[Fiend]

If anyone thinks they've done an impressive solo post up and let the jury decide. DWS wouldn't count either.

I'd count DWS, I've found it waaaay scarier and more committing than trad 

Soloing without pads, definitely trad, people should feel free to post unimpressive solos too, if it's the hardest thing they've done sans pads (/bolts). I don't view The File as unimpressive just because it sounds like a rather cool and inspired thing to solo.

Hmmmm, hardest solo for me this year. Poetry In Motion maybe...

[Will Hunt]

Thanks for telling me of how your version of a this forum which I have chosen to join and participate in works by common consensus.

You are more than welcome.

[Fiend]

I've voted, but could someone with great IT nous than me please create a single survey in which people can vote for hardest trad onsight, hardest sport onsight, hardest sport RP and hardest boulder sent?

If it involves another survey, then I volunteer tomtom for the task.

[tomtom]

Ropes.? Eugh. Shudder.

[Wood FT]

As far as I'm concerned trad involves placing gear. Narcissus with all your mates' pads doesn't get you E6.

But God damn what fun it was

[TobyD]

by far the hardest was the alleged softest, Warpath.

I found this pretty hard when i tried it, granted ive not been on many E5's but it didnt seem like the total softy everyone says it is!

I would contend that it is extremely soft for E5 for the majority of modern E5 climbers. If you have a bit of sport fitness, you won't get pumped on it, the gear is good and the moves aren't very hard. Magellan's Wall which used to be E4 is much harder, and E5s of roughly comparable angle in the same region like Energy Crisis, Hunger, Citadel... are also much harder. If you get pumped easily on this sort of terrain on the other hand I'd accept it probably feels really hard, whether that's nerves or lack of fitness.

[Johnny Brown]

Horses for courses innit. Give me a hard move over getting pumped every time. E.g. Citadel, the first pitch easier than I expected because there are rests and only one hardish move, but the second pitch harder than I expected because it was relentless.

Poetry in motion is definitely highballing for me, even without pads. Maybe we need a hardest onsight solo of 2016 thread, do some proper dick waving.

[dave]

Results seems to be showing a bit of a glass ceiling at E5, same as last year. Is this because trad gets a lot hard/neckier after E5, or is it cos folk mentally associate E6 and above with headpointing? Or is it that to progress past E5 you've got to invest a lot more time into trad? Discuss.

[Stu Littlefair]

For me it has always been because E6 is such a variable grade. Some E6's are proper meaty undertakings and I need to be fully geared up to even consider an E6 onsight.

There's the odd exception where the route is a known soft touch or definitely well protected, but E6 has always been code for "here be dragons". Whilst I'm sure there's an element of psychology to this, I'm sure there's some solid truth behind it as well. This is based both on evidence like this poll, and the fact that even the proper trad beasts feel the same way.

 

[shurt]

Results seems to be showing a bit of a glass ceiling at E5, same as last year. Is this because trad gets a lot hard/neckier after E5, or is it cos folk mentally associate E6 and above with headpointing? Or is it that to progress past E5 you've got to invest a lot more time into trad? Discuss.

For me,  E5 feels within reach (certainly the ones I've done have been the peak of a good run of form).  I think E6 just feels on another level altogether which is  weird as when I went from E2 to E3 or E3 to E4 it didn't feel like that. 


I tended to do necky routes to go up a grade to get confidence to try more at the grade,  that doesn't feel like an option on an E6...

[shurt]

Invalid

Since this has sufficiently bothered you to punter me, I will explain. Under The Awning goes up a couple of easy moves to a steepening. You grab a hollow flake in the roof and pull on it until you can reach right through to a green and scrittly sloper rail on the lip. While you're reaching through you're completely committed to this weak flake and you're pulling on it quite hard. You match the sloping rail and then slap the top of the boulder.

All of this takes place a reasonable distance above a horrible boulder, that you would hit and clatter down if you were unfortunate enough to fall off. The climbing is not hard - only English 6a - but I have done enough climbing to know what the difference is between an old skool E3 that in the modern style gets a font grade, and an old skool E3 that is still E3. This was the latter.

It's not even a hard grade. Not worth getting put-out over 

You've just described a high ball

OK, whatever. I disagree with you, but notice that I'm not going to punter you. The punter button is normally used when somebody properly offends/abuses somebody or behaves badly, rather than simply holds a different opinion to you. I've accrued my fair share of punter points but its normally in happy banter from people I know or when I actually deserve it.

Thanks for telling me of how your version of a forum works. I care neither way of you punter me. However with you're own logic there are plenty of people who you seem to offend/abuse

You two should go on a date

[Johnny Brown]

For me it has always been because E6 is such a variable grade. Some E6's are proper meaty undertakings and I need to be fully geared up to even consider an E6 onsight.

