[Johnny Brown]

mo, trad grades should, as a minimum, give you an idea of how "onsightable" a route is, and that an equal number of bold climbers should be able to climb an E4 5c, as good crack/face/technical climbers should be able to I'm an E4 6a...

I always think the hypothetical "balanced trad climber" should have an equal chance of onighting all E4s.

Oh jeez. Well you’ve done well to summarise the problem, which is people wanting an E grade to be like a sport grade, so they can say ‘I CLIMB E4’ and not have some weird exceptions bugging them.

The wonderful thing about Uk grades is they have two halves. E4 5a tells you it’s death on a stick. E4 7a tells you it’s desperate, but short-lived AND not dangerous. Just because you don’t fancy either despite normally liking E4s doesn’t make them wrong.

the overall difficulty includes the danger bit, obviously.  ie: the second one would probably be at least E8 as it would have a top end Font 7B+ boulder problem a very long way off the ground.

Sorry, I meant overall physical difficulty, but yeah I agree, makes sense.

The first one is a 7B+ boulder problem with a much easier finish (which to me, I wouldn't bother giving an E grade, but if insisted on, then the only one that would make sense is E6 or perhaps E7).

Makes no sense. Again: the 7a already tells you it’s really hard. Your E6 or 7 is a bizarre attempt to translate into some overall sport grade. That not the point of E grades. It’s E4.

[northern yob]

100% what Adam said… it makes perfect sense, to me at least. Is this a generational thing??

As Adam points out much better than I could, E grades aren’t sport grades… the whole point of them is to convey information, which they do in a not that complicated way, I really can’t get my head round why lots of people have such a problem with it or are against them. There’s got to be some serious miles in this…. Thread split surely.

[spidermonkey09]

100% what Adam said… it makes perfect sense, to me at least. Is this a generational thing??

As Adam points out much better than I could, E grades aren’t sport grades… the whole point of them is to convey information, which they do in a not that complicated way, I really can’t get my head round why lots of people have such a problem with it or are against them. There’s got to be some serious miles in this…. Thread split surely.

I think it is at least in part generational. Nobody cares whether West Side Story was once E4 in some black and white guidebook. In real life it isn't to >95% of climbers, its 7B+, and I'm firmly on team 'it doesn't need an egrade but if you insist its clearly not E4, its E6 at a minimum.'

I love E grades, they're great; to throw your point back at you, I can't get my head around why lots of people are intent on using them for things they clearly suck at and are in practice useless for.

[northern yob]

100% what Adam said… it makes perfect sense, to me at least. Is this a generational thing??

As Adam points out much better than I could, E grades aren’t sport grades… the whole point of them is to convey information, which they do in a not that complicated way, I really can’t get my head round why lots of people have such a problem with it or are against them. There’s got to be some serious miles in this…. Thread split surely.

I think it is at least in part generational. Nobody cares whether West Side Story was once E4 in some black and white guidebook. In real life it isn't to >95% of climbers, its 7B+, and I'm firmly on team 'it doesn't need an egrade but if you insist its clearly not E4, its E6 at a minimum.'

I love E grades, they're great; to throw your point back at you, I can't get my head around why lots of people are intent on using them for things they clearly suck at and are in practice useless for.

Just to be clear I’m not insisting on anything…. I couldn’t care less what anyone calls anything, I was just pointing out how it’s actually quite a simple concept, nothing more nothing less….. agreed they don’t work for highballs, but they weren’t ever meant to, they are from a time before bouldering mats (which are ultimately why they don’t work for highballs) I think they convey information about certain things quite well…. Different systems can also do that. Ultimately it’s all subjective so it’s never going to be a science, which it seems some people seem to think it is. One man’s e4 is another’s e3 in the same way someone’s 7b is 7c.

[Fultonius]

100% what Adam said… it makes perfect sense, to me at least. Is this a generational thing??

As Adam points out much better than I could, E grades aren’t sport grades… the whole point of them is to convey information, which they do in a not that complicated way, I really can’t get my head round why lots of people have such a problem with it or are against them. There’s got to be some serious miles in this…. Thread split surely.

Adam? Who's Adam?

JB, you seem to have a very strong view on this. I don't - as I've said I have next to no experience of this highball/E-Grade issue. The closest I can think of is  Looney Tunes at Cambusbarron which is (from very distant memory) around Font 6B at a *likely* ankle breaking height. I actually fell off soloing it once and managed to spin round and somehow miss all the boulders but I got very lucky!

