[Fiend]

Can we have more people discussing the merits of the E grade system and then asking to not discuss the merits of the E grade system, please 

[Johnny Brown]

 

And just for the record, I think WSS is a great example for discussing the merits of E grades, which is why I keep using it, even if everyone deletes the E-grade with pads nowadays.

I don't get the fixation that E4 should be broadly the same overall whatever. They're not just E4, that's half the grade. E4 7a is clearly way harder than E4 5c for most E4 climbers*. The fact that uk grades can do so much more than others is a feature not a bug.

*but not all, because frequently I am him, as my belayers on pumpy routes will attest.

[andy moles]

joked that they were E5 4a or whatever, but really all that's doing is shoehorning a different kind of experience into a grading system that isn't great for it...

I think there are other ways of grading that do a better job.

Why not suggest and explain them then?

Well in the case of WSS, a bouldering grade, obviously. And possibly, in place of the supplementary information that E4 provided, a separate bouldering grade for the top.

I'd have thought that the vaguer grades of XS or HXS for sustained chop 4a or 4c would be more appropriate to that kind of experience, accounting for the fact there are probably headstrong climbers who couldn't normally lead more than E1 who could do them, and people normally capable of on-sighting E6s who couldn't. Obviously you can't account fully for climbers having different relative strengths, but that particular example seems to push that to extreme?

[abarro81]

doesn't really tell you if the hard climbing is high up or not, whereas E4 7a clearly implies it can't be.

I guess what E4 7a doesn't tell you, is whether there's an E4 but up high after a 7a boulder (your interpretation of how grades should work) or a VS up high after a 7a boulder (with the E grade being earned by the difficulty of the crux move, which I guess would feel committing without pads even on WSS; which would be closer to my or some others' understanding of how these grades should work, even though we'd all give it E6 at least anyway if forced to use trad grades). I guess when I used to go out soloing, if there was an E1 6a micro route I knew the 6a was low but would have no clue if the top was going to feel like VS or E1.. but maybe I just never understood how e grades get applied to micro routes. Seems like I'm far from being alone.

The more I think about it the more it does kind of make sense, but it will never be intuitive because it doesn't fit with how the E grade is used on most routes, where it represents a broad measure of overall difficulty taking lots into account (difficulty, obviousness, tenuousness, danger etc.). So if your trad experience was on more conventional routes it would not occur that that's how the grade was being used. It didn't to me until this conversation!

[andy moles]

I don't get the fixation that E4 should be broadly the same overall whatever. They're not just E4, that's half the grade.

I get what you're saying with this, but people seem to find E grades confusing enough even with the assumption that the 'E' part represents the approximate overall difficulty, without making it even more complicated...

[abarro81]

E grade represents the overall difficulty, except when it doesn't, at which point it may not may not encompass the difficulty of the hard bit to some extent (but not a full extent, I'm still not clear on this) depending on whether the FA grew up in Pembroke or Sheffield. Clear?

[Johnny Brown]

I'd have thought that the vaguer grades of XS or HXS for sustained chop 4a or 4c would be more appropriate

I tend to think of XS/ HXS as being more suited to loose ledge shuffling, more like extreme versions of your 'E5 4a' approach suited to headstrong punters. And as I said above I'm very unsure of where the grade boundary lies.

Whereas our E4 4c pitch had more in common with Gogarth E5 5b like Death Trap - i.e. it's vertical, sustained proper climbing but you've very limited faith in either the holds or the protection. A proper trad E6 leader would have been fine, if perhaps slightly traumatised as I was. A headstrong E1 leader would either backed off or died.

or a VS up high after a 7a boulder (

(Edit: you've added more context) Clearly this would never have been given an E grade at all, because to anyone doing the start it would be trivial. As it is, it isn't trivial, and people back off it even with pads, so it got E4.  E1 6a would suggest that the 6a is fall-offable but I would expect harder climbing at height than 'VS', but if it was dangerous 5b or 5c it would get more than E1 overall, so you can expect 5a ish I think. The grades are 'overall', they just cover a lot more variety than other systems.

I get what you're saying with this, but

I'm not proposing any changes I'm just explaining how it already works, and always has done. The proof is in the guidebooks.

[andy moles]

Whereas our E4 4c pitch had more in common with Gogarth E5 5b like Death Trap - i.e. it's vertical, sustained proper climbing but you've very limited faith in either the holds or the protection. A proper trad E6 leader would have been fine, if perhaps slightly traumatised as I was. A headstrong E1 leader would either backed off or died.

I'll take your word on this, I'm just finding the pitch in question quite hard to imagine!

I'm not proposing any changes I'm just explaining how it already works, and always has done. The proof is in the guidebooks.

In some guidebooks, from a specific era, for particular areas! i.e. the period between the development of E grades and the proliferation of bouldering pads, on sedimentary outcrops in northern England...

[Johnny Brown]

That doesn't include the sea cliffs, where there is just as much weirdness at the opposite end?

It's the same everywhere I've been in the Uk, but I did learn early on there was a variety of styles, and not to throw a hissy fit and claim the grades were 'broken' if I an E4 didn't suit me. Well I might have had some fits but I didn't claim the grades were broken.

I have tended to seek out uncoventional routes though, so was exposed to the breath and scope before my head got all swol from climbing big numbers.

[abarro81]

Someone should have stuck that in a guide or something. I think I would have found it useful to know back when I climbed on grit quite a lot... Now you say it it does make some sense, but if you started climbing somewhere without many micro routes it's not obvious. I'm also not entirely sure that's how it's used round the country? I don't recall micro routes in Avon feeling like they used that system, but maybe I'm misremembering.

I think you're projecting or imagining when it comes to people throwing a fit about these grades. I recall people just treating them like a joke, because that's how they seem if you're used to normal grading

[andy moles]

I have tended to seek out uncoventional routes though

You probably are in a relatively small Venn overlap of specialties there, ankle-breaker grit soloing and seaside death choss.

[Somebody's Fool]

They’re both five minutes from his house.

[andy moles]

They’re both five minutes from his house.

Is his house bifurcated by a rupture in the fabric of space? 

[northern yob]

2nd home wanker….. in north wales too, I can feel another great debate coming on. 😂