There's the odd exception where the route is a known soft touch or definitely well protected, but E6 has always been code for "here be dragons". Whilst I'm sure there's an element of psychology to this, I'm sure there's some solid truth behind it as well. This is based both on evidence like this poll, and the fact that even the proper trad beasts feel the same way.

I think it's 99% psychology. The broadest grade is always the one around your (onsight) limit - because it spans the only two real grades. Same with tech 6c. Having minced around them for years I've managed to get over myself a bit the last few years (despite going backwards physically). Grades are pretty arbitrary and what matters is the compatibility between the style and your form. Maybe it helps hanging around with Caff who only climbs them to warm up, "Eeeeh I'll have to do another, my arms never even got going on that one."

[Will Hunt]

For me it has always been because E6 is such a variable grade. Some E6's are proper meaty undertakings and I need to be fully geared up to even consider an E6 onsight.

There's the odd exception where the route is a known soft touch or definitely well protected, but E6 has always been code for "here be dragons". Whilst I'm sure there's an element of psychology to this, I'm sure there's some solid truth behind it as well. This is based both on evidence like this poll, and the fact that even the proper trad beasts feel the same way.

I think it's 99% psychology. The broadest grade is always the one around your (onsight) limit - because it spans the only two real grades. Same with tech 6c. Having minced around them for years I've managed to get over myself a bit the last few years (despite going backwards physically). Grades are pretty arbitrary and what matters is the compatibility between the style and your form. Maybe it helps hanging around with Caff who only climbs them to warm up, "Eeeeh I'll have to do another, my arms never even got going on that one."

 
It's based on personal ability. I've variously thought the same about E2s, E3s, and now E4s at various points. Still couldn't do a steep and pumpy E3, mind!

[csl]

by far the hardest was the alleged softest, Warpath.

I found this pretty hard when i tried it, granted ive not been on many E5's but it didnt seem like the total softy everyone says it is!

I would contend that it is extremely soft for E5 for the majority of modern E5 climbers. If you have a bit of sport fitness, you won't get pumped on it, the gear is good and the moves aren't very hard. Magellan's Wall which used to be E4 is much harder, and E5s of roughly comparable angle in the same region like Energy Crisis, Hunger, Citadel... are also much harder. If you get pumped easily on this sort of terrain on the other hand I'd accept it probably feels really hard, whether that's nerves or lack of fitness.

Yep, when i think about it, i did try it after a total layoff, and didn't really warm up before getting on it. So probably a case of the horrendous flash pump blinding me to how difficult it was!

[Stu Littlefair]

I think it's 99% psychology. The broadest grade is always the one around your (onsight) limit...

I don't agree; just look at the results of this poll and the last one. If it's only a psychological effect then it's a mass delusion which affects people with a wide range of trad climbing abilities.

To elaborate - E5 onsights are common, E6 as rare as rocking horse shit. Where's the bell curve?I believe there are only two explanations consistent with the data:

1) E6 onsights genuinely are a gnarly step up.

2) The UK community has come to the deluded opinion that E6 is a gnarly step up for spurious reasons.

I find option 2 unlikely, but even if it is true we might still guess what the spurious reason is. My suggestion above is that there are some really horrific E6s out there, and you don't know when you set off which type you're getting. Whether true or not, it would explain the effect in both scenarios.

[duncan]

E5 was the hardest grade when the system was developed and it took time for E6 to be accepted. Consequently E5 has a wider range of difficulty than lower E-grades. In the USA, 5.9 is similarly broad. It’s 40 and 60 years respectively since these were top of their ranges but grading systems are resistant to wholesale recalibration.

Some numbers: Safe E5s can be F6c like Positron or Supersonic. They can also be F7b: Lost Illusions, Avon; Still Waters Run Deep or Ripe Old Age, Cheddar, both now fully bolted (and Mescalito, an E5 now 7c); Cockblock possibly, not tried it. I don’t think E1 or E3 has such a wide range of physical difficulty within essentially safe routes, it's usually two proper grades per E grade.

I’m with Stu, not that I quite got there, but E6 seems really gnarly because E5 is relatively wide.

A secondary effect is that E5 is 'the' grade in trad., possibly even more than 8a in sport, so people (OK, me) make a particular effort to tick it. A number of well-known soft-touch E5s like Right Wall are essentially overgrown E3s. Everyone knows this, of course they are going to try them over some nails E4 like Bitterfingers. The data support this: considerably more people have E5 as their best grade than E4.

[Johnny Brown]

To elaborate - E5 onsights are common, E6 as rare as rocking horse shit. Where's the bell curve?I believe there are only two explanations consistent with the data:

1) E6 onsights genuinely are a gnarly step up.

