UKBouldering.com
the shizzle => chuffing => Topic started by: Fiend on October 16, 2008, 11:09:07 am
-
For Jim :-*
I'm not really sure how to sum up the debate any better than Moo put it:
Peak Sheffield View.... ain't broke, don't need fixin' KEEP THE E GRADE
North Wales View ... it ain't fair... fix it, USE FRENCH GRADES WITH AN AMERICAN GRADE
Scotland? King McClud RULES
Lakes .. too wet to care :wall:
Continue as you will ladies and gentlemen.
-
Adam's article is up online now as promised:
http://www.climber.co.uk/categories/articleitem.asp?cate=1&topic=16&item=171
(http://www.climber.co.uk/categories/articleitem.asp?cate=1&topic=16&item=171)
-
I think everything from Fiend's Reply #35 on: October 14, 2008, 06:33:18 pm should be put here, agree with Jim.
Is this possible? Mods?
Thanks
-
Thank you Pantontonius, that will be useful reference for this debate or just for any interested parties.
I find on-sights of harder routes (well of any route that's challenging someone but that's another story) to be worthy of plenty of respect - more so than much harder headpoints, unless the latter are new routes at the cutting edge.
However like some people mentioned in the previous now-off-topic thread, I don't have any particular problem with the usage of E-grades for higher end headpoints. I automatically assume they're headpoints so there's no direct nor qualitive comparison with on-sights (so I don't read about an E9 headpoint and thing "OMG awesome dude" and then read about an E7 onsight and think "two grades less, meh, whatever" - quite the opposite in fact). I think the E-grade (for a hypothetical on-sight and in the context of scale and in comparison to other routes down the scale which have been on-sighted) works fine as a system, as long as people apply it right. E.g. Walk Of Life would 5 grades harder to on-sight than an E7 so it deserves E12. Sure it can be innaccurate but it's a sensible, functional system.
If one really wanted to change this system, then I think John Arran had it right all along with H grades. Make them directly comparable to E grades i.e. an H10 would be E10 to onsight, give all high end new routes H grades until someone onsights it (not ground up beta flashes or any other the other styles Bonjoy alluded to in his post), and then change that H to an E (and maybe the grade goes up or down if the initial estimate wasn't quite right. E.g. Walk Of Life is H12, in 2040 someone onsights it, says yeah this is two grades harder than To Hell And Back what I onsighted the other week and confirmed as going from H10 to E10, so I can confirm this as E12 now. If one really needs a change I think this has elegance and simplicity.
People also might like to have a bouldering grade as well as the tech grade because climbers back in the 80s fucked up the tech grade by not extending the system in proportion to difficulty, fair enough, stick that in too, it would make sense.
The media issue is a bit of a seperate one, I don't have much to add to that. I'm interested in big numbers but equally if not more interested in good style.
-
You lot need to start another thread.
Its kinda sad that a thread about the worlds hardest trad route turns into a grading debate especially when most of us know or are mates with James.
Well done yoof, keep cranking
To be fair the discussion, until you mentioned this, was focusing not on the grade of the route (which would detract from a stunning ascent) but the appropriateness of the grading system used which to my mind doesn't detract. Now that its been mentioned there are a few posts on the progression of the upper limit (http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,10001.msg167152.html#msg167152) of climbs in different styles (http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,10001.msg167166.html#msg167166), but none of these are doubting the grade and still does not detract from James' achievments.
-
So what if If I headpoint the FA of an HVS? What grade does it get then?
(no need to dignify this with an answer).
-
H grades are a frankly idiotic suggestion. what next? R-grades for sport routes no-ones flashed yet? get a grip, seriously. appart from all the other obvisou factors of it being totally unnecessary, its just another factor to get out fo date instantly in guidebooks.
as everyone has asserted in the other thread, all these grading suggestions are "solutions" to a problem which doesn't exist. thus the discussion is moribund.
-
thus the discussion is moribund.
You still love it though ;) Like many of us :)
As I say, I don't see any real need for changing the system, not least because in terms of INFORMATION, it works. I just think that H is the lesser of two evils.
My own personal thing with grades: I am interested in, and fight for, accuracy. I think the system (apart from maybe high-end tech grades) works very well for giving good information about the expected difficulty of a climb regardless of what climb it is and what style it was put up in. And that includes working very well to equally describe an E6 death route at Gogarth and an E6 highball on Grit - it's bloody obvious from the style of route what you're going to get. I only take issue when grades are wrong and can be made righter (particularly at levels relevant to me).
-
With all due respect to Adam, that article is bollocks.
He states....
The fact that we aren’t sure where the line should be drawn between E7 and E8 seems astonishing to me when the headpointers are claiming they can climb routes three or four grades harder.
But then also that Rhapsody (under his system) would be 8c+ R and The Hollow Man 7a+ X.
Now, call me stupid if you wish but I don't find it astonishing in the slightest that a route ten (yes ten) grades harder in actual difficulty is possibly three E grades harder in overall "E grade difficulty" to climb.
The whole thing smacks of bitterness to me and I'm not really sure why people are kicking up such a fuss. :-\
What was the gist of John Grisham's reply by the way?
Fiend - better than the "lesser of two evils" chuck the whole idea (H grades and all) in the bin where it belongs. :)
-
H grades are a frankly idiotic suggestion. what next? R-grades for sport routes no-ones flashed yet? get a grip, seriously. appart from all the other obvisou factors of it being totally unnecessary, its just another factor to get out fo date instantly in guidebooks.
as everyone has asserted in the other thread, all these grading suggestions are "solutions" to a problem which doesn't exist. thus the discussion is moribund.
Firstly, the advent of wikis means that up to date info on what has or hasn't been done ground up could easily be kept up to date. So, the supposedly unbearable scenario of a guidebook being out of date would matter little. The info would be there if anybody wanted it.
And secondly, there may be support for your view on this forum from various people (mostly Peak based though), but everybody I've discussed this with in the North Wales scene (none of whom are active on website forums) agrees that it is a good idea. You might think this discussion is dead, but in the wider climbing scene it is being considered. On the publishing side, the Climbers' Club are very interested in the concept - Pete Robins has produced a sport grade list for the E6 and up routes for the revamped Llanberis guide. It has been seriously discussed for the forthcoming Ground Up Gogarth books, for example the intention is to describe Tim Emmett's Chicama at Trearddur Bay (the only real modern headpoint route on the Gogarth crags) as F8a+ R, rather than E9 6c.
The bottom line is that lots of people see the logic in Adam's argument, even if you don't.
-
theres logic to a lot of things, doesn't make them right. theres people who swear blind that drinking a cup of tea on a hot day cools you down, despite all the incontrevertable evidence to the contrary.
having just read that adam article its full of holes so numerous that if i sat here typing up a post to highlight them all i'd probably miss my ferry to font next saturday week. if people have already choosen to ignore these holes, and to ignore the counter points, then theres nothing any amount of discussion will change. I'm not about to go on a christian forum and try and make athiests out of them all.
-
Si that post sounds incredibly cliquey. It appears that views which don't concur with yours will simply be ignored. There are some valid points raised here but you've just taken your ball home without answering them.
-
Dave how about I help you out with some holes.
Just from the intro:
Sonnie himself gave his variation Direquiem ‘5.14a, R’ meaning that the route is 8b+ and “that you can expect long but safe falls if you lob”.
That's because he has no experience with our British grading system so gave it something he actually knew and understood.
Mick Ryan states that this grade “is a lot more honest than giving pre-practiced routes an inflated, hypothetical, headline-grabbing E grade”,
Mick Ryan talks so much cock that if you laid it lengthways across the channel Dave wouldn't even need to catch his ferry. He is a total politician and spin doctor and will say whatever will grab attention, and appear to put him or UKC in an interesting light.
Secondly, the focus of Sonnie Trotter on the grade of E11 which has inspired him to make two trips to the UK and spend quite a while in a small quarry on the outskirts of Glasgow. Britain is full of incredible climbing but only one E11 and this example begs the question of how grades affect our behaviour.
Not really. It begs the question of how the World's Hardest Trad climb affects our behaviour. E11 just means "World's Hardest Trad Climb (probably)" and I strongly suspect that's why Sonnie came over, because there was a piece of information about how hard it was that told him it would be hard enough. I also strongly suspect that it was his style of route which helped too.
Will continue reading...
-
Si that post sounds incredibly cliquey. It appears that views which don't concur with yours will simply be ignored. There are some valid points raised here but you've just taken your ball home without answering them.