@Northern Yob - Generational thing? You being funny? I'm in my 5th decade and have been trad climbing for 20 years. I've climbed trad in Cornwall, Wales, northern Ireland and all across Scotland. E3 and E4 would be the zone where I probably have the best "feel" for grades, and, looking at my logbook I've done 83 E3s and 63 E4s. When I rock up to a new crag in a new area, I usually drop to the more comfortable grades and then build up. I'll look at the trad grade, description, maybe notes on UKC..., eyeball the route then think "aye, that looks a goer". So far I've found grades to be pretty consistent within +/- half an E grade and I've had similar success onsighting wherever I go.

Some places I've had more success, North Wales and Fairhead, for example - maybe I just had a good week, climbing well and good conditions, or maybe they were a bit easier? Who knows.

But fucking hell, if I rocked up to a crag and there was an E4 7a all I'd think is:

Are they on crack? 

Please put aside your straw man arguments about trying to relate back to sport grades... no one mentioned that, no one (in this thread) is arguing that. I'm not "back calculating", I'm using the UK trad grade exactly how most of the people I climb with use it - a scale that gives you an idea of the relative difficulty of onsighting a route.

Maybe in the obscure microcosm of parochial grit weirdness E4 7a makes sense? But in any place where you have to put more than 3 bits of pro in before topping out, it's bonkers and breaks the system.

[webbo]

Adam is JB.

[lukeyboy]

The wonderful thing about Uk grades is they have two halves. E4 5a tells you it’s death on a stick. E4 7a tells you it’s desperate, but short-lived AND not dangerous. Just because you don’t fancy either despite normally liking E4s doesn’t make them wrong.

Sure, I think most are fine with the principle of same E grade with low tech grade for bold/sustained or high tech grade for safe/short-lived, but for the latter isn't that what E4 6b is? Or perhaps 6c at a stretch?

Font 7B+ just seems outside the realms of E4 however short or safe.

[northern yob]

@Northern Yob - Generational thing? You being funny? I'm in my 5th decade and have been trad climbing for 20 years. I've climbed trad in Cornwall, Wales, northern Ireland and all across Scotland. E3 and E4 would be the zone where I probably have the best "feel" for grades, and, looking at my logbook I've done 83 E3s and 63 E4s. When I rock up to a new crag in a new area, I usually drop to the more comfortable grades and then build up. I'll look at the trad grade, description, maybe notes on UKC..., eyeball the route then think "aye, that looks a goer". So far I've found grades to be pretty consistent within +/- half an E grade and I've had similar success onsighting wherever I go.

Some places I've had more success, North Wales and Fairhead, for example - maybe I just had a good week, climbing well and good conditions, or maybe they were a bit easier? Who knows.

But fucking hell, if I rocked up to a crag and there was an E4 7a all I'd think is:

Are they on crack? 

Please put aside your straw man arguments about trying to relate back to sport grades... no one mentioned that, no one (in this thread) is arguing that. I'm not "back calculating", I'm using the UK trad grade exactly how most of the people I climb with use it - a scale that gives you an idea of the relative difficulty of onsighting a route.

Maybe in the obscure microcosm of parochial grit weirdness E4 7a makes sense? But in any place where you have to put more than 3 bits of pro in before topping out, it's bonkers and breaks the system.

Evidently not…. We are basically the same generation.

Isn’t this the same with all grades, there are always things which fuck it up…. A lot of 5.13 onsighters probably can’t get their heads  around a 5.11 offwidth, how can it be the same grade as their regular warm up….

Have you been to font?? I like to think I can climb v6/7 pretty much anywhere (I can most places) there are things which equate to v4 in font, I can’t even get off the ground on. Does that mean they aren’t that grade? Adam ondra doesn’t fall off many v10’s I wouldn’t imagine? Yet he dropped Marie Rose. What E4 7a does is tell you it’s one of those rare problems before you even pull off the ground therefore doing it’s job perfectly… conveying information.

[Wellsy]

I always think the hypothetical "balanced trad climber" should have an equal chance of onighting all E4s.

Fultonius the hypothetical is real! I can proudly say I have an equal chance of onsighting all E4s (0%)

[Johnny Brown]

I think most are fine with the principle of same E grade with low tech grade for bold/sustained or high tech grade for safe/short-lived, but for the latter isn't that what E4 6b is? Or perhaps 6c at a stretch?

