"I have no real idea about what's actually being debated here." -Andy Popp
Yeah, this thread hasn't really gone very far. From what the eGraders tried to do, it seems clear that at the top end, there's a desire for a clearer, simpler, more logical method of grading stuff.
I'd somewhat naively thought that in 2024 on here, it might be possible to have a discussion about some of the inherent problems with the UK trad grading system, taking into account the changes that have happened over the last few decades. And seeing if there wasn't some way that the system couldn't evolve into something a bit more fit for purpose for everyone. And that somehow that discussion might end up being, well, useful.
But clearly I'd massively underestimated the level of opposition to even the basic suggestion that perhaps giving E4 to something that is Fr7c+/8a, might not really make much sense. When that became clear after a couple of posts, I should have given up, as that starting point blows out of the water any attempt to make the system more straightforward and rational.
I'd also underestimated quite how fundamentally different, different people's views are, on how the system actually works
now - even people I know well and have climbed with lots. There's an awful lot of private versions of the UK trad grading system floating around in different people's heads.
Ultimately any real change would need to come from the people at the top of the sport. But given the level of opposition seen on here to change of any kind, I think even they would have a hard time doing much other than some very small tweaks around the edges.
And so whilst this has been entertaining at times, it doesn't really feel like it's going anywhere useful.
I do think that French and Font grades replacing the tech grade somewhere upwards of E6 is likely to become standard, as behind the scenes that's how it's been for a very long time. Making that more widespread in guidebooks I think would definitely be a good thing, and I suspect in time is pretty much inevitable.
But E grades themselves, I think this thread has illustrated, probably have little chance of turning into anything that's terribly coherent any time soon. No doubt they will muddle along with all the current confusion for a while. Hopefully in time they might evolve a bit. Otherwise long term I suspect the next generation will just bin them, at least for headpointing hard routes.
And I don't think this stuff will just fix itself. If sport grades are out of line in an entire newly developed area or something. Then in time people come travel to that area, the routes get repeats from non locals, and over time the grades are ironed out. But more repeats of UK trad routes is never going to help iron things out. Because people can entirely agree about how hard something is and yet give it completely different E grades - because ultimately, they're using different grading systems, that happen to use the same symbols.
I still think that with relatively small scale changes, you
could get to a system where when grading a new route, you could just compare to all the other routes of all shapes and sizes that you've done in that style (onsight / flash / headpoint etc). And then give the E grade based on which subset of those routes the overall difficulty compared to. That would be a coherent grading system. But it would require change, which from this thread at least sounds like is impossible.
On the more philosophical stuff, ultimately, there's some views of grading systems that clearly on here aren't uncommon - that I simply don't understand and will never understand. And I grew up in the thick of the UK trad climbing scene as much as anyone. But to me if you want to romanticize about trad climbing, then read poetry, or books or lots of other things. I learnt to climb with a guy whose idea of doing laps was repeatedly reading Pritchard's "Mainline to Reality", whilst listening to The Doors and dreaming of Wen Zawn. I get it. Or at least I thought I got it. But in my brain at least, I just don't see how any of that in any way whatsoever relates to grading systems. I don't get how anyone would want a grading system to be anything other than, well.... useful. And that if it could evolve to be more useful, that that wouldn't be a good thing. But clearly that's just me, and presumably Pete was right - there's some kind of cultural attachment to particular views of grading systems, that I'll never understand.
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