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« Last post by jwi on Today at 10:57:17 am »
I knew I wasn’t ready. I estimated my chances of falling at around two out of three, which is not enough for a block of this type. Plus, even though I had unlocked the moves, I hadn't yet managed to link it on toprope. At the same time, I was also afraid of not finding the motivation to start the process from scratch next season. I had 20 crash pads and two good spotters with Fabien and Simon. We placed them at the foot of the boulder, and I told myself that a fall in the main crux would be scary but probably not dangerous in the event of a good save. As for the mantel, I knew how to do it, I just had to trust myself. So I decided to give it a try.
Very lightly edited because current LLMs don't recognise climbing context.
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I still can't get my head around E4 for WSS can make any sense in this context.... You've already explained it: Or you could get a route with a few bouldery sections, but well protected. Harder to onsight, due to technical sequences. E4 6b. Now imagine the same route with a single bouldery section and make the rest easier climbing - to still get E4 the move would have to be harder, so E4 6c yes? Now make the route very short, barely a route at all, and put that single hardest move right on the floor... Yes, I think a big part of the problem is the focus on 'onsightable'. I've never done a route where the E-grade is higher because it's hard to read. Astra on Pavey is the perfect example - steady E2 IF you find the hidden hold on the crux. Totally blind. It gets E2, would be E3 if you pushed through without. Have you any counter-examples? On the above WSS example, grades have followed the logic above rather than placing a lower limit on what an average E4 climber could onsight, because otherwise you just end up binning all the bouldery routes into less grades, which gives less information. As I keep saying, the grade isn't E4, it's E4 7a. 7a tells E4 climbers they haven't a cat in hell's chance of onsighting it, but they can have a go without consequence. Verandah buttress is HVD 5b likewise. some of the confusion in the harder grades would be reduced if we just binned the UK tech. grade substituting French or Font. grades as applicable. There is no requirement an E grade has to be followed by UK6c or something equally ambiguous. Some, maybe. It wouldn't solve anything for me - mostly because I don't see big problems. Grades are subjective. Going to a narrower scale like Font grades gives an illusion of greater precision without necessarily increasing accuracy. Plus in Font, the scary highballs have easier moves - presumably we ignore these (not to mention traverse grades!!). I find grading interesting - it arises universally with systems that should be easily translatable, but aren't, because simple number scales become imbued with cultural differences. I think it's more interesting to try to understand the differences in application than to try to homogenise them. Nobody's stopping anyone using all the scales when they discuss a route.
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« Last post by sherlock on Today at 10:39:35 am »
Really enjoyed the SLC World Cup, especially the Women's. Lucy Garlick holding her own with the likes of Jessica Pilz was really impressive.
Sometimes I quite like a comp without Janja, not so much a foregone conclusion..... though even a one -legged Natalia
looked unstoppable...
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« Last post by Fultonius on Today at 10:34:33 am »
OK, the measurements are off. I was hoping to make it so that the top out was sketchy but not life threatening, with a trivial start that added nothing to the difficulty.
Point being, adding a trivial start *only makes it more workable* not *more onsightable*.
So why would the grade change?
Unless you're saying the UK trad grade is *not* a measure of how hard it is to onsight. If that's the case then I've clearly been living on a different planet for the last 20 years.
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« Last post by sherlock on Today at 10:30:20 am »
I've just finished a book I think a lot of people here might enjoy (indeed, might have read already). In 1950s Togo, a young boy has a nearly deadly encounter with a snake, recovering he reads a book about Greenland and becomes obsessed with travelling there. In 1958, aged 16, he ran away from home and spent the next eight years working his way through Africa and Europe before eventually reaching Greenland in 1964. In Michel the Giant: An African in Greenland Tété-Michel Kpomassie tells the remarkable (true) story of that journey and, in particular, the eighteen months he spent living among the inidigenous Greenlanders, by whom he seems to have been welcomed without question. It is a rich, vivid, and humane portrayal both of the author as a young man and of a culture even then coming under immense pressure
Just finished this. Really enjoyed it, but thought/ hoped it would cover more of his amazing journey to get there than his time spent there. Either way, a fascinating and enjoyable read.
Agreed. It must have been an interesting journey spanning countries and cultures back in the day.I felt his time in Paris could have been expanded on as well.