2) The UK community has come to the deluded opinion that E6 is a gnarly step up for spurious reasons.

It's 2. It's not going to be a simple bell curve because there are so many feedback loops based on the popularity of routes. More ascents means more info, more beta, more 'x has done it and he's shit', plus potentially a more accurate grade. We talk about onsighting but the nearer your limit you are the more desperate for information you get and the more crucial it is. As you get towards the limit of the masses ability the info and it's reliability drops off a cliff, and so do the ascents.

PS I'm very wary applying 'statistics' to grades because I think you'd need to do statistics first to set/ verify the grades. The less ascents, the lower the certainty it is correct.

[jwi]

I cannot add anything useful about the adjectival grade system, but it is certainly true that in old climbing areas in Scandinavia the 6+ (formerly the highest possible grade) is much wider than the 7– or 7 grade. The same holds true to some extent for old routes in the Pyrenees where 6b and 6c pretty much encompasses all hard climbing.

In US 5.9 is clearly a wider grade than 5.10a, b etc. At least for trad climbing. It was noticeable to me even though its pretty far from my max (if I'm allowed to say that...)

[Johnny Brown]

It's not a wider grade than 5.10 though is it?

I think there was some truth in the UK in the nineties but it has mostly been ironed out now. 6c has never seemed broader than 6b to me despite the epic UKB threads of the past. But then I've always accepted 7a exists, whereas Stu is still scouring the cosmos for it.

[Duncan campbell]

Interesting chat about the E6 ceiling...

A lot of my friends are flipping good at climbing (all are better than I) and there are some who have boshed sport routes in the region of 8b and aren't shy of onsighting 7c-8a yet they haven't onsighted E6 yet which  in some ways surprises me.

Yet I have other friends who have only just climbed their first 8as who may have onsighted the odd 7c and who have done a fairly large amount of E6s!

In all honesty I think it in part comes down to the climber's themselves individual skills and maybe being a bit more interested in certain styles but I remember talking to one 8th grade cruising friend( who had just onsighted cry of despair at the cornice and done a lap on it at the end if the day) about him wanting to try and onsight an E6 and I said "surely you'd piss something like Lord?!?" He said he thought it was a very different proposition (and he has done loads of E5s). I guess its a personal thing.

In addition to this, as Duncan said above (Great names think alike!) E5 is a whopper of a grade with the hard ones being really hard so maybe some people try those, get spanked by them and so the thought of trying even a soft E6 seems ridiculous??

I'd like to think that I'll be able to luck my way up a few soft touch E6s (its a LTG) at some point in the future but unlike E5s, of which there are loads and loads all over the country that I'd like to do, there are a fairly limited number of E6s I feel like I have a chance of doing. I'm basically looking for the slightly necky ones so the climbing is easy enough to be onsightable but that arent full death or fully nails (the soft ones, yes).

Here is a quick vague list off the top of my head:
Theres a decent amount in North Wales (10ish)
pembroke (similar? Dont know pembroke so well in this grade),
a couple in the Lakes (sixpence?)
Peak lime one or maybe two? (Reproduction + Bastille?)
Maybe one of the E6s at Blue Scar for Yorks Lime
General grit: maybe a few but i tend to only boulder on grit so doesn't count
North Devon - Guernica ( in pants) a couple on lundy maybe?
Swanage: 0?
Ireland: a few at Fairhead and maybe a couple at the burren?
Scotland: Defo some on Pabbay/mingulay and maybe some elsewhere?

This might actually seem like quite a few but if you compared it to an equivalent list of E5s I have my beedy little eyes on it would seem pretty minimal. Plus add into the mix most folk have to work, the weather in the UK can be a bit gash, you've got feel psyched/ready the day you arrive at the crag with your chosen E6 dry/not dirty. for me i think I'll have to sport climb a fair bit to get to this level also... 

I think maybe if you are bold as fuck and/or strong/good as fuck then there are way more as basically you can push deeper into the grade. I am definitely going to be lucky to pick off low hanging fruit at this grade. feels like maybe more people should be doing this grade but maybe thats the beauty of the grade its a finer sieve than E5 for sorting wheat from chaff?

[Johnny Brown]

maybe being a bit more interested in certain styles

Well that's the start and the end of it. Anyone who can onsight Cry of despair but not Lord clearly isn't interested in doing so. Similarly, my sport credentials are pathetic, I doubt I will ever do Cry of despair and believe me I've tried. Hard trad generally is well out of fashion.

You trying to draw up a list of doable ones and worrying about their condition is exactly the feedback loops I was talking about above. Our team did loads on Lundy, but still mostly followed each other around. We're all scared of the unknown.