Nonsense, I've spent a considerable amount of time typing/reading and discussing this yesterday and today. It was me that opened up the discussion in the first place (albeit after Fiend posted his questions). I just objected to Dave's emphatic declaration that this issue was dead in the water. Is it not of interest to you that other people are taking it seriously?
-
Yes but as you have obviously made your mind(s) up already it is dead in the water!
-
For Jim :-*
I'm not really sure how to sum up the debate any better than Moo put it:
Lakes .. too wet to care :wall:
:o
-
Why have an alternative grading system for headpoints? it is suggested the alternative is more suitable for headpoints.
Is it not also equally good as a replacement for his treasured onsight trad grades? He seems unable to view his personal preferences in the same critical light. Why would the sport grade for difficulty and some reference to danger/gear not be more suitable for onsight trad too? Flashing or onsighting high sport grades is always reported positively, it is never suggested poor performance for being 3 grades lower than cutting edge efforts.
Forgive me if this seems a little naive, I would like to understand....
-
Continuing:
If you were to go and ask many of today’s headpointers what grade a certain headpoint is, lets pick at random Equilibrium at Burbage, then the answer you would get is that it is 8b+, together with an account of where you may and may not fall off the route and expect to walk away.
Would you??
Now this is useful information that tells you what to expect on the route; which is what a grade is supposed to be. The fact that it is written up as E10 7a is meaningless
What's the term for that flaw in one's reasoning again where one's reasons are based on the conclusion one is trying to support with them?? Why does 8b+ R give any more information than E10 7a??
as quite simply no one has any idea what E10 actually is.
Yes they do. It's something that would be 3 grades harder to onsight than E7s wot have already been onsighted. It's an estimated extension of the system - a system which consistent and which everyone is very familiar with.
E10 is a mathematical answer to the question “what does 8b+ with dangerous runouts translate to in the E system”?
Or is it the other way around?? What came first to describe hard trad: An estimated trad grade that's extrapolated from a familiar system, or a hybrid sport / danger grade that's only more recently been used??
Therefore an E6 grade tells us that we should expect an E6 experience with all the trials of route finding, placing protection as well as climbing the physical
moves. Normally, traditional climbing involves a certain amount of climbing within your grade, reversing sequences and attempting others until the leader is confident about performing the moves under the security of the safety net of runners. Once the climber has a route wired on a top rope then the experience
of ‘leading’ the route as described above goes out of the window and the route is reduced to a gymnastic sequence best represented by a sport grade – in the
case of a diffi cult headpoint; a very diffi cult one, and still potentially a very dangerous one although the risks are fully understood.
And that's why the hypothetical E-grade is used for, an estimate of the onsight experience to make it consistent with the rest of a very functional system. Everyone bloody knows that the headpoint experience will be different (in difficulty terms I believe it's considered an equivalent challenge to onsighting something two grades easier), the headpointer can still make a best guess of what it would be like...
...and thus provide useful information to future onsighters!! It seems a far more progressive attitude to give these routes E-grades (or directly comparable H-equivalents) so that onsighters have a direct and continual comparison with current E-grade routes they're onsighting and thuse know what to expect, rather than having to make them do a vague translation from a newly introducted sport+danger grade. If I was going to onsight an E9 I'd much rather know that it was estimated at E9 and thus two grades harder than E7s I was onsighting, than trying to work out what the fuck 8a+ R/X what supposed to mean...
In fact I almost can't be bothered to read and reply to the rest of the article. By Adam's reasoning, he's intending to make things harder and more obscure for future onsights rather than actually encouraging that scene....!!
-
I think its prompted by the feeling that N wales has some really remarkable climbers at the mo and the rest of the country is not recognizing it.
Unfortunately this has everything to do with personality and nothing to do with big E grades. The Onsight film should go someway to redressing this balance, but its still down to the fact that the lads don't play the media game the same way the headpoint heroes do.
-
I am not sure why this debate is just confined to top end E grading. If I ever pulled my finger out to go tradding again then given the choice I would find the french grade and some form of risk pointer more useful than an E grade + tech grade.
In deep water soloing the original english grades used at Swanage have been ditched for French grades (the world's favourite grade) and a risk (S) grade by Mike Robertson without fuss?
Wainwrights' suggestion with regard to the top grades is I think useful from media point of view as it reassigns a bit of deserving kudos to the first onsighter to have 'permission' for the symbolic granting of an E grade but is really just a side(show) issue.
-
Yes but as you have obviously made your mind(s) up already it is dead in the water!
Nothing has been committed to print yet. If any of you convince me otherwise I would change my view (part of the reason I brought up Adam's article is that I wanted to hear more views). So far I haven't read anything here that has particularly swayed my view of the situation, apart from how it could be applied to grit routes. Obviously these differ dramatically from sport routes - Font grade + risk assessment would work much better here. In North Wales, most of the headpointed routes in question are physically arduous and thus fit well with a sport grade description.
-
For Jim :-*
I'm not really sure how to sum up the debate any better than Moo put it:
Lakes .. too wet to care :wall:
:o
Hang on a minute, young man! The Lakes was the birthplace of the E grade!
And what the fuck is a "hypothetical onsight"? Is this like a conjectural flash? A suppositious redpoint?
-
I think its prompted by the feeling that N wales has some really remarkable climbers at the mo and the rest of the country is not recognizing it.
Unfortunately this has everything to do with personality and nothing to do with big E grades.
Yes you're absolutely right. Finishing the article it is obvious what's going on. Adam (rightly) has an issue with the relative publicity that headpointing routes gets compared to onsighting routes. However to make something out of this, he's trying to turn it into an issue about, as you say, big E grades - BUT trying to use a vaguer personality/media-driven concept to justify a clear cut information-driven concept, it simply doesn't work. His logic is at best inapplicable and at worst flawed to the point of supporting the opposite conclusion.
What it really boils down to is:
What should be happening is for climbers attempting E7 and E8 on-sight to be given full credit in the press for pushing standards and never to be compared with a headpointer’s E11.
Which is the actual issue and absolutely right. Although I think most enlightened climbers DON'T compare onsighting to headpointing and look at the highest standards in both fields as being equally exciting in both fields. As richdraws says above, it works in sport climbing - people totally respect 8c onsights.
(Personally, as I said earlier, I get excited and very respectful about hearing about harder onsights - they touch me personally more than hearing about headpoints)
These lads need to forget all this grading revamp nonsense (unless it's a directly comparable grade) and get themselves pimped out some more. As someone said on the other now-horribly-corrupted-and-disrespectful thread, Jack is going a real good job highlighting this stuff over at UKC, that's a start, the scene needs more of that.
-
I think its prompted by the feeling that N wales has some really remarkable climbers at the mo and the rest of the country is not recognizing it.
Unfortunately this has everything to do with personality and nothing to do with big E grades. The Onsight film should go someway to redressing this balance, but its still down to the fact that the lads don't play the media game the same way the headpoint heroes do.
That seems to be exactly the case. And fucking about with grades is not going to change this at all.
So far I haven't read anything here that has particularly swayed my view of the situation,
Perhaps because you are not coming at this from an objective point of view. This is exactly what I meant. You are ignoring rational argument in favour of clutching at a misguided way to right the percieved injustice that you see occurring.
-
apart from how it could be applied to grit routes. Obviously these differ dramatically from sport routes - Font grade + risk assessment would work much better here.
Yes. Unfortunately this will make the whole messy idea even messier.
Si, did you not take Grimer's point about how the first true onsight would be awarded? No one can get to the ability to onsight such routes without picking up beta. So we'll never get true onsights. The only line that could be drawn is between ground-up and inspection/ practice from ab/ top-rope. A rather less impressive line, but one marking true progress in style.
The answer is to educate everyone, whether E1 or E10, that top-roping is poor style. What we really need is a Leo/ MacLeod with pure ethics and the ego to promote them.
-
I am not sure why this debate is just confined to top end E grading. If I ever pulled my finger out to go tradding again then given the choice I would find the french grade and some form of risk pointer more useful than an E grade + tech grade.
Sport climber :P
In deep water soloing the original english grades used at Swanage have been ditched for French grades (the world's favourite grade) and a risk (S) grade by Mike Robertson without fuss?
Possibly because DWS is a very different kettle of fish (literally) than normal trad?? Trad with all it's ropes and woggles and hard landings has been around for centuries and has a grade system that's evolved and worked for that. Soloing something above water is a new concept and thus not really comparable.
