[remus]

well isn't british trad grades only used by british - bit weird to give E grade to something overseas? I would imagine ondra has no idea what E9 or E10 or anything like that would mean, how would he? Dawn wall has the hardest pitch as 8c+ I believe.

Despite all the teeth gnashing Brits like to do about E grades they're not really that complicated and are broadly useful in describing how hard and dangerous a route is. If he can answer questions like 'how hard did it feel?' and 'how dangerous did it feel?' you're most of the way there, especially with something like e grader to help you calibrate.

[Duncan campbell]

Dawn wall has the hardest pitch as 8c+ I believe.

Pitches 14 & 15 are 14d / 9a.

Surely Empath is the other major contender for hardest trad climb in the world? Originally 15a but downgraded to 14d by Connor Herson climbing it on gear.

Let’s not forget P-whiddy’s Crown Royale ~9a and Tribe? Though JP rinsed that pretty quickly…

Be ace to see the O-dog on Crown Royale… maybe even for him to give it a flash go!?

[Paul B]

especially with something like e grader to help you calibrate.

...which was universally well received!?!

Calibrating something against a model is backward.

[remus]

especially with something like e grader to help you calibrate.

...which was universally well received!?!

Calibrating something against a model is backward.

Sure, but if you have little experience with e grades then "visit the website and play around with it for half an hour" is a lore more practical than "climb a thousand trad routes in the UK" and will get you 95% of the way there.

[Paul B]

Which is based on the assumption the website/model is actually a useful one. It's old ground but the initial release at least was based on flawed assumptions IMO (and I wasn't the only one). I can't remember where Barrows wrote his thoughts up, was it here or an Insta comment? Anyway, that.

I agree with the rest of your post though and with a climber with such breadth of experience it should be pretty easy to discuss relative difficulty and danger and offer some benchmarks. British tech grades make a lot more sense than just adding an R to anything where you have to use wires instead of plugging in cams.

[Fiend]

Despite all the teeth gnashing Brits like to do about E grades they're not really that complicated and are broadly useful in describing how hard and dangerous a route is.

All hail his Royal Majesty's jolly fine Great Brexitish grading system of doing a spiffing job of descrbing the challenge on one's ascent, tally ho!

[i_a_coops]

British tech grades make a lot more sense than just adding an R to anything where you have to use wires instead of plugging in cams.

Are these the same British tech grades where 6C can cover a range from at least V5-V10, and that aren't supposed to be influenced by how pumped/powered out/scared you are but in practice always are - but to an extent that's totally unpredictable without prior knowledge about the peer group of the first ascentionist? 

[monkoffunk]

Does anyone ever truly understand the challenge they are going to face without some kind of narrative alongside the E +/- tech grade? For all the reasons already mentioned. Does it add anything to the 9a and a story? Does it save words? (Certainly not in debate).

[IanP]

Dawn wall has the hardest pitch as 8c+ I believe.

Pitches 14 & 15 are 14d / 9a.

Surely Empath is the other major contender for hardest trad climb in the world? Originally 15a but downgraded to 14d by Connor Herson climbing it on gear.

Connor Henson said 5.14c for Empath on bolts but bit harder placing gear rather than bolts so maybe 5.14d for the gear ascent. 

Ondra said BV would be very solid 9a if bolted and placing gear makes it physically a bit harder.  Sounds like it's a very strong contender for the hardest trad route in the world.  Particularly since JP has done tribe and AO Dawn Wall (aren't the hardest pitches on Dawn Wall pretty much bolt lines?).

[Kingy]

Yes, EV does sounds right up there with the hardest.

Regardless of the merits or demerits of the English tech grade, what actually is it? Surely, the E12 tag is incomplete without a tech grade being assigned to it.

Also, regarding Dawn Wall, Ondra apparently thought the crux pitches were a little overgraded at 9a. He also did the loop pitch rather than the dyno. From this interview https://stara.emontana.cz/adam-ondra-dawn-wall-interview/ :

"And what about the ratings of the key pitches? Do you find them OK? Would you rate them 9a routes in the sport climbing areas?

