back to "it's an unfair comparison". But no-one actually makes a direct comparison. People are smart and they are aware that things move on, that the hardest routes are headpointed, that friends make cracks safe, that stick rubber helps. Why do you think the Baron still gets so much respect?

[Pantontino]

Simon,

I don't know to what extent you've digested or disregarded the points already made that the proposed system:

a) is not necessary (as there are better ways of promoting onsight climbing)
b) won't help promote onsight climbing anyway
c) adds a layer of complexity which isn't needed (one grade for onsighted routes, one grade for headpointed routes on gogarth, one grade for headpointed routes on grit - where does it stop?)

To some extent whether you agree on (a) is a matter of perspective, we don't really know about (b) and whether you think (c) is important depends on how bothered you are by the status quo, so rehashing those arguments won't persuade anybody.

To be honest, most of the suppositions in Adam's article are just total rubbish. Many of them have been dealt with above, but let's look at his assertion that we aren't sure of the boundary between E7 and E8 and that this is because E-grades for headpointed routes are meaningless, which he backs up with a single example. I mean, come on! Does he think there are no examples of routes which straddle the E3/4 boundary, or the HVS/E1 boundary? Putting that aside, of course the grades of these routes are going to be inaccurate - they don't exactly get as many ascents as 3 Pebble slab now, do they? And these routes only get onsight ascents from people pushing their limit, at which point variations in climbers strength's and weaknesses probably make more difference to the perceived difficulty than the actual difficulty of the route. The point I'm making is any grade confusion here is not really anything to do with headpointing. Hardback actually makes my point for me, doesn't it: this route was put up ground up, so according to Adam and Co. the grade has to be more accurate than a route like End of the Affair, which was graded by "guesswork". But guess what - the grade of End of the Affair has gone unchallenged, whilst people are suggesting an upgrade for Hardback. I think this pretty conclusively rubbishes the suggestion that E-grades for headpointed routes are "meaningless".

A final word on the matter - I think a shift to Adam's system would give less useful information to potential onsighters than a french grade and danger rating. The main reason is the E-grade can account for the insecurity of the climbing, whereas Adam's system doesn't do that neatly. You might say this is grit-specific, but there are plenty of insecure mountain routes and how insecure a climb feels makes a massive difference to the E-grade of a route. The Indian Face is a good local example. Under adam's system this would get 7b+ X, or something. Compare doing Indian Face with, for example, doing 50 for 5 on bad gear. The two experiences wouldn't compare in my opinion, but would get a similar grade in Adam's system. On the other hand, I'd give the two very different E-grades; perhaps E7 and E9. (Don't come at with the old standby that the difference would be obvious from the ground - in the example I've adpoted, yes. But there are plenty of cases where it isn't obvious from the ground, especially on the mountain routes/sea cliffs we're talking about).

Nobody is suggesting that a single ground up ascent leads to an automaticallty accurate grade - all grades need consensus to have any true meaning. Surely that is too basic to be worth arguing over? All I'm saying is that the first ground up ascent is the first time somebody has had the authentic Joe Brown experience on a route, and thus able to offer a true stab at the E grade. The headpointer, was sport climbing without bolts and should grade accordingly.

The last part of your post ignores the reality of the situation at the crag. Aside from the F7b+ X grade, a would be ground up ascencionist will have a guidebook or wiki description and their own eyes and experience (not to mention the reputation that a prominent headpoint will have) to go on. They won't be operating in the information vacuum that you suggest.

[Stu Littlefair]

All I'm saying is that the first ground up ascent is the first time somebody has had the authentic Joe Brown experience on a route, and thus able to offer a true stab at the E grade.

This is the part I fundamentally disagree with. I'm aware that there is some guesswork in attributing an E-grade to a route you've rehearsed, but that doesn't make the grade useless, which is what you and adam seem to be saying. Indeed, there are reasons why it might be more accurate - your onsighter might just "get lucky". The fact that many headpointed routes have kept their grade after being onsighted (EoTA being one amongst many) proves this beyond argument, surely.

The last part of your post ignores the reality of the situation at the crag. Aside from the F7b+ X grade, a would be ground up ascencionist will have a guidebook or wiki description and their own eyes and experience (not to mention the reputation that a prominent headpoint will have) to go on. They won't be operating in the information vacuum that you suggest.

Goddammit! I said you couldn't use that response. The point is it's not always obvious from the ground. You want a concrete example? Trevallen Pillar versus Ships that Pass... They look identical from the ground, and I found them to have similar french grades and danger rating. Ships...  felt much more insecure. The E-grade tells me one is harder, Adam's system would not!

[shark]

Niall makes my point about the lack of information in adam's proposed system quite well. I find US grades absolute shite for trad climbing. For a start, there's just far to much range in the PG/R/X rating to let me know if I'm going to be a bit wobbly, or absolutely shit my pants.

But if it was extended to say 6 grades of risk/insecurity would that work ?

[abarro81]

The headpointer, was sport climbing without bolts and should grade accordingly.
 

Stupid statement. I spend much more time onsighting on bolts than I do redpointing, just because that's what i enjoy. The onsighter is 'sport climbing without bolts' too, they're just onsight sport climbing without bolts instead of redpointing without them. Which one do you think is likely to feel closer to sport climbing - onsighting bastille or headpointing end of the affair?

[SA Chris]

Niall makes my point about the lack of information in adam's proposed system quite well. I find US grades absolute shite for trad climbing. For a start, there's just far to much range in the PG/R/X rating to let me know if I'm going to be a bit wobbly, or absolutely shit my pants.

But if it was extended to say 6 grades of risk/insecurity would that work ?

What, like X1-X6?????

