[Will Hunt]

We've all seen where reasoned opinions on grades gets you though. Accusations of willy-waving, false modesty etc etc. And if you look at this stuff on UKC grade votes and the like you'll soon see that people don't really like to call out a status quo grade. The furthest they'll go is saying "soft" or voting "low in the grade". Let's not get into the weeds on that - it's been done to death.

I have to try and get this at least a little bit right because I'm editing a guidebook. The approach we're taking is to take climbs that are commonly being done in a highball fashion and to ascribe them a grade like this:

Psycho   f6B+ (E5 6b)  ***

I like this because it acts as a sliding scale. The variable you can't account for is how much foam will be at the crag, which will make a big difference to how something feels. You can see that if it was all taking place at ground level you'd be climbing a 6B+, but if you were to take the mats away you'd be left with an E5 6b. The truth for the highballer lies somewhere in the middle, depending on how many mates you bring to the crag with you. Someone who does it on their own with two mats is pretty close to E5 6b, someone with 8 pads stacked 2 deep is closer to 6B+, but can never get away from E5 completely because it'll still feel a bit necky. Furthermore, the trad grade is likely to give you a clue as to where the hard climbing will be found when seen in the wider context of other highballs.

Having this information is really useful and opens these climbs up to a broader audience by making it clear how hard the actual climbing is and advertising the fact that it's been done in highball fashion. To my knowledge, Strangeness hasn't been highballed yet it's got a perfect landing and isn't unfeasibly high. Maybe it could be described as Font 7A (E7 6c)?

The CC have started to introduce a similar system for trad routes in Pembroke of E5 and above. They give the trad grade and, in brackets, a sport grade. Although I'm not hitting those numbers I can see that being massively useful when planning a day's climbing.

[Fiend]

 

That's exactly the way the BMC Peak Grit guides have been doing it for 13 years or so, and I think it works great for giving the relevant information (and in that case then no, the pure bouldering grade should not take into account height). Obviously the pure trad grade will be of little relevance to anyone apart from a few idiots like DT and myself who still use beer towels, but when combined with the bloque grade it describes the highballness very well.

[tim palmer]

As an aside 6b+ for psycho?  Really?  I know I am not a master technician but I thìnk it is closer to 7a than 6b+

[webbo]

Also if Psycho is 6B+ would that not make it E5 6a.

[Fiend]

Never underestimate the ability of overly tall people to randomly downgrade stuff....

[Will Hunt]

Oh dear, Tim. Beast on the board, technical toddler on the slab. It's not quite a true friction slab because the hand and footholds are too good and it's too steep, but it's not far off. Compare to lowball things of the same ilk. Spring Slab comes to mind, which used to get 6C, now 7A. And you have to remember that Ben Finley has failed to climb Spring Slab on two separate occasions but did Psycho first go with a hole in the toe of his shoe. Dave Warbs reckons 6B. I think it feels significantly harder if you don't get the foot sequence right. I remember having to use a more marginal foothold low down in order to not wrong-foot myself higher up.

[Fiend]

Ron Faws reckoned E5 6b. I might trust that.

[tim palmer]

I have seen some extremely competent climbers not flash it and I have seen one of the very best climbers I know almost fall off it

[36chambers]

Spring Slab comes to mind, which used to get 6C, now 7A. And you have to remember that Ben Finley has failed to climb Spring Slab on two separate occasions but did Psycho first go with a hole in the toe of his shoe.

Morpho 2 move slabs are probably not the best comparisons for highballs.

[Will Hunt]

NSFW  Off Topic:

Totally off topic now, but to justify it further, Psycho is close in difficulty to this and is similar in style, albeit taller. This is not as steep but doesn't really have any handholds at all and quite thin smearing. I'd give them both 6B+. Paul gave it 6A+ for the FA
https://www.ukclimbing.com/photos/dbpage.php?id=319905

Psycho is, on the other hand, worlds less difficult than Trust or any 7A slab climb that I can think of.

It's 27 should, 24 should not now. So 47/53%. I think that's interesting, but as one of the 47% I can safely say that the 53% are wrong wrong wrong! 

The most important thing is that there is clearly a lot of confusion around how the Font grading system works for highballs. So a consistent approach and clear explanation is needed wherever a highball grading system is used.

[T_B]

That's exactly the way the BMC Peak Grit guides have been doing it for 13 years or so, and I think it works great for giving the relevant information (and in that case then no, the pure bouldering grade should not take into account height). Obviously the pure trad grade will be of little relevance to anyone apart from a few idiots like DT and myself who still use beer towels, but when combined with the bloque grade it describes the highballness very well.

Yes, it works well in the Peak guidebooks.

I do think you've got to be careful about understating some of these routes. It almost feels as though there's an assumption thesedays that everyone is at the crag with a team and 20 pads. I've done a lot of classic E5/6s like Psycho in relatively recent years on my own with maybe one or two pads and I'm in trad E grade headspace, not bouldering headspace. I don't like the fact that UKC has gone down the route of now classing some solos as highballs and giving them just the Font grade. Specifically the lines on the block at Black Rocks. Velvet Silence on sight on your own even with two or three pads is not fuckin 7a+!

[Will Hunt]

 

A rough rule of thumb that can be used is if you couldn't really climb it as a boulder problem on your own with 2 mats (due to height as opposed to a crap landing) then the boulder grade needs to be accompanied by a trad grade.