In my opinion the 14th pitch is a bit of an easier 9a, so it fits the guidebook. The 15th pitch, and Tommy himself said it too, should be 8c+. I would agree with that. But then there are a lot of 8b+ pitches which I could rate 8c in some areas. Lots of those 8a+ could be 8b or even more, I reckon. So, I find the most difficult pitches a little bit overrated but it is compensated by the fact that any of those 8a could be rated higher."

[Fiend]

Pretty sure Paul B meant UK adjectival grade??

[jwi]

Without having even seen any of the contentenders in real life, Empath looks like a route any solid 9a onsighter could go up with a bunch of gear and be quite confident they would get to the belay without any issues. Bon Voyage looks like something that would a solid 9a onsighter would be just daft to go ground-up on with a few cams on the harness.

[Wellsy]

When you say "any solid 9a onsighter" do you mean Ondra or Megos as I believe they are the only ones who have done that.

[jwi]

I don't think Megos is a solid 9a onsighter, he has not done enough of them. But in the future there will be more of them.

If something like Empath is 7c+ (by being less steep or having better friction e.g.) I would not hesitate to try ground up. If a route looking like Empath was 7c+ I would never try ground up in a million years.

[Paul B]

Pretty sure Paul B meant UK adjectival grade??

I meant the combination, as in relative difficulty in a band tells you more about the risk involved than slapping an R after something.

[sirlockoff]

wide boyz been snooping around here!

[Fiend]

Christ can you NSFW-hide that thumbnail please, mods

[Kingy]

OK, well I'm calling it E12 7a from the comfort of my almchair. Somebody who has tried or done it would need to make the call whether its E12 7b or not.

To me, it needs that English tech grade to make any sense at all. Headhunter E5 in Pembroke is a shit grade, E5 6a so much better.

[abarro81]

English tech grade. Haha. 

[spidermonkey09]

That thumbnail is a disgrace but the first 10 mins of that video were decent. Not sure how they're going to fill another 30!

Tech grade is essentially meaningless whether it's 7a or 7b. Up to 6b is 100% useful, 6c maybe just about still useful but not hugely.

[kingholmesy]

Tech grade is essentially meaningless whether it's 7a or 7b. Up to 6b is 100% useful, 6c maybe just about still useful but not hugely.

  Surely everyone agrees the English tech grade is broken above 6c?  Would be good if we can avoid the adjectival E grade from ending up being useless at the top end too.

I think an adjectival E grade tells you more than just chucking an R on the end of a sports grade, and as such is worth preserving.

I’m sure it’s been suggested before but in my view the most useful combination is an E grade and a sports grade. I think this probably applies for anything from E4/5 upwards, certainly for E7/8 upwards.

Yes it is also helpful to have a narrative about the route, but number grades serve a useful function too.

[Kingy]

OK, well I'm calling it E12 7a from the comfort of my armchair. Somebody who has tried or done it would need to make the call whether its E12 7b or not.

To me, it needs that English tech grade to make any sense at all. Headhunter E5 in Pembroke is a shit grade, E5 6a so much better.

[Kingy]

I agree that the tech grade can be quite wide beyond 6c but that doesn't necessarily mean we should bin it completely. What are we saying, is there to be a cessation of all tech grades being given above 6c from 2024 onwards?

What about routes such as Trauma E8 7a in the pass, The Quarryman E8 7a, The Keswickian E8 7a, New Statesman E8 7a, Parthian Shot E10 7a, Mission Impossible E9 7a? I would argue that there is nothing wrong with the 7a grade given for these routes. Why mess with tradition and what is the alternative?

I don't see the harm in adding a 7a tech grade to hard routes. Without that the E grade has nothing to base it on, nothing that has been tried and tested over the last 50 years at any rate.

[User deactivated.]

I think an adjectival E grade tells you more than just chucking an R on the end of a sports grade, and as such is worth preserving.

The idea of having a grade that contains more information seems desirable to a lot of people but why? Just write a sentence or two in the description and that would tell you more than a couple of numbers and letters ever can. Modern databases aren't limited by space like a physical book, but a description wouldn't be necessary on every route anyway.

[SA Chris]

How descriptive can you get though? "Harder moves than xx, yy and zz, but safer than aa" 

Just because it's a blunt instrument doesn't mean it's a useless instrument.