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Is it a highball or a micro-route? (Read 4206 times)

guypercival

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Is it a highball or a micro-route?
June 24, 2019, 09:05:15 pm
I thought I would call on the considerable wisdom of you all for advice on grading.
I have been developing a little area and hoping to produce a small guide. There are a mixture of quarries, some where bolting is allowed and others where it isn’t. Sport routes have been done in the areas where bolts are permitted.
In the unbolted areas the walls are generally not that high. Maybe up to 8 metres some bits are a little higher. There isn’t gear on a lot of the lines and most of them have been cleaned, practiced and soloed. There isn’t anything really hard and most of the lines are as easy as severe and go up to about E4.
The really short lines have been given font grades. Where they get a bit higher it feels that the good old trad grade is more helpful than a font grade as you get a bit more information.
If you put in a trad grade for a micro-route do you assume the grade for the notional matless ascent? I think most people who go and solo higher things generally have a pad.
Is there a case for a font grade as well? Or is that too confusing?
Any thoughts welcome.


andy popp

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#1 Re: Is it a highball or a micro-route?
June 24, 2019, 09:25:14 pm
Hey Guy, long time no see! This sounds like some of the higher bits of Harmers Wood in Cheshire, where Font grades are used. Most things are lower and definitely bouldering and so it feels like a bouldering venue; hence bouldering grades across the board feels more appropriate than trad grades or a mix. Most people going to a venue like this will have a mat/mats with them.

Fiend

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#2 Re: Is it a highball or a micro-route?
June 25, 2019, 11:08:08 am
Put both grades on.

duncan

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#3 Re: Is it a highball or a micro-route?
June 25, 2019, 11:30:47 am
Bouldering grades for all, as it sounds like most people will be climbing with a bouldering mentality.

You could add trad. grades in brackets to the highballs or a comment in the text eg “With your hands on the final holds this may feel more like E4”.

James Malloch

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#4 Re: Is it a highball or a micro-route?
June 25, 2019, 11:43:54 am
Bouldering grades for all, as it sounds like most people will be climbing with a bouldering mentality.


I think that's fine as long as the height is fairly clear. I hate going somewhere thinking there's loads of easy stuff, only to find it's bloody massive!

Wood FT

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#5 Re: Is it a highball or a micro-route?
June 25, 2019, 02:29:50 pm
Font grade with the appropriate ‘!,!!,!!!’ highball rating makes the most sense to me.

Ged

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#6 Re: Is it a highball or a micro-route?
June 25, 2019, 02:39:09 pm
 Agree with guy. Font grade with some suggestion that you'll want loads of pads and spotters. Or bravery. There's some new stuff down torbay way that's being graded like that. Works well. You know how hard it is, and you know roughly that you're letting yourself in for something more than a boulder problem.

Will Hunt

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#7 Re: Is it a highball or a micro-route?
June 25, 2019, 03:11:26 pm
Put both grades on. Trad grade assuming no pads and the font grade in brackets telling you how hard the climbing is, with no inflation for hard moves at height. It basically works like the trad grade but in addition to a simple adjectival grade you're adding a Font grade to explain the raw difficulty.

Those things together tell you everything you need to know.

Wise words from the Warbs (who has done a few of the routes you're talking about).

Quote from: Dave Warburton
It's useful as that E5 6c could be a one move font 6c at height, or font 7b to get off the ground. I think these days you assume someone has 1 pad. One pad might not feel like it makes a difference but if much rather have one pad under psycho say that just grass. Gives you the ability to down climb and jump say but offers you less if you fall awkwardly. If you give something just font 6c that's 8m high I would assume the hard climbing is getting off the deck then romp to the top but  there are places this simply isn't the case. Firm advocate for keeping the trad grade on highballs. Hate this notion of skewing the font grade to 'harder' graded when the climbing isn't harder it's just higher. If you're skewing the font grade to fit amd suggesting ypu don't need a trad grade ypu are just reinventing the trad grade.
...
The place would be gash if it was just a wall of font 6a highballs. Tells you nowt

On that last point, I had an illuminating experience at Callerhues where we met someone who'd come to the crag expecting the Detached Wall to be a nice low thing of 6As. There's a world of difference between a 3m 6A slab and those problems. That person watched their partner climb that day. I don't think they put their shoes on. This disappointing day out at the crag was a direct result of the guidebook sticking with Font only grades on 6/7m high things.

r-man

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#8 Re: Is it a highball or a micro-route?
June 25, 2019, 05:04:13 pm
This disappointing day out at the crag was a direct result of the guidebook sticking with Font only grades on 6/7m high things.

Or the guidebook could just say "highball" or "7m" or "!" or whatever. Pretty easy.

E grades don't mean highball either - you could equally have the reverse situation where someone turns up at a crag with a rack and is disappointed they aren't "proper" routes.

Dave: The place would be gash if it was just a wall of font 6a highballs. Tells you nowt

The place is the same whatever the grade attached. I understand the sentiment though.

remus

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#9 Re: Is it a highball or a micro-route?
June 25, 2019, 06:03:54 pm
If there's not generally a lot of gear I'd guess most people are going to be turning up with a pad. My preference would be for font grade, exclamation mark and/or a note in the description.