Although personally I think it's bollox and uninformative and would much rather they kept the trad grade for DWS because at least I'd know how scary it might be and how hard the crux was rather than just an overall level of physical difficulty that's usually applied in situations of obvious safety i.e. sport. Ideally give them a directly comparable S-grade instead of an E-grade that takes into account the landing'n'shit. S5 6a is equivalently adjectivally hard to E5 6a par example. But it seems people like the idea of overriding grades outright and making people learn new systems, rather than making the smallest and most elegant changes.
-
but everybody I've discussed this with in the North Wales scene (none of whom are active on website forums) agrees that it is a good idea.
:please: All of them read website forums though and Geldard is instrumental in all this and doesn't he climb with Robins and McHaffie. :shag:
I'd like to hear Birkett's take but we'd need a translater
-
I am not sure why this debate is just confined to top end E grading. If I ever pulled my finger out to go tradding again then given the choice I would find the french grade and some form of risk pointer more useful than an E grade + tech grade.
In deep water soloing the original english grades used at Swanage have been ditched for French grades (the world's favourite grade) and a risk (S) grade by Mike Robertson without fuss?
Wainwrights' suggestion with regard to the top grades is I think useful from media point of view as it reassigns a bit of deserving kudos to the first onsighter to have 'permission' for the symbolic granting of an E grade but is really just a side(show) issue.
Whilst I like your open mindedness, I'm not sure I agree - I'm quite happy to keep E grades for established routes that have been done ground up or onsighted.
DWS grades - hmm, interesting comparison.
-
... Geldard is instrumental in all this and doesn't he climb with Robins and McHaffie. :shag:
Really? Thats not what it reads like from Jack's write-up here (http://www.planetfear.com/reviews/On_Sight_by_Alastair_Lee_979.html)
-
Nobody has addressed what is probably the most important point (raised by Stu)........
I stand by the 'not one iota' comment. It's the only logical conclusion from the current state of affairs: the media's relative treatment of sport climbing, bouldering, ice climbing and trad climbing are not set by the 'juicyness' of the grading system or the mathematical sizes of the numbers contained within. Instead, it is dictated by the impressiveness of the ascent, modified by the perceived interest of that discipline to the readership.
In the same way, adopting a separate grading scheme for headpointed routes is not going to make them any less hard, and thus no less attractive to magazine editors who want to pimp the "world's hardest traditional route". The rags will trumpet the next top-end headpoint just the same, and include text along the lines of "which might translate as E13 in the onsight grading system". In fact, you might end up with onsight ascents being devalued as any conversion between E-grades and your new headpoint system which appeared in print would be at the mercy of journalists, instead of top climbers with reputations to protect. This would allow rampant speculation as to the equivalent E-grade. Think how puny an E8 onsight is going to look if Mick Ryan can get away with saying that echo wall could be as hard as E14!
What difference would all this grade fuckery actually make? This is one of the points you seem to have chosen to ignore Si. :-\
-
But it seems people like the idea of overriding grades outright and making people learn new systems, rather than making the smallest and most elegant changes.
[/quote]
The French sport grade is widely understood thanks to climbing walls and sunrock and scarcely a new system. It is a good measure of whether you are up likely to be up to the physical and technical challenge of a route. The only thing to then decide is if you have the balls for it.
-
You are ignoring rational argument in favour of clutching at a misguided way to right the percieved injustice that you see occurring.
That is just your opinion, i.e. You 'think I' am ignoring etc...
I'm here and I'm listening.
-
Nothing has been committed to print yet. If any of you convince me otherwise I would change my view (part of the reason I brought up Adam's article is that I wanted to hear more views). So far I haven't read anything here that has particularly swayed my view of the situation,
What about the following that Johnny and I have asserted or demonstrated:
1. It is obvious that it is a media/personality/publicity issue not a grading issue.
2. Many of Adam's premises are unsupported or have unsupported implications (i.e. the implication that punters do not understand that onsighting a grade is incomparable to headpointing a grade).
3. At least one of his grading arguments is logically flawed, at best begging the question and at worst a bare assertion fallacy.
4. His arguments about grading could equally well give rise to a situation of new grades providing LESS information and discouraging onsighting rather than providing more information.
P.S. Isn't it somewhat ironic that two of the people currently arguing with you are two people who are both *very* supportive of onsighting rather than headpointing in both action (at their relative levels) and opinion....??
-
The French sport grade is widely understood thanks to climbing walls and sunrock and scarcely a new system. It is a good measure of whether you are up likely to be up to the physical and technical challenge of a route. The only thing to then decide is if you have the balls for it.
Actually there is an adjectival grade for that, what a good idea eh :whistle:
Climbing walls & sunrock != DWS.
-
but everybody I've discussed this with in the North Wales scene (none of whom are active on website forums) agrees that it is a good idea.
:please: All of them read website forums
You've no idea at all if that is true as I didn't name names. Even if I did, how would you know? And anyway Caff wouldn't know what a computer was if it landed on his head!
-
But then also that Rhapsody (under his system) would be 8c+ R and The Hollow Man 7a+ X.
Now, call me stupid if you wish but I don't find it astonishing in the slightest that a route ten (yes ten) grades harder in actual difficulty is possibly three E grades harder in overall "E grade difficulty" to climb.
The whole thing smacks of bitterness to me and I'm not really sure why people are kicking up such a fuss.
But isn't that exactly how the E grade works? Great Slab is 6a (maybe more likely 5+) X and gets E3, any number of E5's are 7a R - thats 6 or 8 grades for only 2 E grades, so 10 grades for 3 E grades seems absolutely fine.
Call me stupid, but if perfectly protected 8a is E7 then 9a is E10, 9b is E11 and 9c is E12 I have a bit of difficulty understanding where E11 and E12 fit in in comparison to what is being achieved in sport grades. I don't know what Steve Mac thinks obviously but I don't imagine he considers his quick ascent of Rhapsody to be the up there with say Overshadow on his list of most significant achievements over the last few years.
From what I've seen and others on here who know the route have said I have no problem believing that Walk of Life is a really major achievement quite possibly of real historic significance in terms of difficulty (only the future will tell I guess) on a magnificent piece of rock - I just don't quite understand what the grades at top end now mean.
-
apart from how it could be applied to grit routes. Obviously these differ dramatically from sport routes - Font grade + risk assessment would work much better here.
Yes. Unfortunately this will make the whole messy idea even messier.
Si, did you not take Grimer's point about how the first true onsight would be awarded? No one can get to the ability to onsight such routes without picking up beta. So we'll never get true onsights. The only line that could be drawn is between ground-up and inspection/ practice from ab/ top-rope. A rather less impressive line, but one marking true progress in style.
The answer is to educate everyone, whether E1 or E10, that top-roping is poor style. What we really need is a Leo/ MacLeod with pure ethics and the ego to promote them.
For me it is the first ground up ascent that is the mark in the sand where a route deserves an E grade.
-
Pantonio, the new wave of onsighters and the people who support them are great. As someone who is excited, supportive, and respectful of that climbing ethic, and to be honest wants the same thing as Adam i.e. greater respect and acknowledgement for onsights, here's what I suggest:
1. Don't spend any time writing articles about new grading systems.
2. Don't spend any time re-writing established trad grades for guidebooks.
3. DO spend time getting more footage, photos, and reports of onsights.
4. DO get these lads talking about, showing off, and promoting what they're doing.
5. DO spend the time speaking to any and all climbing media to ensure their activity gets reported and highlighted.
-
Playing Devil's Advocate a bit I can think of some crags (Reecastle in the Lakes) where the gear on the harder routes tends to be pre-placed and in a way F8a+ would make more sense for these things than E7. But even if someone was to on-sight Burnt at the Stake (E7 7a), F8a+ would still be the more useful grade! I.e. you need to be able to on-sight F8a+ to on-sight this route. If you can shuffle up some Gogarth choss fest E7 on-sight, it doesn't mean you're going to get up E7 at Reecastle on your first go!
So grades aren't perfect. What you need to do is provide the supporting V/Font or French grade in the text.
On-sighting whether it be in Sport climbing or trad is highly regarded as far as I can see. As numerous others have pointed out, I don't see the issue here being the (imperfect) grading systems that we use, but one of the current N Wales trad shufflers not getting enough kudos. Get blogging chaps!
-
If you can shuffle up some Gogarth choss fest E7 on-sight, it doesn't mean you're going to get up E7 at Reecastle on your first go!
As anyone will be able to tell very easily from the relative tech grades AND the style of the crag.
Totally agree with the last paragraph though.