[Stu Littlefair]

Niall makes my point about the lack of information in adam's proposed system quite well. I find US grades absolute shite for trad climbing. For a start, there's just far to much range in the PG/R/X rating to let me know if I'm going to be a bit wobbly, or absolutely shit my pants.

But if it was extended to say 6 grades of risk/insecurity would that work ?

You wouldn't need as many as six. Finer degrees would help, but it wouldn't help give information about other factors like the insecurity of the climb or the condition of the rock. How does that fit in to a french grade and a grade which indicates the consequence of a fall.

Hey - I know! Let's include all those factors and make the steps finer still. And since things like looseness, exposure, remoteness and insecurity are open-ended we could adopted an open-ended scale of numbers rather than a closed system. Maybe prefix it with a letter to show that our scale denotes the extremity of the climb. Something like E1,E2,E3 and so on. That would work, wouldn't it?

[grimer]

The fact that many headpointed routes have kept their grade after being onsighted (EoTA being one amongst many) proves this beyond argument, surely.

Actually, and i don't know this for sure, but i never heard ryan say much about that at all. It was all said by those that saw. Did he offer a grade. If he had soloed it by himself, or did it with people away from the media, you might not know about it.

[Pantontino]

Jordan Buys doing Carmen Picasso after his wife brushes it and preplaces a wire. This ascent is ethically flawed in some ways, but still a really cool ascent. Is it cool enough to get the FGUA?

The situation where a climber will get friends to continually top rope a route so they can see where all the moves and runners are before climbing it ground up. Obviously perfect, and they would be awarded the FGUA, but not so cool
 
Someone trying The bastard Practice on the Cromlech, on sight. They get pumped, rest on the peg in fear, then climb on to the top. Come down, pull the rope, then do it first go.

I wouldn't like to have to judge these, or the thousand other examples you would need to deal with. Add to this the fact that even with your ear to the ground, you are only ever going to hear about a select number of ground-up ascents. Can you know for certain who did the first ground up ascent of Atomic Hot Rod?


All this just points out the difficulty of the system. If the idea behind the shift in grading systems is to give due recognitio to ground-up style climbers, then there must be another answer.


It's a shame for all those great climbers that they are around when the number of great new routes seems so few.

The examples do highlight the blurring at the boundaries - personally I think the first one doesn't qualify and the second one does. In the former case all you can do is report the facts and wait until somebody does a purer ascent.

You say thousands of examples - surely that is overplaying the situation. The number of headpointed routes shifting from sport + risk grade to E grade would be relatively small. We are talking about a minority of hard routes here after all.

I can't be certain who did the first ground up ascents of older routes - but then I don't need to be. These are already established as conventional E grade routes with numerous ascents over the years.

[Pantontino]

The headpointer, was sport climbing without bolts and should grade accordingly.
 

Stupid statement. I spend much more time onsighting on bolts than I do redpointing, just because that's what i enjoy. The onsighter is 'sport climbing without bolts' too, they're just onsight sport climbing without bolts instead of redpointing without them. Which one do you think is likely to feel closer to sport climbing - onsighting bastille or headpointing end of the affair?

I said earlier in the thread/s that I agreed that grit was a special case and might be better described by a Font grade + risk assessment. Your example highlights this anomaly, but it doesn't undermine the overall argument. How about if I'd said 'The headpointer, was redpointing without bolts and should grade accordingly', or is that still a 'Stupid statement'?

[Stu Littlefair]

The fact that many headpointed routes have kept their grade after being onsighted (EoTA being one amongst many) proves this beyond argument, surely.

Actually, and i don't know this for sure, but i never heard ryan say much about that at all. It was all said by those that saw. Did he offer a grade. If he had soloed it by himself, or did it with people away from the media, you might not know about it.

True, but no-one has offered re-grades for routes like Master's Edge, Master's Wall, Unfamiliar, Gies a Squid, Balance it Is, Deathwatch, Kaluza Klein.... Surely that shows that grades for routes initially headpointed are not all that bad?

[shark]

Hey - I know! Let's include all those factors and make the steps finer still. And since things like looseness, exposure, remoteness and insecurity are open-ended
[/quote]


In my view it wouldn't and shouldn't be open ended if adopted because those factors arent open-ended and because there would still be an interplay with the french grade.

You imagine the loosest, exposedest, remotedness and insecure type of climb imaginable and that benchmarks the top of the risk grade. The risk grade would have to be proportional to the French grade ie a runout Fr6a might get a high overall risk grade for the route but a Fr8a that was well protected on the hard bit but had a runout Fr6a bit would have a low overall Risk grade (unless it was on mud!). So in that sense there is a proportional interelationship between the two but not wholly merged like the E grade.

[Stu Littlefair]

The headpointer, was sport climbing without bolts and should grade accordingly.
 

Stupid statement. I spend much more time onsighting on bolts than I do redpointing, just because that's what i enjoy. The onsighter is 'sport climbing without bolts' too, they're just onsight sport climbing without bolts instead of redpointing without them. Which one do you think is likely to feel closer to sport climbing - onsighting bastille or headpointing end of the affair?

I said earlier in the thread/s that I agreed that grit was a special case and might be better described by a Font grade + risk assessment. Your example highlights this anomaly, but it doesn't undermine the overall argument. How about if I'd said 'The headpointer, was redpointing without bolts and should grade accordingly', or is that still a 'Stupid statement'?

However, he could have made the same point by saying "which would feel more like sport climbing - onsighting the hollow man, or onsighting requiem?". The point is the same differences that make grit "a special case" do exist on all rock types, if perhaps to a lesser extent. This will reduce the utility of adam's proposed system. Surely you must acknowledge this, even if you think it is not an important enough factor to destroy Adam's proposal...