'6A! Scary move at the top' makes it pretty obvious what you're in for if you set off on something high.

grimer

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skewing the font grade to fit amd suggesting ypu don't need a trad grade ypu are just reinventing the trad grade.

On that last point, I had an illuminating experience at Callerhues where we met someone who'd come to the crag expecting the Detached Wall to be a nice low thing of 6As. There's a world of difference between a 3m 6A slab and those problems. That person watched their partner climb that day. I don't think they put their shoes on. This disappointing day out at the crag was a direct result of the guidebook sticking with Font only grades on 6/7m high things.

Oh dear. I hope Detached Wall person wasn't using Boulder Britain!

cheque

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Both. Trad grades for the reason Will says above (I certainly had a few shocking/ disappointing crag visits as a beginner boulderer going out with one mat between two of us to try things that we didn’t realise needed a foamed-up team) but also Font grades as a warning for the fragile amongst us- I can’t even fall off onto pads nowadays so a highball designation in a trad route description is a great help in understanding that the first gear will be high or nonexistent!

cheque

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Both. Trad grades for the reason Will says above (I certainly had a few shocking/ disappointing crag visits as a beginner boulderer going out with one mat between two of us to try things that we didn’t realise needed a foamed-up team) but also Font grades as a warning for the fragile amongst us- a highball designation in a trad route description is a great help in understanding that the first gear will be high or nonexistent.

Will Hunt

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This disappointing day out at the crag was a direct result of the guidebook sticking with Font only grades on 6/7m high things.

Or the guidebook could just say "highball" or "7m" or "!" or whatever. Pretty easy.

E grades don't mean highball either - you could equally have the reverse situation where someone turns up at a crag with a rack and is disappointed they aren't "proper" routes.

The ! or "highball" or description in the text is better than nothing, however it doesn't give you as much information as a trad + Font grade could. As Warbs said, you could have two Font 6Cs side by side which are entirely different propositions because one is a crux off the ground then steady away and one has hard climbing at the top. The difference there wouldn't be conveyed with a simple !, but is immediately obvious when next to E3 6b (Font 6C) or E6 6b (Font 6C). Yes, you could state it in the text, but that means that you have to read everything to get the information you need. You and I might sit and idly browse guidebooks ("What?! You mean you haven't read the guidebook cover-to-cover and committed it to memory before arriving at the crag?!), but most people don't – in planning where to go and what sort of day they're going to have they need to just skim the grades.
Plus, this doesn't take up any additional space in a book - no additional lines required. Plus it's likely that the trad grade already exists if it's an old skool solo turned highball. It also means that odd eggs like Fiend who still like to do these things solo or on toss gear, they still know how hard it's going to be.

webbo

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A better way might be to say Font 5+ “ if you can solo E6” or Font 5+ “ if you can solo HVS”

Fiend

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Your fucking face is an odd egg, not that anyone can see it because it's buried so deep in Choadburton's greasy arse-cleft.

But your logic about grades is alarmingly sensible for someone who believes Psycho is Font 6A- or whatever it was.

teestub

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[

The ! or "highball" or description in the text is better than nothing, however it doesn't give you as much information as a trad + Font grade could. As Warbs said, you could have two Font 6Cs side by side which are entirely different propositions because one is a crux off the ground then steady away and one has hard climbing at the top. The difference there wouldn't be conveyed with a simple !, but is immediately obvious when next to E3 6b (Font 6C) or E6 6b (Font 6C).

In Bishop, Squamish etc. where they use this system I think only the latter would get the ! (or !!/!!! Dependent on height and relative difficulty) to denote hard climbing at height.

I guess this potential death of information is less of an issue if you’re in a world class venue surrounded by other options within walking distance and more of an issue if you’re deciding if it’s worth a 30 minute boggy approach to scrittle from a skim of a guidebook!

guypercival

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Andy
Not surprising given you are on a different continent! Your brother fills me in with your news when I bump into him at TCA.

Lots of helpful information. The trad grad is clearly hopeless on harder micro-routes/highballs.
Careless Torque was E6 7a originally IIRC. All that told you was that it was hard.

I think at the easier end of the spectrum the trad is helpful and obviously well understood. Given that there still a few routes where you use a rope I think the trad grade with the font grade would work on the highballs.

andy popp

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Andy
Not surprising given you are on a different continent! Your brother fills me in with your news when I bump into him at TCA.

Lots of helpful information. The trad grad is clearly hopeless on harder micro-routes/highballs.
Careless Torque was E6 7a originally IIRC. All that told you was that it was hard.

I think at the easier end of the spectrum the trad is helpful and obviously well understood. Given that there still a few routes where you use a rope I think the trad grade with the font grade would work on the highballs.

I don't think I realized that you know my brother.

Bonjoy

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If you have a good idea of both grades I'd use both. At the boundary between one type of climbing and the other both bits of info are relevant and neither is a good fit on its own.

 

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