-
Pantonio, the new wave of onsighters and the people who support them are great. As someone who is excited, supportive, and respectful of that climbing ethic, and to be honest wants the same thing as Adam i.e. greater respect and acknowledgement for onsights, here's what I suggest:
1. Don't spend any time writing articles about new grading systems.
2. Don't spend any time re-writing established trad grades for guidebooks.
3. DO spend time getting more footage, photos, and reports of onsights.
4. DO get these lads talking about, showing off, and promoting what they're doing.
5. DO spend the time speaking to any and all climbing media to ensure their activity gets reported and highlighted.
Thought this was worth reading again, good advice in my opinion.
-
I don't think there's a need to change the system and broadly agree with JB, fiend etc..
If hard onsighters want more kudos/sponsorship then they need to go back and get some nice staged photos of them looking scared/stacked with big maximuscle and prana logos clearly visible and then write a nice little piece for the websites/mags. If their mates think they deserve more kudos then they should take more nice pictures of them for the mags and pimp them out whether they like it or not. If people just generally want to see more GU and o/s stuff in the media they should write to the mags/websites and say so. etc.
I like knowing rough french grades for routes, and it would be wicked if the new guides had some of this info. This could either be in the grade in the guide eg. 'Right wall E5 6a (F6c ish)' or a note in the description 'F6c climbing if it had bolts in' or just a list in the back similar to graded lists. Notably, i consifer this info as MORE inportant to me for onsights than headpoints.
DWS - it feels a lot more like doing a sport route than a trad route most of the time, hence french grades make a lot more sense to me that trad here.
-
Ta. This is assuming they want the publicity of course. For the quiet onsighters and the media-shy, sobeit, but they wouldn't be concerned about the issue either...
-
Ta. This is assuming they want the publicity of course. For the quiet onsighters and the media-shy, sobeit, but they wouldn't be concerned about the issue either...
:great:
Not all top climbers are pimps.
-
Actually there is an adjectival grade for that, what a good idea eh :whistle:
[/quote]
But the E grade isnt just a Risk grade as you know. Some people are bolder than they are strong, others stronger than they are bold. The E grade is a blunt instrument that attempts to fudge the two key aspects which most people consider when deciding to try a route or drive to a crag having looked at a guide.
-
back in the day when sports routes used to get 2 grades i.e. 7a+ and E5 6b or even E5 6a or possibly E4 6c i could get more info from the trad grade as to what to expect.
on a side note this system was really good for list addicts as you could have a list of trad routes and sport routes but only needed to do sport routes.
-
Simon: two key aspects, as said before those are bloody obvious from the crag type / rock type / description etc etc. No-one is ever in any confusion about what Edge Lane or London Wall are going to be like from both sharing the same grade.
Admittedly if all you ever had was a french-style topo of grades and lines on a very minimal diagram with no descriptions of crag, crag area, nor climb itself, then yes it would be confusing. Thankfully we have a grading system and generally good guidebook information - it works.
-
It's not always so obvious though Fiend. There are certainly eg. E5 6as where you might not be able to tell from the floor how much you're earning your grade for boldness and how much for hardness. That's why I'd go for normal system and french grade.. saves me having to trawl the web to find out how hard the climbing on everyhting I want to do is! Probably horrendous for guidebook writers though...
-
Simon: two key aspects, as said before those are bloody obvious from the crag type / rock type / description etc etc. No-one is ever in any confusion about what Edge Lane or London Wall are going to be like from both sharing the same grade.
Admittedly if all you ever had was a french-style topo of grades and lines on a very minimal diagram with no descriptions of crag, crag area, nor climb itself, then yes it would be confusing. Thankfully we have a grading system and generally good guidebook information - it works.
You are hardly making a good case for the informativeness of the E grade if your answer is that you need to look elsewhere for clues.
I'm not saying it is a useless way to grade things but better more useful alternatives are possible.
-
You are hardly making a good case for the informativeness of the E grade if your answer is that you need to look elsewhere for clues.
Yeah looking elsewhere for clues....somewhere really obscure LIKE THE GUIDEBOOK DESCRIPTION BELOW THE GRADE RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES OR THE PHOTO-TOPO OR THE ROUTE ITSELF.
This isn't France. We have very functional guidebooks and a very functional trad grading system.
-
Fiend, I have a good wall here for you if you want to bang your head against it.
(BTW I am up to speed with your logic and agree 100%).
-
Well that's all very patriotic (though I should point out there are trad routes in France on MOUNTAINS) but you are again avoiding the fact that the E + tech grade doesnt tell you as much (in theory) as a french + risk grade.
In practice it might not work very well but a bit of expeimentation would be the proof of the pudding. Guides using french grades for trad routes in addition whether in a graded list or the description would be a good start.
-
but you are again avoiding the ???fact??? that the E + tech grade doesnt tell you as much (in theory) as a french + risk grade.
:wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall:
:off: :rtfm: :furious: :spank: :wave:
-
Conversely, i have often done routes abroad that would be much more informative if they had E grades. An example, in Yosemite, both the regular route on the Rostrum and Astroman get the same grade, 5.11c. If i am telling anyone about them, it alsways feels more appropriate to call the Rostrum E4 6a and Astroman E5 6a.
-
Sorry, that got a bit confused. My post should have read:
What the fuck is a "hypothetical onsight"? Is this like a conjectural flash? A suppositious redpoint?
I claim the E grade only when I've done the route in good style. Otherwise, it goes something like "I did xxxxx BUT..."
-
Simon,
I don't know to what extent you've digested or disregarded the points already made that the proposed system:
a) is not necessary (as there are better ways of promoting onsight climbing)
b) won't help promote onsight climbing anyway
c) adds a layer of complexity which isn't needed (one grade for onsighted routes, one grade for headpointed routes on gogarth, one grade for headpointed routes on grit - where does it stop?)
To some extent whether you agree on (a) is a matter of perspective, we don't really know about (b) and whether you think (c) is important depends on how bothered you are by the status quo, so rehashing those arguments won't persuade anybody.
To be honest, most of the suppositions in Adam's article are just total rubbish. Many of them have been dealt with above, but let's look at his assertion that we aren't sure of the boundary between E7 and E8 and that this is because E-grades for headpointed routes are meaningless, which he backs up with a single example. I mean, come on! Does he think there are no examples of routes which straddle the E3/4 boundary, or the HVS/E1 boundary? Putting that aside, of course the grades of these routes are going to be inaccurate - they don't exactly get as many ascents as 3 Pebble slab now, do they? And these routes only get onsight ascents from people pushing their limit, at which point variations in climbers strength's and weaknesses probably make more difference to the perceived difficulty than the actual difficulty of the route. The point I'm making is any grade confusion here is not really anything to do with headpointing. Hardback actually makes my point for me, doesn't it: this route was put up ground up, so according to Adam and Co. the grade has to be more accurate than a route like End of the Affair, which was graded by "guesswork". But guess what - the grade of End of the Affair has gone unchallenged, whilst people are suggesting an upgrade for Hardback. I think this pretty conclusively rubbishes the suggestion that E-grades for headpointed routes are "meaningless".
A final word on the matter - I think a shift to Adam's system would give less useful information to potential onsighters than a french grade and danger rating. The main reason is the E-grade can account for the insecurity of the climbing, whereas Adam's system doesn't do that neatly. You might say this is grit-specific, but there are plenty of insecure mountain routes and how insecure a climb feels makes a massive difference to the E-grade of a route. The Indian Face is a good local example. Under adam's system this would get 7b+ X, or something. Compare doing Indian Face with, for example, doing 50 for 5 on bad gear. The two experiences wouldn't compare in my opinion, but would get a similar grade in Adam's system. On the other hand, I'd give the two very different E-grades; perhaps E7 and E9. (Don't come at with the old standby that the difference would be obvious from the ground - in the example I've adpoted, yes. But there are plenty of cases where it isn't obvious from the ground, especially on the mountain routes/sea cliffs we're talking about).
-
Niall makes my point about the lack of information in adam's proposed system quite well. I find US grades absolute shite for trad climbing. For a start, there's just far to much range in the PG/R/X rating to let me know if I'm going to be a bit wobbly, or absolutely shit my pants.
Adopting a similar system for trad routes in britain would probably make me avoid those routes until I got some 2nd hand information from someone I trust...
-
But Simon, don't you think that awarding the ascent for the ground-up is making things very open to the need for a whole book of rules.
What about certain examples:
Jordan Buys doing Carmen Picasso after his wife brushes it and preplaces a wire. This ascent is ethically flawed in some ways, but still a really cool ascent. Is it cool enough to get the FGUA?