Case in point, the Detached Block at Callerhues was drafted in our guide as bouldering grades only. It's a long way to walk on your own to find that there's a bit more to them than "Font 5" 
We've put the trad grades alongside the bouldering grades now.

[shurt]

The approach we're taking is to take climbs that are commonly being done in a highball fashion and to ascribe them a grade like this:

Psycho   f6B+ (E5 6b)  ***

Out of interest, what's the logic behind hillbilly grade first? I think the way they do it in the Peak guides makes sense having the highball grade listed at the bottom of the description. I guess it would be different if it was highball first

[Will Hunt]

I'd much rather have the font grade included on the same line as the name, stars etc because a) it's more obvious to the user that something is a modern highball and b) it's more efficient in terms of space.

As to which grade comes first and which is in brackets, I don't think it makes a big difference. Having the bouldering grade first makes it clear that unless you did it padless you shouldn't be going around spraying that you "did an E5" without a caveat (not that that's a very important consideration!). Consistency with the current definitive YG guide is also a factor.

NSFW  Off topic Psycho babble again:

Last thing I promise. Further justification is that Psycho is that it's very similar in style to Verge of Tranquility at Rylstone, except Verge of Tranquility is harder in almost every respect (climbing, slightly slopey landing, bit more sustained at the top compared to the last move or two of Psycho which are a path etc etc. The only thing Psycho has on it is raw height. VoT gets 6C+, though in hindsight that grade might have been inflated from 6C.

[Fiend]

TL,DR: Will finds Psycho unduly easy and is determined to ruin the guidebook for everyone on that basis 

[tim palmer]

Or maybe he doesn't want Ben finley to have the glory of a font 7a flash. 

[Will Hunt]

Or both?

[webbo]

So we have Psycho at 6B+ therefore Adrenaline Rush would be 6B, Marylebone Jelly at 6C and Charm at 7A working on Will’s logic.
At those grades it would appear the hardest thing for the mid grade boulderer would be carrying the pads to the crag.

[Will Hunt]

That shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody, Steve. They're old solos and in the past 15 years or so we've gone from beer towels to everyone carrying around at least 10 Ocun Dominators. These routes were always at the easy end of the grade because they were bold.
Slip n' Slide gets french 6b+ on the Grit List, belying a Font grade in the low 6s - when was the last time anyone on here fell off a 6b+? Still, you don't see people queueing for it, do you?
They still are a bit bold, but nowhere near as bold as they were if approached above pad mountains. Even the safe but cruxy E5s on grit have got cruxes that are sub Font 7 (i.e. Flame Arete, Strapadictomy).

[kingholmesy]

A few random thoughts:

Font grades should be for physical difficulty alone, not for scariness.

They should however take into account the length of the problem and how sustained it is (which might be a factor on highballs), rather than just the hardest individual move / short sequence (in contrast to the English tech grade).

I think Font grades assume you’re gonna climb a problem ground-up. If you work the top of a highball on a rope it will feel easier, but I don’t think this means the Font grade should be deflated.

All of that said, when stuff is high and scary people will probably err on the side of giving something a marginally harder grade.  That’s OK with me if it’s just a case of being careful not to sandbag people into trying stuff that they might hurt themselves on, but the Font grade shouldn’t be deliberately increased to reflect danger in the way E grades are.

Finally, please tell me that Great Flake is at least 7A or a bit harder (7A+ maybe).

I tried it ground-up a couple of months ago and fell / jumped from the crux quite a lot before conceding defeat - and I can boulder 7A.  Maybe I could have done it if I worked it on a rope, but this would have reduced the challenge.

[cheque]

hillbilly grade

Marylebone Jelly

Autocorrect doing some great work in this thread. 

[BID]

KingHolmsey is correct.

[webbo]

That shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody, Steve. They're old solos and in the past 15 years or so we've gone from beer towels to everyone carrying around at least 10 Ocun Dominators. These routes were always at the easy end of the grade because they were bold.
Slip n' Slide gets french 6b+ on the Grit List, belying a Font grade in the low 6s - when was the last time anyone on here fell off a 6b+? Still, you don't see people queueing for it, do you?
They still are a bit bold, but nowhere near as bold as they were if approached above pad mountains. Even the safe but cruxy E5s on grit have got cruxes that are sub Font 7 (i.e. Flame Arete, Strapadictomy).

Maybe we should go back to old school grading for these routes. I.e. if it’s shortish and survivable to fall off. It’s HVS and the tech grade tells you the difficulty. This is why stuff like the Knock, Opus, Sour Grapes and Rotifer were HVS, if they are getting abit high and hard. Then mild extreme should cover it.

[grimer]

I think the Font grade of a lot of harder grit routes is relatively low. I've not done Marrowbone, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were 6C. 6C is hard! What would End of the Affair get if there was flat ground below the crux? 6B+?

The other thing is to imagine some 'easy' boulder problems if they wee at 6m. The photograph, E7 6c. Hourglass, E6 6b. Pebble Arete is 6 feet away from being E5 6a. Strawberries, E8 6c. Fuck, imagine doing Strawberries and if you fell off you'd break your pelvis.

[Duncan campbell]

Haha always do this stuff on those sandbag “easy” problems!

“Oh god imagine doing that 2m above a couple of cams”