I’d pay good money to see the reactions of the locals in Czech when some British guy rocks up and tells them that route x couldn’t possibly be E1/5.10/6a as he always can climb that grade anywhere…..
Also as I keep saying it’s the same with any system…. Tell Americans their grades are fucked cos offwidths fuck it up. The majority of sport climbers can’t climb 5.11 ow does that mean that crack wads who only climb in the desert should expect to climb 5.13 in the RRG because all the 5.13 crimpers cant move on cracks….
Aaaargh! I never said, and I don't think I've seen anyone say that "all grades must be trasnferrable to all other grading systems in all styles". And I never said "I expect to be able to travel around the UK and onsight E4 everywhere"
All I was saying, is, that,
in my experience (and that of many mates) The standard use of a trad grade to get a good understanding of how hard it might be and how much chance I have of onsighting it seems to work pretty well. Is it any surprise that I got shut down on
Fear of Infection...no, but then it's a wide crack/offwidth. Did I have a good understanding of how hard it was going to be when I looked at the guide, looked up at the rock and got cracking - hell yeah!
I'm happy to accept that I am totally inexperienced with hybrid highball/trad graded hard boulders. I think I did one HVS or E1 6a at Bowden 20 years ago and that's about it. So I guess if you guys say "it works and we all understand it" then I can;t massibely argue - it's just not how the UK Trad grades work
on normal trad routes aroudn the rest of the country in my experience The point Adam/jb and I are trying to make is E grades work as well if not better than any other grade system.
I don't think I've seen anyone argue anything different here? (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.
uk 6b - runs from font 6B to 7A,
UK 6c: 6C to 7C+
However, at the mortal grades, if I go up to a steep, pumpy looking E4 5c crack I might think "no move harder than 5c, lots and lots of them, no rest but actually ok protection, pumpy to place. Probably up toward Fr6c sport grade.
Similar E4 6a: maybe a harder crux.
E4 5c, could also be 5c moves in a spicy / dangerous position, and only be Fr6b climbing.
Or you could get a route with a few bouldery sections, but well protected. Harder to onsight, due to technical sequences. E4 6b. For that you know you're going to be safe, but need to really crank out some moves. French grade could range a lot in this... We all know hard one-move wonders that feel lower grade on the redpoint, but tricky to onsight.
This is where I think the beauty in the UK trad grade lies, it's
not easily and directly transferrable to other systems, but when you ask "average" climbers to rank a load of routes at a crag in ascending order of onsighting difficulty, there's usually a fair bit of a agreement. ( Also why the E-Grader idea is a bit shit).
I still can't get my head around E4 for WSS can make any sense in this context.... If you did a graded list of that crag, would the onsightableness of it come below.............
Just checked the crag page and see they are ALL boulder grades....
Fuck it, I'm out, If E4 makes sense in highball routes in the peak then so be it, but I'm glad that lunacy doesn't spread out to the rest of these islands....