The situation where a climber will get friends to continually top rope a route so they can see where all the moves and runners are before climbing it ground up. Obviously perfect, and they would be awarded the FGUA, but not so cool
Someone trying The bastard Practice on the Cromlech, on sight. They get pumped, rest on the peg in fear, then climb on to the top. Come down, pull the rope, then do it first go.
I wouldn't like to have to judge these, or the thousand other examples you would need to deal with. Add to this the fact that even with your ear to the ground, you are only ever going to hear about a select number of ground-up ascents. Can you know for certain who did the first ground up ascent of Atomic Hot Rod?
All this just points out the difficulty of the system. If the idea behind the shift in grading systems is to give due recognitio to ground-up style climbers, then there must be another answer.
It's a shame for all those great climbers that they are around when the number of great new routes seems so few.
-
Good debate by the way. be good to get a few more in support of simon's / adam's views on, as our man in the red van is fighting a lonely battle at the minute.
-
Nobody has addressed what is probably the most important point (raised by Stu)........
I stand by the 'not one iota' comment. It's the only logical conclusion from the current state of affairs: the media's relative treatment of sport climbing, bouldering, ice climbing and trad climbing are not set by the 'juicyness' of the grading system or the mathematical sizes of the numbers contained within. Instead, it is dictated by the impressiveness of the ascent, modified by the perceived interest of that discipline to the readership.
In the same way, adopting a separate grading scheme for headpointed routes is not going to make them any less hard, and thus no less attractive to magazine editors who want to pimp the "world's hardest traditional route". The rags will trumpet the next top-end headpoint just the same, and include text along the lines of "which might translate as E13 in the onsight grading system". In fact, you might end up with onsight ascents being devalued as any conversion between E-grades and your new headpoint system which appeared in print would be at the mercy of journalists, instead of top climbers with reputations to protect. This would allow rampant speculation as to the equivalent E-grade. Think how puny an E8 onsight is going to look if Mick Ryan can get away with saying that echo wall could be as hard as E14!
What difference would all this grade fuckery actually make? This is one of the points you seem to have chosen to ignore Si. :-\
I haven't ignored this at all, it is Stu who failed to acknowledge the logic of what I have been suggesting, namely that the adoption of the new headpoint grade would by default make an event out of the eventual ground up ascent.
The E grade is attractive to editors/journalists because it suggests in one very snappy soundbite that the same game that Joe Brown was playing back in the day is the same one that is being played now, but now to the nth degree. Joe climbed E2 back in the 50s, look we now have E12 - a full ten grades harder. :o How impressive is that, how eye catching etc. Unfortunately the implicit comparison is deeply flawed. They are two very different aspects of climbing, the former is traditional ground up stuff and the latter is essentially sport climbing without bolts, and has a lot more in common with redpointing (the clue is in the name) than it does with trad onsighting.
(sorry for disjointed nature of replies, there are so many quick posts it's hard to keep track)
-
If someone wants to post up the article with Gresham's reply, I'll be sure to give that one a thorough going over too...
-
Conversely, i have often done routes abroad that would be much more informative if they had E grades. An example, in Yosemite, both the regular route on the Rostrum and Astroman get the same grade, 5.11c. If i am telling anyone about them, it alsways feels more appropriate to call the Rostrum E4 6a and Astroman E5 6a.
I agree - especially if you include a special squeeze caving grade for the Harding Slot which along with the enduro pitch bumps it up to E5. The grading and climbing in yosemite is as warped and idiosyncratic as gritstone - and so quite fruitful for grading examples. If everyone was multilingual in grading systerms you could use whichever system most closely made sense for each route.
-
I do accept what you're saying that reserving the E-grade label would make the first onsight more of an event.
The point I'm making is that if your ultimate aim is publicity you won't get media attention unless you have good photos and a story to tell. And if you've got those things an editor is going to give magazine space to it anyway. Changing the E-grade is an ineffective step to take.
Take your Joe Brown at E3 and JP at E12 example - you keep coming back to "it's an unfair comparison". But no-one actually makes a direct comparison. People are smart and they are aware that things move on, that the hardest routes are headpointed, that friends make cracks safe, that stick rubber helps. Why do you think the Baron still gets so much respect?
-
Simon,
I don't know to what extent you've digested or disregarded the points already made that the proposed system:
a) is not necessary (as there are better ways of promoting onsight climbing)
b) won't help promote onsight climbing anyway
c) adds a layer of complexity which isn't needed (one grade for onsighted routes, one grade for headpointed routes on gogarth, one grade for headpointed routes on grit - where does it stop?)
To some extent whether you agree on (a) is a matter of perspective, we don't really know about (b) and whether you think (c) is important depends on how bothered you are by the status quo, so rehashing those arguments won't persuade anybody.
To be honest, most of the suppositions in Adam's article are just total rubbish. Many of them have been dealt with above, but let's look at his assertion that we aren't sure of the boundary between E7 and E8 and that this is because E-grades for headpointed routes are meaningless, which he backs up with a single example. I mean, come on! Does he think there are no examples of routes which straddle the E3/4 boundary, or the HVS/E1 boundary? Putting that aside, of course the grades of these routes are going to be inaccurate - they don't exactly get as many ascents as 3 Pebble slab now, do they? And these routes only get onsight ascents from people pushing their limit, at which point variations in climbers strength's and weaknesses probably make more difference to the perceived difficulty than the actual difficulty of the route. The point I'm making is any grade confusion here is not really anything to do with headpointing. Hardback actually makes my point for me, doesn't it: this route was put up ground up, so according to Adam and Co. the grade has to be more accurate than a route like End of the Affair, which was graded by "guesswork". But guess what - the grade of End of the Affair has gone unchallenged, whilst people are suggesting an upgrade for Hardback. I think this pretty conclusively rubbishes the suggestion that E-grades for headpointed routes are "meaningless".
A final word on the matter - I think a shift to Adam's system would give less useful information to potential onsighters than a french grade and danger rating. The main reason is the E-grade can account for the insecurity of the climbing, whereas Adam's system doesn't do that neatly. You might say this is grit-specific, but there are plenty of insecure mountain routes and how insecure a climb feels makes a massive difference to the E-grade of a route. The Indian Face is a good local example. Under adam's system this would get 7b+ X, or something. Compare doing Indian Face with, for example, doing 50 for 5 on bad gear. The two experiences wouldn't compare in my opinion, but would get a similar grade in Adam's system. On the other hand, I'd give the two very different E-grades; perhaps E7 and E9. (Don't come at with the old standby that the difference would be obvious from the ground - in the example I've adpoted, yes. But there are plenty of cases where it isn't obvious from the ground, especially on the mountain routes/sea cliffs we're talking about).
Nobody is suggesting that a single ground up ascent leads to an automaticallty accurate grade - all grades need consensus to have any true meaning. Surely that is too basic to be worth arguing over? All I'm saying is that the first ground up ascent is the first time somebody has had the authentic Joe Brown experience on a route, and thus able to offer a true stab at the E grade. The headpointer, was sport climbing without bolts and should grade accordingly.
The last part of your post ignores the reality of the situation at the crag. Aside from the F7b+ X grade, a would be ground up ascencionist will have a guidebook or wiki description and their own eyes and experience (not to mention the reputation that a prominent headpoint will have) to go on. They won't be operating in the information vacuum that you suggest.
-
All I'm saying is that the first ground up ascent is the first time somebody has had the authentic Joe Brown experience on a route, and thus able to offer a true stab at the E grade.
This is the part I fundamentally disagree with. I'm aware that there is some guesswork in attributing an E-grade to a route you've rehearsed, but that doesn't make the grade useless, which is what you and adam seem to be saying. Indeed, there are reasons why it might be more accurate - your onsighter might just "get lucky". The fact that many headpointed routes have kept their grade after being onsighted (EoTA being one amongst many) proves this beyond argument, surely.
The last part of your post ignores the reality of the situation at the crag. Aside from the F7b+ X grade, a would be ground up ascencionist will have a guidebook or wiki description and their own eyes and experience (not to mention the reputation that a prominent headpoint will have) to go on. They won't be operating in the information vacuum that you suggest.
Goddammit! I said you couldn't use that response. The point is it's not always obvious from the ground. You want a concrete example? Trevallen Pillar versus Ships that Pass... They look identical from the ground, and I found them to have similar french grades and danger rating. Ships... felt much more insecure. The E-grade tells me one is harder, Adam's system would not!
