[shark]

So the crux of Baboo is only half a grade easier (or the same if you the originally muted 7A+) as the start of Austrian. Mmmm. Thought not.

More moves on Austrian but the crux couple of moves on Baboo is nearly as hard as any move on the Oak. Saying the Baboo crux is Font6c is 

I'm shit but not that shit. I'll accept that the Baboo crux is 7A or even soft 7A but not 6C   

[chris_j_s]

Rose - 6c - it's not the same grade as Yosemite Wall is it?

No it isn't, YW is 7a+!

Not in a month of sundays is Rose 6c! I'm willing to accept that it could be a tough 6c+ but maybe it really deserves that most contentious of things: a split grade - 6c+/7a.

[north_country_boy]

For the record I'm not argueing that Baboo is 7c+. Its 8a IMHO. However I think the crux is no more than 6C, straight off the deck thats what it would be. It may feel 7A because its 17m up the route.

This essentially is why giving Font Grades for sections of endurance routes is silly.

To be honest Straightened is the best way to climb that bit of rock anyway....

[Fiend]

Dodger Direct - E3 5c ** - fine at this, better than it looks.
Sundance Wall - E2 5b? ** - not sure if I remember this right but could be 5b or I could be senile.
Midnight Cowboy - E3 5c *** - fine at this, bold and tricky.
Crossbones E2 6a? *** - hard crux for 5c, could be 6a.
Wombat E2 5c *** - fine at this, really steady.

[IanP]

For the record I'm not argueing that Baboo is 7c+. Its 8a IMHO. However I think the crux is no more than 6C, straight off the deck thats what it would be. It may feel 7A because its 17m up the route.

This essentially is why giving Font Grades for sections of endurance routes is silly.

My understanding of bouldering grades is pretty poor but imo the crux sequence of Baboo (from jug to to stood up with feet over the bulge) is much nearer in difficulty to the Green Traverse than it is to Razor Roof - I'd say a font 7a is pretty close.

[fatdoc]

For the record I'm not argueing that Baboo is 7c+. Its 8a IMHO. However I think the crux is no more than 6C, straight off the deck thats what it would be. It may feel 7A because its 17m up the route.

This essentially is why giving Font Grades for sections of endurance routes is silly.

To be honest Straightened is the best way to climb that bit of rock anyway....

there's enough knowledge on here to just get a grade consensus with going all fontesque.

if you trav off into baboo on GBH, to avoid the mahoosive lunge / lock then you've avoided the route.... thinking about it... it probs is 8a+.

[Serpico]

You end up with the pinch as a right hand sidepull on the drop knee sequence - you sure that's not what you'tre thinking of Serp? You don't traverse left though, just reach an edge to the left of the pinch instead of the pinch.

As I understand it there's another method where people somehow trav left and then reach back to the sidepull with the right hand. The drop knee method is off the big undercut beneath the pocket/pinch?

[Ru]

Yes.

[Tim Broughtonshaw]

<weak and rubbish at grading>
Toadall Recall 8a Soft (took 3 days. with some cojones would have been 2nd day)
Baboo 8a (harder than toadall recall for me, took more time to work)
Straightened  8a hard (definately harder than Baboo, despite the same rest!)
Tragedy surely hard 7c+ took Basia long to do also (despite her onsighting Comedy). other suitors at the same time echoed the sentiments.
New Aged Travellor 7c+/8a (well its my style of climbing but it still took me longer to do than herbie./toadall, although willing to conceed some of this could have been conditions related. And my insistance on clipping mid crux).
Subculture 8a (no arguments here but just adding to show my relative thoughts. i thought it middle of the road 8a, rather than historical comments of it being soft)
Soft Option 8a+ (serpico knows my thoughts on this but as everyone has One vote it was significantly harder than zero option, zero option start to the rest in the groove being about 6c+ and softoption start being something in the region of  7b+, the top of zero after the common ground in the groove being about 7a and the top of softoption being a balancy and pumpy 7bish)
</weak and rubbish at grading>


Cheers
Tim

[suggy]

Raindogs tough 7c+?