So do we agree 'standard' E4 is around 5c/6a? So we are fine with going down to the 4c/5a grade in extreme cases - bold, sustained, loose, poor protection. But if we go up the same amount - to 6c/7a - it's somehow unacceptable? Why? Admittedly West Side is an edge case because the crux is off the floor. If you had to do that move off a rope, yes, it would be E-harder.

The only issue I can see here is people who think of themselves as 'E4 climbers' might get their ego pricked. But a lot of solid E4 climbers will boulder that hard, even more so nowadays. A lot less than would get on an E4 4c I'd wager.

What I don't get is that all these weird grades are in the guidebooks, and have been since I started reading them in the eighties, and they all made perfect sense to me. I think the problem probably started with those grade conversion tables - they only could have worked had the tech grades followed a sort of normal distribution curvigram instead of blocks.

[andy moles]

I kind of agree with both sides of this argument.

E4 7a does kind of tell you what you need to know - if the common sense extrapolation that the bit after the really hard moves is roughly equivalent in difficulty to soloing 5c or maybe one 6a move at a worrying-but-not-going-to-kill-you height turns out to be correct.

However it's clearly not consistent with how the grading system normally works - i.e. the E grade describing the overall difficulty (for an on-sight attempt...though of course for harder routes it's not really for an on-sight attempt... ). WSS is clearly harder than anything within the normal bounds of 'E4 level' overall difficulty, so it doesn't seem like the best grading system to be using.

If it's about imparting useful information, I'd rather know an independent boulder grade for the top section, personally (what is it? I never got that far)

JB - does E4 4c actually exist? I've seen 5b...

[Fiend]

Maybe in the obscure microcosm of parochial grit weirdness E4 7a makes sense? But in any place where you have to put more than 3 bits of pro in before topping out, it's bonkers and breaks the system.

Surely given you're in your 9th decade, have been climbing trad all over the world for 87 years and something to do with this number of E-blah and that number of E-whatever, you'd realise that in an otherwise very functional system there will be the occasional outlier that won't quite fit into how that system usually describes and overall challenge, but will still convey some comparable information. As an E4 climber you won't get up the extreme outlier of West Side Story, as a 6a climber you won't get up the extreme outlier of Rubble....

This fixation on the most extreme outliers - particularly ones that were graded in a different era for a different style of ascent and are now accurately described as highball boulder problems - is really not the most useful way to see if His Royal Majesty's Great Brexitish Traditional Grading System still works well...

[Johnny Brown]

JB - does E4 4c actually exist? I've seen 5b...

Yeah, I've done one. Several E4 5a's on Cilan, although it's quite common to go to alternatives like XS, HXS. For the pitch I did. I think E4 4c contains more info than HXS 4c. It was a horrowshow on many levels.

it's clearly not consistent with how the grading system normally works

I think what you mean is how grading systems normally work. The beauty of the E-grade is does both, and edge cases are clearly flagged by unusual overall/ tech grade combos.

If it's about imparting useful information, I'd rather know an independent boulder grade for the top section, personally (what is it? I never got that far)

It feels* about 6a, at a height that is uncomfortable but not guaranteed too injure. Compared to other highball E4s like No More Excuses, it's a bit easier and shorter but you've done harder moves to get there.

*would undoubtedly feel easier at ground level having not done uk 7a to get there.

[lukeyboy]

I think most are fine with the principle of same E grade with low tech grade for bold/sustained or high tech grade for safe/short-lived, but for the latter isn't that what E4 6b is? Or perhaps 6c at a stretch?

So do we agree 'standard' E4 is around 5c/6a? So we are fine with going down to the 4c/5a grade in extreme cases - bold, sustained, loose, poor protection. But if we go up the same amount - to 6c/7a - it's somehow unacceptable? Why? Admittedly West Side is an edge case because the crux is off the floor. If you had to do that move off a rope, yes, it would be E-harder.

I also think the other end of the scale is nonsense! I'm not fine with E4 4c either.

4c is the extreme bold end of E1 e.g. California Arete, which I'm sure you know but just for general context - a 50m solo.

Are there any E4 4c? Perhaps Fiend knows some, but I'd suggest they are way outside the mainstream of climbing, unlike WSS.

I guess I'd summarise by saying that for WSS and similar, a font grade and knowing that it's a highball (for which you only need eyes) is enough, and more useful than an E grade.

And if one insists on giving it an E grade then it's too hard to fall within the spectrum of E4 (IMO generally 5c-6b, extreme ends 5b and 6c), however short or safe.

[northern yob]

I think most are fine with the principle of same E grade with low tech grade for bold/sustained or high tech grade for safe/short-lived, but for the latter isn't that what E4 6b is? Or perhaps 6c at a stretch?