-
Niall makes my point about the lack of information in adam's proposed system quite well. I find US grades absolute shite for trad climbing. For a start, there's just far to much range in the PG/R/X rating to let me know if I'm going to be a bit wobbly, or absolutely shit my pants.
But if it was extended to say 6 grades of risk/insecurity would that work ?
-
The headpointer, was sport climbing without bolts and should grade accordingly.
Stupid statement. I spend much more time onsighting on bolts than I do redpointing, just because that's what i enjoy. The onsighter is 'sport climbing without bolts' too, they're just onsight sport climbing without bolts instead of redpointing without them. Which one do you think is likely to feel closer to sport climbing - onsighting bastille or headpointing end of the affair?
-
Niall makes my point about the lack of information in adam's proposed system quite well. I find US grades absolute shite for trad climbing. For a start, there's just far to much range in the PG/R/X rating to let me know if I'm going to be a bit wobbly, or absolutely shit my pants.
But if it was extended to say 6 grades of risk/insecurity would that work ?
What, like X1-X6?????
-
Niall makes my point about the lack of information in adam's proposed system quite well. I find US grades absolute shite for trad climbing. For a start, there's just far to much range in the PG/R/X rating to let me know if I'm going to be a bit wobbly, or absolutely shit my pants.
But if it was extended to say 6 grades of risk/insecurity would that work ?
You wouldn't need as many as six. Finer degrees would help, but it wouldn't help give information about other factors like the insecurity of the climb or the condition of the rock. How does that fit in to a french grade and a grade which indicates the consequence of a fall.
Hey - I know! Let's include all those factors and make the steps finer still. And since things like looseness, exposure, remoteness and insecurity are open-ended we could adopted an open-ended scale of numbers rather than a closed system. Maybe prefix it with a letter to show that our scale denotes the extremity of the climb. Something like E1,E2,E3 and so on. That would work, wouldn't it?
-
The fact that many headpointed routes have kept their grade after being onsighted (EoTA being one amongst many) proves this beyond argument, surely.
Actually, and i don't know this for sure, but i never heard ryan say much about that at all. It was all said by those that saw. Did he offer a grade. If he had soloed it by himself, or did it with people away from the media, you might not know about it.
-
Jordan Buys doing Carmen Picasso after his wife brushes it and preplaces a wire. This ascent is ethically flawed in some ways, but still a really cool ascent. Is it cool enough to get the FGUA?
The situation where a climber will get friends to continually top rope a route so they can see where all the moves and runners are before climbing it ground up. Obviously perfect, and they would be awarded the FGUA, but not so cool
Someone trying The bastard Practice on the Cromlech, on sight. They get pumped, rest on the peg in fear, then climb on to the top. Come down, pull the rope, then do it first go.
I wouldn't like to have to judge these, or the thousand other examples you would need to deal with. Add to this the fact that even with your ear to the ground, you are only ever going to hear about a select number of ground-up ascents. Can you know for certain who did the first ground up ascent of Atomic Hot Rod?
All this just points out the difficulty of the system. If the idea behind the shift in grading systems is to give due recognitio to ground-up style climbers, then there must be another answer.
It's a shame for all those great climbers that they are around when the number of great new routes seems so few.
The examples do highlight the blurring at the boundaries - personally I think the first one doesn't qualify and the second one does. In the former case all you can do is report the facts and wait until somebody does a purer ascent.
You say thousands of examples - surely that is overplaying the situation. The number of headpointed routes shifting from sport + risk grade to E grade would be relatively small. We are talking about a minority of hard routes here after all.
I can't be certain who did the first ground up ascents of older routes - but then I don't need to be. These are already established as conventional E grade routes with numerous ascents over the years.
-
The headpointer, was sport climbing without bolts and should grade accordingly.
Stupid statement. I spend much more time onsighting on bolts than I do redpointing, just because that's what i enjoy. The onsighter is 'sport climbing without bolts' too, they're just onsight sport climbing without bolts instead of redpointing without them. Which one do you think is likely to feel closer to sport climbing - onsighting bastille or headpointing end of the affair?
I said earlier in the thread/s that I agreed that grit was a special case and might be better described by a Font grade + risk assessment. Your example highlights this anomaly, but it doesn't undermine the overall argument. How about if I'd said 'The headpointer, was redpointing without bolts and should grade accordingly', or is that still a 'Stupid statement'?
-
The fact that many headpointed routes have kept their grade after being onsighted (EoTA being one amongst many) proves this beyond argument, surely.
Actually, and i don't know this for sure, but i never heard ryan say much about that at all. It was all said by those that saw. Did he offer a grade. If he had soloed it by himself, or did it with people away from the media, you might not know about it.
True, but no-one has offered re-grades for routes like Master's Edge, Master's Wall, Unfamiliar, Gies a Squid, Balance it Is, Deathwatch, Kaluza Klein.... Surely that shows that grades for routes initially headpointed are not all that bad?
-
Hey - I know! Let's include all those factors and make the steps finer still. And since things like looseness, exposure, remoteness and insecurity are open-ended
[/quote]
In my view it wouldn't and shouldn't be open ended if adopted because those factors arent open-ended and because there would still be an interplay with the french grade.
You imagine the loosest, exposedest, remotedness and insecure type of climb imaginable and that benchmarks the top of the risk grade. The risk grade would have to be proportional to the French grade ie a runout Fr6a might get a high overall risk grade for the route but a Fr8a that was well protected on the hard bit but had a runout Fr6a bit would have a low overall Risk grade (unless it was on mud!). So in that sense there is a proportional interelationship between the two but not wholly merged like the E grade.
-
The headpointer, was sport climbing without bolts and should grade accordingly.
Stupid statement. I spend much more time onsighting on bolts than I do redpointing, just because that's what i enjoy. The onsighter is 'sport climbing without bolts' too, they're just onsight sport climbing without bolts instead of redpointing without them. Which one do you think is likely to feel closer to sport climbing - onsighting bastille or headpointing end of the affair?
I said earlier in the thread/s that I agreed that grit was a special case and might be better described by a Font grade + risk assessment. Your example highlights this anomaly, but it doesn't undermine the overall argument. How about if I'd said 'The headpointer, was redpointing without bolts and should grade accordingly', or is that still a 'Stupid statement'?
However, he could have made the same point by saying "which would feel more like sport climbing - onsighting the hollow man, or onsighting requiem?". The point is the same differences that make grit "a special case" do exist on all rock types, if perhaps to a lesser extent. This will reduce the utility of adam's proposed system. Surely you must acknowledge this, even if you think it is not an important enough factor to destroy Adam's proposal...
-
The last part of your post ignores the reality of the situation at the crag. Aside from the F7b+ X grade, a would be ground up ascencionist will have a guidebook or wiki description and their own eyes and experience (not to mention the reputation that a prominent headpoint will have) to go on. They won't be operating in the information vacuum that you suggest.
You've ably demonstrated that whilst the "nu-media" for climbing is capable of keeping the information up-to-date its not always available to those who would use it (as guidebooks take longer to make it out, and aren't bought by everyone)...
And anyway Caff wouldn't know what a computer was if it landed on his head!
:-\ :shrug:
-
All I'm saying is that the first ground up ascent is the first time somebody has had the authentic Joe Brown experience on a route, and thus able to offer a true stab at the E grade.
This is the part I fundamentally disagree with. I'm aware that there is some guesswork in attributing an E-grade to a route you've rehearsed, but that doesn't make the grade useless, which is what you and adam seem to be saying. Indeed, there are reasons why it might be more accurate - your onsighter might just "get lucky". The fact that many headpointed routes have kept their grade after being onsighted (EoTA being one amongst many) proves this beyond argument, surely.
The last part of your post ignores the reality of the situation at the crag. Aside from the F7b+ X grade, a would be ground up ascencionist will have a guidebook or wiki description and their own eyes and experience (not to mention the reputation that a prominent headpoint will have) to go on. They won't be operating in the information vacuum that you suggest.
Goddammit! I said you couldn't use that response. The point is it's not always obvious from the ground. You want a concrete example? Trevallen Pillar versus Ships that Pass... They look identical from the ground, and I found them to have similar french grades and danger rating. Ships... felt much more insecure. The E-grade tells me one is harder, Adam's system would not!
I refer the hon gent to my consensus comments - yes s/he might have got lucky, but the next person/s are likely to straighten things out. I still think someone on the sharp end of a ground up ascent has a better feeling of how intimidating, blind, scary, technical, pumpy etc a route is than someone connecting a carefully choreographed sequence with known and practiced gear placements. See Grimer's post too - what did Ryan actually say?