[fatdoc]

no.

[Andy F]

A personal graded list in the 7c+/8a/8a+ region, easiest to hardest. Those in brackets are ones I've been on but not yet done:
7c+
Mescalito
The Ashes
Mr Nice
Herbie
L'obsession
Tragedy
Man with a Gun
The Maximum
NAT
8a
Main Overhang
Baboo
Todal Recall
Le Lapin
Subculture
Straightened
Raindogs
(Scavenger)
Connect4
Cold Steal
(Zoolook)
8a+
(GBH)
(Soft Option)
Conehead
GA
Overnite

[fatdoc]

i've not em all... but nearly...
 

[TobyD]

A personal graded list in the 7c+/8a/8a+ region, easiest to hardest. Those in brackets are ones I've been on but not yet done:

good list Andy, although to some extent grading is always going to be (as you say) extremely subjective; i thought cold steal was quite easy for 8a and did it in a couple of sessions, but had to have christ knows how many goes at raindogs: i think this just illustrates the gaping holes in my climbing ability though. Generally i'd go with your list.

[Doctor Lokov]

Comedy must stay at 7c for personal reasons. Pantomime harder move IMO but less sustained.
Andy F can suck my balls

[Andy F]

Andy F can suck my balls

I'd rather not   

[Bonjoy]

My vote is for GBH to stay at 8a+ and Zoolook to stay at 8a. Can’t fathom why folk find Zoolook harder.
Main Overhang seemed 8a to me, certainly harder than Toadall Recall Although saying that one of the key holds on MA was loose when I tried it a few year back so it might be quite different now.
Comedy is fair at 7c.
Wouldn’t argue with an upgrade on 50 for 5.
Soft Option 8a+. I don’t understand Serpico’s comment about it possibly being 8a/7c+, is he getting mixed up with that Soft/Zero Option link up??
More Rhubarb Faster seems desperate at the grade, pretty sure it has lost holds.
I forget the name but that new one that extends WYSIWYG is 7c+ rather than 8a IMO.
Haven’t been on it but most folk seem to think Mandela is 8a+ rather than 8b.
The Bulge seemed more 7c+ than 8a to me.

Generally I think routes should be graded for the standard line rather than cheating variations. Don’t see why my ticks should be downgraded just because other people are too weak/lazy to climb things properly.

[Serpico]

My vote is for GBH to stay at 8a+ and Zoolook to stay at 8a. Can’t fathom why folk find Zoolook harder.

I think that all started with that Ste Mac article where he said it was 'nearly 8a+', people leapt on that on said 'well if Ste Mac thinks it's 8a+ then it must be', which isn't actually what he said.

Soft Option 8a+. I don’t understand Serpico’s comment about it possibly being 8a/7c+, is he getting mixed up with that Soft/Zero Option link up??

The 7c+ quote was referring to Steve (Rog) Roberts who thought it was 7c+, I put it in for perspective, like Jens said in one of his few sensible moments; for a route to be 8a there will be some who think it's 8a+ and some who find it 7c+. I think it's 8a, very similar in style and difficulty to Zoolook.

More Rhubarb Faster seems desperate at the grade, pretty sure it has lost holds.

It was desperate at the grade anyway and then it lost holds - 7c+.

I forget the name but that new one that extends WYSIWYG is 7c+ rather than 8a IMO.

Dead Calm, more commonly known as 'Dead Easy'. The FA's thought it was 7c+, and I've seen a couple of people do it and be adamant at the crag that it's 7c+ only to go home and claim 8a on their 8a.nu card. There's a few too many people skipping 7c+ and going straight to 8a on this one.

Generally I think routes should be graded for the standard line rather than cheating variations. Don’t see why my ticks should be downgraded just because other people are too weak/lazy to climb things properly.

If you want the grade - do the climbing.

[priscilla wimbush]

My vote is for GBH to stay at 8a+ and Zoolook to stay at 8a. Can’t fathom why folk find Zoolook harder.