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What Duncan said. (Except that above 6b (I'd argue 6a) that the grade widths are so wide to be pointless. Adam seems to be arguing against this, but I can't see the logic. The main part of the problem are the 7a deniers like Nemo, not me. Thankfully not very many of them! Nemo's objection, if I recall correctly, is something akin to Xeno's paradox where any move can be subdivided into components no harder than 6c. Ignoring the reductio ad absurdum aspect, I suppose you could argue that on something like WSS which is both intricate and bottom end 7a, but I don't see see how you can really argue in 2024 that 9c or 9A are just a lot of 6c moves. uk 6b - runs from font 6B to 7A,
UK 6c: 6C to 7C+ I've always had uk 7a starting around 7B up to 7C+ ish, with 7b covering 8A and up. Of course this is for cruxy boulders not stamina traverses. So Deliverance (giants excepted) represents bottom end 7a, WSS more solid at the grade, Storm, Brad Pit etc mid-grade. 7b would cover moves like the start of Careless start, The Joker, or Help The Young sit. I don't have a lot of experience of harder boulders, and there don't seem to be many on routes, but I'd assume short 8B+ must be getting in to uk 7c and 9A therefore 8a. Aidan does seem to be doing harder moves than existed in the eighties! Let's transport that to a 20m cliff, give it some E1 climbing to get to 8m up, place 3 bomber cams (as a safe as it can be), then bust out your font7B+ crux, and then run it out to the top of the crag.
E4 7a yes? Clearly not! Why would you think that? Putting that section anywhere but off the floor is going to be E5+, you've then added a 12m runout with deck potential from 15-20m. 
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For WSS and similar, a bouldering grade is obviously most appropriate, since 99% will boulder it out above pads. If I was writing a guide I’d add a couple of sentences similar to the following: “7B+ to the break. Those continuing upward should note the top would be E4 in isolation and will probably feel harder if you’ve just done the start.”
Largely agree with this post but no guide should be countenancing the idea that doing WSS to the break is doing the problem! Better to write; 'the major difficulties are complete when the break is reached but the top section is still insecure and tricky; its certainly not over.'
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« Last post by Duma on Today at 10:05:49 am »
Those look great, nice one Fiend.
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« Last post by duncan on Today at 10:02:44 am »
Statement of the bleedin’ obvious probably but the adjectival (E) grade works very well for what it was designed for: estimating the difficulty of onsighting a trad. route - a composite of physical and psychological factors - for an average* climber. E-grades are less suited to climbing when you can have lots of goes at a route, either above pads or on a top-rope, as this thread demonstrates! Rather awkwardly this happens to be by far the most common approach to harder climbing. One of the problems from an outsider is the focus put on the E part. Rhapsody E11! But I wouldn't have a clue what the tech grade actually is on it, event though I've read quite some things about it, you never see it mentioned in any headlines.
Re E-grades more generally, to me the only really interesting question is whether the climbing world beyond UK / Ireland will adopt them in any meaningful way?". The rational expectation is surely "no".
In my view, some of the confusion in the harder grades would be reduced if we just binned the UK tech. grade substituting French or Font. grades as applicable. There is no requirement an E grade has to be followed by UK6c or something equally ambiguous. It would be interesting to know what "outsiders" think of this. For WSS and similar, a bouldering grade is obviously most appropriate, since 99% will boulder it out above pads. If I was writing a guide I’d add a couple of sentences similar to the following: “7B+ to the break. Those continuing upward should note the top would be E4 in isolation and will probably feel harder if you’ve just done the start.” *Historically a 5’ 10” bloke who could jam. This may need reviewing in 2024.
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« Last post by Fultonius on Today at 09:48:36 am »
yeah the logic that a short boulder close to the ground = a lower E grade still doesn't make sense to me.
This is baffling. For a given tech grade, things that earn a bigger grade are sustained, length, danger etc. Things that earn a lower E grade are shorter, safer, not sustained etc. What doesn't make sense?
So we can agree that having boulder mats and it being close to the ground makes it "as safe it can be"...? Yes? So let's say we have WSS with 7B+ crux at 2m, protectable by mats, with an easier but still bold top out that will give people the willies... Let's transport that to a 20m cliff, give it some E1 climbing to get to 8m up, place 3 bomber cams (as a safe as it can be), then bust out your font7B+ crux, and then run it out to the top of the crag. E4 7a yes?
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