If you had a decent guidebook in your hand there wouldn't be a problem, surely? Say TP and Ships had been headpointed and were awaiting a ground up ascents (hypothetical paralell universe situation), then surely the first ascencionist and or guidebook writer might want to point out the relative characterics of the two parallel routes? Again, too obvious to be even worth arguing over.
-
Hey - I know! Let's include all those factors and make the steps finer still. And since things like looseness, exposure, remoteness and insecurity are open-ended
In my view it wouldn't and shouldn't be open ended if adopted because those factors arent open-ended and because there would still be an interplay with the french grade.
[/quote]
You want a closed system which is both finely enough divided to be useful, and with enough range to cover routes like Breakaway and routes like Long Tall Sally? Such a scale would have to have, what, at least 10 or 11 steps? Why is it better than an E-grade?
-
:spam: this is getting worse than Cocktalk
too much willy waiving :furious:
-
If you had a decent guidebook in your hand there wouldn't be a problem, surely? Say TP and Ships had been headpointed and were awaiting a ground up ascents (hypothetical paralell universe situation), then surely the first ascencionist and or guidebook writer might want to point out the relative characterics of the two parallel routes? Again, too obvious to be even worth arguing over.
God, this thread moves fast. I'm not saying that Adam's system is unworkable, just that example like the one I gave show that it could be less informative than an E-grade. Since a major part of Adam's argument was that E-grades for headpointed routes are relatively uninformative, surely it is a retrograde step to move to a system which can be less informative?
-
I can't be certain who did the first ground up ascents of older routes - but then I don't need to be. These are already established as conventional E grade routes with numerous ascents over the years.
But is it not implicit in the proposed system that the top credit for a FA will go to the one that climbs it ground up. That for Gravediggers, the FA will say Neil Dickson, 2008. Headpointed by Neil Gresham, 1997, just like Cave Route Left hand will say Ron fawcett, 1980. done with 8pts aid by Bob Dearman, 1968? Isn't this how the top on sighters will get the credit they deserve in this system?
In the three examples above, the one who would get the FA is, in my opinin, the worst style. Jordan's is the best, because it is done in the best spirit. In the new system, would you not find that wanted most recognition would bend the rules furthest, as this example shows, and still get the most recognition?
-
I still think someone on the sharp end of a ground up ascent has a better feeling of how intimidating, blind, scary, technical, pumpy etc a route is than someone connecting a carefully choreographed sequence with known and practiced gear placements.
Yes - I think this is undoubtedly true. But the crux of the matter has to be does it make a significant difference? The many examples I've provided of headpointed routes which have retained their grades shows that it doesn't. Are there any examples of a headpointed route being found to be more than a grade out by an onsight climber?
-
[/quote]
You want a closed system which is both finely enough divided to be useful, and with enough range to cover routes like Breakaway and routes like Long Tall Sally? Such a scale would have to have, what, at least 10 or 11 steps? Why is it better than an E-grade?
[/quote]
Because it seeks to seperate the risk from the difficulty of a route in a way that the E grade doesnt.
10 or 11 steps would be well over the top - a French 6a route might for example attract the top risk category and a French 8c the lowest risk category.
-
The headpointer, was sport climbing without bolts and should grade accordingly.
Stupid statement. I spend much more time onsighting on bolts than I do redpointing, just because that's what i enjoy. The onsighter is 'sport climbing without bolts' too, they're just onsight sport climbing without bolts instead of redpointing without them. Which one do you think is likely to feel closer to sport climbing - onsighting bastille or headpointing end of the affair?
I said earlier in the thread/s that I agreed that grit was a special case and might be better described by a Font grade + risk assessment. Your example highlights this anomaly, but it doesn't undermine the overall argument. How about if I'd said 'The headpointer, was redpointing without bolts and should grade accordingly', or is that still a 'Stupid statement'?
However, he could have made the same point by saying "which would feel more like sport climbing - onsighting the hollow man, or onsighting requiem?". The point is the same differences that make grit "a special case" do exist on all rock types, if perhaps to a lesser extent. This will reduce the utility of adam's proposed system. Surely you must acknowledge this, even if you think it is not an important enough factor to destroy Adam's proposal...
Maybe, to an extent, but the differences are not as marked and your example is poor. Hollow Man would feel a bit like an edgey wall climb and Requiem would feel like a steep edgey wall climb. I've done plenty of sport routes that fit either category. The point with grit is that it is typically (although not exclusively) less about the pumpy physicality and more about the 'feel', no?
-
Yes - I'd agree with that. My examples may be poor, but what I was trying to say is that the "feel" is a significant factor away from grit too, and Adam's system will work poorly if it doesn't take that into account.
-
Whatever happened to the "H" grade? That would work. And when the route receives an ascent in proper style, simply change the H grade to whatever E grade is required. Simple.
-
How about if I'd said 'The headpointer, was redpointing without bolts and should grade accordingly', or is that still a 'Stupid statement'?
Yeah, that's a fine statement.. but it doen't really back up your proposed grading system anymore, which seemed to be based around the fact that headpointing is like sport climbing. My point is that to me it's no more like sport climbing than onsighting is. Feel free to replace EOTA with indian face in the sport example if you don't want to bring grit into it.. This a tangential bullshit anyway..
Basically I see no real advantages to the new system. What advantage would this change bring instead of just giving french grades and E grades together? I genuinely don't think it would change anything in the media for the reasons repeated multiple times in this thread.
H grades etc (though i realise that's not what you're proposing simon): these seem to have much more potential to make onsighting harder then help it IMO. At least when using E grades the first ascentionist has to put some time into thinking about how hard it would be to onsight the route.. Eg. Mr Beast does his new route and thinks 'That felt hard compared to other Hxs I've headpointed. Also, it's incredibly technical, unobvious, hard to find the holds and all the gear is hard to find and place on lead, the crucial piece is incredibly hard to spot on lead.' At the minute he might at least think 'right, it's probably E(x+1) to onsight'; under the H system he just gives it hard Hx like more obvious ones which are similar to headpoint.. Prospective onsighters would then have LESS info about how hard onsighting the route might be. Obviously you can put all this info in the descriptions, but we mayas well get as much info from grades as possible.
-
I said earlier in the thread/s that I agreed that grit was a special case and might be better described by a Font grade + risk assessment.
Surely the whole thing falls down at this point? Grit has sadly become pretty much the home of headpointing, and yet you're saying it will need yet another scale? Forget it.
Ryan didn't make any comments about the grade of EotA cos he's another of these guys who wants to climb a great line in the best style he can, not bag a big number and then either brag about it or downgrade it - both, unfortunately, being willy-waving as much as each other.
And Jordan wouldn't get the ground-up of Cramen Picasso cos BB guns had already bagged it five years previous. I presume this was theoretical, but you know how these things run...
-
On the publishing side, the Climbers' Club are very interested in the concept - Pete Robins has produced a sport grade list for the E6 and up routes for the revamped Llanberis guide.
As a ledge shuffler, I'd like to see sports grades on Welsh (west country, lime, ...and not just E6 and above please!) trad. routes instead of the broken British tech. grade. Martin Crocker started this with some routes in the Avon and Cheddar guide. More please.
Keep the E grade though. As Stu says, the experience onsighting is about much more than just physical difficulty + danger. It includes how blind and how fluffable the moves are, how hard it is to get the gear in, looseness, intimidation, and cumulative effect of several hard pitches. An overall difficulty including everything grade works well here.
One of the arguments used against E grades is that no-one else uses them. Well they do, they are called alpine grades. AD, TD etc. are for overall ‘feel’ and the French even have ED1 - ED5 (any similarity is coincidental, n'est pas?). So an overall difficulty grade is frequently used for ground-up climbing where technical difficulty is not always the most significant factor.
What the hell does E5 6a mean anyway?
London Wall E5 7a+, Right Wall E5 6c, The Long Run E5 6b+ says a lot more
What does E2 5b mean?
Big Crack E2 6a+, Brown’s Eliminate E2 5+, Sundowner E2 4+
And if anyone says “you can tell what the climbing is like by looking at it” they have just admitted they have no argument. It’s also not true if the pitch you’re interested in is 200’ up Cyrn Las.
-
I said earlier in the thread/s that I agreed that grit was a special case and might be better described by a Font grade + risk assessment.
Surely the whole thing falls down at this point? Grit has sadly become pretty much the home of headpointing, and yet you're saying it will need yet another scale? Forget it.
Not really - if the grit headpoint is bouldery/fontainbleau-esque, you give it font + risk whatever, if it is physical and pumpy, you give it sport + risk whatever.