I think that all started with that Ste Mac article where he said it was 'nearly 8a+', people leapt on that on said 'well if Ste Mac thinks it's 8a+ then it must be', which isn't actually what he said.

Or Garth Miller having to redpoint it and saying "Fucking hard! Is this for real!"
Or Adam Ondra "Hard one of the best and hardest 8a's"

I think it raises an interesting issue - how are sport routes graded (for a redpoint or onsight) and where the grade threshold is for the change from one system to the other? I suspect Zoolook is on that boundary, which explains why the redpointers find it 8a and the onsighters 8a+.
You guys can chunter on but until you answer the question of how these things should be graded they'll never be true subjective consensus.

[Bonjoy]

Unlike trad routes where I think it makes sense to grade for the onsight, I think sport routes, especially in the UK (where many routes are at the far end of the hard to read spectrum), ought to be (and are) graded for the redpoint. Otherwise you could logically upgrade many of our 7b+/c routes to 8a because they are so hard to read that a climber of a given level is as likely to onsight them as they are to onsight a very readable (i.e. foreign) 8a.

[Bonjoy]

Just to be clear I’m not suggesting foreign mid/hard sport routes are as a rule easy to read or onsight, I’m just saying there are some routes like this abroad and very few here. There are heaps of routes on euro sport crags which are just as hard to read as typical UK routes. Obviously you don’t hear about them so much because they’re not generally as popular with UK holidaymakers on the lookout for good onsightable objectives. Just felt I should point this out as I don’t want to propagate the already widely help myth that everything in eurosportland is a pushover compared to here.

[Serpico]

Or Garth Miller having to redpoint it and saying "Fucking hard! Is this for real!"
Or Adam Ondra "Hard one of the best and hardest 8a's"

Being 'one of the hardest' or even 'the hardest' 8a is not the same as being 8a+. People seem to have forgotten that there are degrees of difficulty within a grade; bottom, benchmark and top end of the grade. Also people have different experiences on different routes, unfortunately it seems that now they're less likely to accept inconsistencies in their own abilities and would rather see the routes upgraded instead: 'it can't be only 8a because it took me way longer than route x...'.
There is no defined line between grades, there will always be routes that sit on that line (Zoolook isn't one of them), and that line will often shift from decade to decade as fashions change - these days we're all much stronger but not nearly as fit the guys 15yrs ago, with the current fashion for 'Macia' style training I think it could shift again.
People forget that these grades were thrashed out 20+yrs ago - they got a lot of quick repeats by locals, then the French came over and flashed everything, then Peakies came accross and tried to downgrade everything before going back to Peakshire and putting up 7c+'s called 'Yorkshire 8b'.
Surely we should be leaving these routes as benchmarks to judge future grades by.
I'll leave the last word to Ondra seeing as he's already been quoted:
"stiff, but not as hard as Boux (grades)".

[Probes]

Wo wo. Is the French grading system not for indicating the level of difficulty, all encompasing physical nature, to get from bottom to top clipping enroute, got nothing to do with how shite/good you are at reading the rock/route.

[Bonjoy]

Wo wo. Is the French grading system not for indicating the level of difficulty, all encompasing physical nature, to get from bottom to top clipping enroute, got nothing to do with how shite/good you are at reading the rock/route.

Yes, that was my point.

[priscilla wimbush]

Good points Bonjoy.
Would it not represent a more level playing field to use onsight for a grading system though?
After all, redpoint success can come after a quick work, a day or two trying or a prolonged seige so there's no standard bar 'success' to go by. I'm sure everyone has had that feeling on a hard yet well practised redpoint of the route feeling 'easy'. Repeat ascents can make it feel even 'easier'.

Did you redpoint Zoolook then Serpico? I assume that is your grade reference. My point was that it should probably be 8a for a RP, but the onsighters would argue 8a+, a different kettle of fish entirely. I was just asking how these things should be graded because it obviously makes a huge difference to the grade on certain routes. Maybe we need a poll which Adam and rockfax can use to adjust the present muddy numbers.