So do we agree 'standard' E4 is around 5c/6a? So we are fine with going down to the 4c/5a grade in extreme cases - bold, sustained, loose, poor protection. But if we go up the same amount - to 6c/7a - it's somehow unacceptable? Why? Admittedly West Side is an edge case because the crux is off the floor. If you had to do that move off a rope, yes, it would be E-harder.

I also think the other end of the scale is nonsense! I'm not fine with E4 4c either.

4c is the extreme bold end of E1 e.g. California Arete, which I'm sure you know but just for general context - a 50m solo.

Are there any E4 4c? Perhaps Fiend knows some, but I'd suggest they are way outside the mainstream of climbing, unlike WSS.

I guess I'd summarise by saying that for WSS and similar, a font grade and knowing that it's a highball (for which you only need eyes) is enough, and more useful than an E grade.

And if one insists on giving it an E grade then it's too hard to fall within the spectrum of E4 (IMO generally 5c-6b, extreme ends 5b and 6c), however short or safe.

Absolutely E4 is irrelevant with regards wss,before bouldering mats it was very relevant see also Ulysses! I don’t think jb/Adam is saying it should be given e4 anywhere he’s more explaining why it was, and therefore why it’s a bad example to rail against e grades as it actually shows they work perfectly well….

[Johnny Brown]

Yes, exactly that.

NB, when WSS was given E4 7a: a) there were no bouldering mats, and b) no one used font grades except in Font.

The most useful/ popular modern grade would, I suppose be 7C(!). Although the (!) scheme hasn't been universally adopted, and doesn't really tell you if the hard climbing is high up or not, whereas E4 7a clearly implies it can't be.

[andy moles]

it's clearly not consistent with how the grading system normally works

I think what you mean is how grading systems normally work. The beauty of the E-grade is does both, and edge cases are clearly flagged by unusual overall/ tech grade combos.

What I actually meant was 'not consistent with how the British trad grading system normally works', and I think that statement is true, on the understanding that the first part of the grade normally describes overall difficulty.

Neither E4 4c nor E4 7a are the most useful way to describe those respective types of experience IMO - though I'm conjecturing in the first case because I haven't done one! Presumably no gear, a shit belay, very sustained and extremely loose. I'm curious why E4 seemed more useful than HXS? On that kind of terrain, why not E3, or E5? It's so far outside the normal distribution of the grade range, how do you pick a grade? I have done ungraded choss approaches that have felt more of an ordeal than climbs of a given standard and joked that they were E5 4a or whatever, but really all that's doing is shoehorning a different (though, like highball bouldering, related) kind of experience into a grading system that isn't great for it.

I agree E4 4c and E4 7a do give a reasonable idea of what to expect, but I think there are other ways of grading that do a better job. Since they exist anyway, we might as well use them (in the case of WSS, I think everyone actually agrees).

[lukeyboy]

Yes, exactly that.

NB, when WSS was given E4 7a: a) there were no bouldering mats, and b) no one used font grades except in Font.

The most useful/ popular modern grade would, I suppose be 7C(!). Although the (!) scheme hasn't been universally adopted, and doesn't really tell you if the hard climbing is high up or not, whereas E4 7a clearly implies it can't be.

Thanks JB and Northern Yob, agree and understand why it was E4 7a originally. It still seems a bit tight for E4 with a modern perspective, but as others have said it's a fringe case so there's not a lot of precedent, and in any case there are lots of historical anomalies of sandbags and soft touches, often regional.

Also agree that it's not a very useful example if we are discussing the merits of the E grade system. Which, please can we not 😂

[Johnny Brown]

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? I've already done WSS. I think what really happens in these cases is the grade exists in a bigger context - the rock and the shared knowledge of it. In sport climbing you can more typically ignore that, for trad or unprotectable grit not so much.

To me XS or HXS are really vague - I suppose they imply E1-E3, and E4-E7? Whereas we discussed it at the top and decided it felt very much like an E4 pitch, (i.e harder than E3 but not E5) but there almost certainly were no 5a moves. I've no idea if that is XS or HXS, suggestions welcome! The only alternative I can think of would be 5.10 X, which is like 7c (!) - just a difficulty plus danger ratiing. If you understand E4 4c it tells you the most, I think. As I said, we did a 'popular' E3 5b the day after for comparison, which has been the traditional Lundy snappy scare route, harder moves but a solid grade less overall.

[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?