[Duncan campbell]

But your team on Lundy did consist of some of the most talented climbers in the UK - and as it was Caff's stag all had a pretty strong grounding in trad/boldness you weren't just there with a bunch of chummers!

Regarding the feedback loops you are pretty bang on the money - there is no way I'm risking getting onto a full-on top of the grade E6 where the climbing is chunky and the gear poor! (maybe they are rarer than I think?)

I think that is slightly unfair - different people like different margins/ have different skills. I know this person would piss Lord but maybe he has let the aura get to him? who knows.

When you say hard trad is out of fashion do you think previously there were more people onsighting E6/7? (genuinely interested not trying to disprove this statement)

[Johnny Brown]

you weren't just there with a bunch of chummers

Yeah, but that was my point. Despite the team's strength folk were still pretty reticent about jumping onto unknown terrain at E6 and above. It's not just intimidation, there's also a reluctance to waste time and effort. BUT none of the routes I/we did sprung any surprises - it was like E5, just more sustained, or a sterner crux (or as Caff described The Dog's bollocks 'like E4'). No sudden step-up into Gnarlsville. In fact I'm struggling to think of an E6 that was. But without that assurance most folk wouldn't touch them.

maybe he has let the aura get to him

Well if he's that good he either doesn't know how easy Lord would be or he doesn't have any confidence in his trad game. Either way it doesn't sound like a man much interested in trad beyond 'yeah lord would be a good tick'.

hard trad is out of fashion do you think previously there were more people onsighting E6/7

No, I think it is fairly static, maybe a slight increase as routes become better known. Whereas the stats for folk climbing 8b+ in the UK have gone through the roof in the last ten years. But most of those are not trad climbing at all.

In the eighties virtually everyone trad climbed, even the best. That just isn't true any more. If you look at UKC logs for Peak lime E5/6s for example, most of the ticks are post 2005 or pre-1992. Clearly those routes were getting done loads back then and the knowledge was spread around. Now they are unknown quantities.

[Duncan campbell]

alright alright alright. I think I agree on all points (and just realised that I had proven your point with my first comment on the team's calibre. D'oh!

I guess if you think logically about it most E6s around aren't going to be secretly masquerading as full on desperate death routes as there are few on this planet who just stroll up that sort of thing declaring it piss. though depends on whether the route was headpointed as a FA i guess?

Maybe a major part of the feedback loop being important is the propensity for people to chuck pegs in Back In The Day. Fast forward and loads of those pegs are rotten, if it was the only bit of kit for a while on the route and its now fucked and blocking a good cam/wire then thats not fun. I think its a fair assumption that often on harder routes there is less gear.

I guess Souls in Pembroke is a good example of this; BITD it had some pretty good fixed kit, now the fixed kit is knackered and blocks the placement. Ive heard of two very good climbers being sandbagged onto this by Caff and having a mare... (the story goes Caff walks up it "just to get them to the top" once they get back to the floor) Ive also seen another good climber do it though he had beta from a naughty headpointer. hence despite Souls being a route I'd like to do (its on/in one of my favourite crags) its not really on my list.

I like a bit of spice but I don't want to be at my limit with just a total unknown but scarily rusty bit of crap stopping me from tooling myself. whereas BITD they'd have clipped this beaut of a new peg and quested merrily on in their colourful tights.

You are defo right about Peak Lime E5s - loads I'd like to do but don't know much about a lot of them (and they are usually harder than their Welsh counterparts) so definitely exciting getting on them!


so in conclusion can all you E6 crushers, without giving away too much beta so we still get the onsight, let us know which E6s aren't "too bad". Fanks

[Mumra]

Invalid

Since this has sufficiently bothered you to punter me, I will explain. Under The Awning goes up a couple of easy moves to a steepening. You grab a hollow flake in the roof and pull on it until you can reach right through to a green and scrittly sloper rail on the lip. While you're reaching through you're completely committed to this weak flake and you're pulling on it quite hard. You match the sloping rail and then slap the top of the boulder.

All of this takes place a reasonable distance above a horrible boulder, that you would hit and clatter down if you were unfortunate enough to fall off. The climbing is not hard - only English 6a - but I have done enough climbing to know what the difference is between an old skool E3 that in the modern style gets a font grade, and an old skool E3 that is still E3. This was the latter.

It's not even a hard grade. Not worth getting put-out over 

You've just described a high ball

OK, whatever. I disagree with you, but notice that I'm not going to punter you. The punter button is normally used when somebody properly offends/abuses somebody or behaves badly, rather than simply holds a different opinion to you. I've accrued my fair share of punter points but its normally in happy banter from people I know or when I actually deserve it.

Thanks for telling me of how your version of a forum works. I care neither way of you punter me. However with you're own logic there are plenty of people who you seem to offend/abuse

You two should go on a date

I prefer men not boys