-
How about H = hypothetical, E = Established :goodidea:
-
tc i'm not sure about the ethical issues around awarding one of your own ideas a 'Good Idea' smiley. Doesn't an idea need to be confirmed as good by someone else. At least put a H beside it.
-
E for eveything...
i have a unique system for grading scary/hard/dangerous/beutifull/ routes......
-
Like what your saying Duncan.
It's one thing to attack headpointing and pre-inspection, but the fact is that E9 and above exsists because of such tactics (this isn't the 1950's). Whether you consider such routes as 'lost' for later generations to establish on-sight is another question.
Style and grade are different things. Get off your on-sight high horses.
-
tc i'm not sure about the ethical issues around awarding one of your own ideas a 'Good Idea' smiley. Doesn't an idea need to be confirmed as good by someone else. At least put a H beside it.
I think he's confirming the same idea I put forward in my first post on this thread. I'll take the Good Idea Retro-Flash.
P.S. I am absolutely amazed that any climber would be daft enough to claim to struggle to tell the difference between London Wall and The Long Run, particularly as the guidebook that you're reading the very grade out of will tell you the bloody difference.
P.P.S. Abbarrow, the idea is that H grades would be absolutely and directly correlated to E grades, just have a different letter to indicate how it's currently been done. H9 ===== hypothetical E9 (really, it's the 9 bit that matters). I.e. they would not reduce the clear information in the slightest, just add an extra indication for those who are interested in what style it has been done in.
Not of course that they necessarily should be introduced.
-
H grades are Houdini grades, Shirley?
-
Dear god no. Surely that was just for bouldering i mean drunken ramblings...
-
To recap
Houdini H grades are for bouldering - possibly taking account of jungle isolation and intoxication.
Headpoint H grades are like E grades, but with practice.
So presumably, highball boulder problems might get HH grades?
To clarify with an example.
Angel's Share might be H8 as a headpoint, H8 as a Houdini style boulder problem (quite tricky, but not far from help/the carpark), or HH8 as a highball boulder problem that could be worked on a rope.
Sorted
-
Style and grade are different things. Get off your on-sight high horses.
Style is everything. Style is an expression of individualism mixed with charisma. Fashion is something that comes after style. So there.
-
I honestly love the pre practice ascent's to on sight/flash on gritstone as you are free to enjoy all the movment and emotional input, without the wobbleing and pre anxiety/nervous addaption to climbing on sight.
I really enjoyed messing around with some of the route's on the grit,and left the on sighting for mountain trad, and flashes for sport climbing,,, never liked the term "headpointing".
E grades are important, and, again, as my point with the uk tech grade, reflect our ability to perform top level climbing in "style"... we are unique, and this will drive me to perform to my upmost ability...
for example, in Spain, my route...The Second Coming (8A), was bolted slightly incorrectly (a straight line of 11 bolts, but it wandered at around the 6-7 bolt). the guy who did this... asked me to belay him, whilst he chipped holds that would allow the route to submit... with complete conviction, I asked to "have a look first" and nailed the crux first go...Nacho was blown away, swore he would not chip again... it was a fucking nightmare to complete the redpoint (August, Sella valley), I had to return and climbed it missing two bolts in a row and taking 60 ft'ers in "typical Brit" style, this was embraced by the locals... and gave me the insight that what we do is special... I can relate this to many experience's, but feel that I would not have performed to this (my limit) without our heritage...
E ? number, letter. really works and will not require adjustment as it reflects more than just difficulty,,, but history, and helps to preserve rock faces from the bolt and hammer.
-
Style is everything. Style is an expression of individualism mixed with charisma. Fashion is something that comes after style. So there.
[/quote]
Style is the manner in which something is done. Style, as far as climbing goes, is an expression of ethics. :devangel:
-
But is it not implicit in the proposed system that the top credit for a FA will go to the one that climbs it ground up. That for Gravediggers, the FA will say Neil Dickson, 2008. Headpointed by Neil Gresham, 1997, just like Cave Route Left hand will say Ron fawcett, 1980. done with 8pts aid by Bob Dearman, 1968? Isn't this how the top on sighters will get the credit they deserve in this system?
That's not how I anticipated it working, you've got it the wrong way round. It is a style improvement, a bit like your pts of aid example.
e.g. Dinosaur E5 6a [P Crew, J Brown (10 pts) 19.06.66, FFA: R Fawcett 1980]
or
Gravediggers E7 6c [N Gresham (Headpoint), 1997, FGU: N Dickson 2008)
(Incidentally a note for Stu, this is a route where the current GU consensus is E7, whereas the route was given E8 for a headpoint ascent.)
-
The last part of your post ignores the reality of the situation at the crag. Aside from the F7b+ X grade, a would be ground up ascencionist will have a guidebook or wiki description and their own eyes and experience (not to mention the reputation that a prominent headpoint will have) to go on. They won't be operating in the information vacuum that you suggest.
You've ably demonstrated that whilst the "nu-media" for climbing is capable of keeping the information up-to-date its not always available to those who would use it (as guidebooks take longer to make it out, and aren't bought by everyone)...
And anyway Caff wouldn't know what a computer was if it landed on his head!
:-\ :shrug:
I'm not sure I understand your first point. :shrug: We are talking about a very small number of hardcore routes - surely somebody looking to do a ground up ascent of a previously headpointed route will seek out information from wherever they can get it? This isn't a casual, 'Ooh, what shall we do today situation?' - onsighting these type of routes is a big deal.
The 'caff/computer' comment is just a humurous way of showing how some folk are not interested in the virtual internet world.
-
Gravediggers E7 6c [N Gresham (Headpoint), 1997, FGU: N Dickson 2008)
(Incidentally a note for Stu, this is a route where the current GU consensus is E7, whereas the route was given E8 for a headpoint ascent.)
[/quote]
Wasn't it the case that it was an extra runner that nudged it down a grade ?
http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=1021 (http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=1021) "..The Llanberis grapevine had informed us that Gravediggers was a bit of an eliminate and would actually be a great E7 with a side runner in the neighbouring crack line of Pretty Girls. It was 'definitely possible' to place this bomber runner from Gravediggers"
-
Like what your saying Duncan.
It's one thing to attack headpointing and pre-inspection, but the fact is that E9 and above exsists because of such tactics (this isn't the 1950's). Whether you consider such routes as 'lost' for later generations to establish on-sight is another question.
Style and grade are different things. Get off your on-sight high horses.
Despite what you might think I'm not really anti headpointing. I see it as just another style of climbing, and one that suits certain routes/crags. It is open to improvement, just as the previously aided ascent is.
That said, there are certain crags where there is a strong anti headpoint tradition, such as Gogarth. I think that should be respected and I still think one of the most impressive things that Johnny ever did was his 7 day ground up seige of Hardback - amazing commitment! There are still unclimbed lines in places like Wen Zawn which I believe should be left as ground up challenges for future generations (or this one if the top boys pull their finger out).
On the other side of the coin, in places like the Pass it seems almost normal for new hard routes to be headpointed and then left in a cleanned up state ready for an eventual ground up ascent.
I know some people would prefer a neat black and white situation (i.e. no headpointing), but I take a more pragmatic view. Let the style suit the route and the standards of the era. I know the top boys in N Wales have no particular quarms about switching to a headpoint style when the standard reaches a point where they think a GU ascent is unlikely (i.e E8+).
-
Wasn't it the case that it was an extra runner that nudged it down a grade ?
http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=1021 (http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=1021) "..The Llanberis grapevine had informed us that Gravediggers was a bit of an eliminate and would actually be a great E7 with a side runner in the neighbouring crack line of Pretty Girls. It was 'definitely possible' to place this bomber runner from Gravediggers"
No, I don't think side runners were used. It may have been because Gresham was heavily building his profile at the time and hence erring on the side of bigger numbers. Now we've got ground-up ascents where there is kudos to be gained from a downgrade. That's a cynical view, but it these factors have as much to do with where the line is drawn as the difficulty. Worth noting even Caff didn't do it first go, unlike most E7's he does.
-
I think someone should produce a DVD about Hard Onsighting in order to raise the profile.
-
I'm not sure I understand your first point. :shrug: We are talking about a very small number of hardcore routes - surely somebody looking to do a ground up ascent of a previously headpointed route will seek out information from wherever they can get it? This isn't a casual, 'Ooh, what shall we do today situation?' - onsighting these type of routes is a big deal.
The 'caff/computer' comment is just a humurous way of showing how some folk are not interested in the virtual internet world.
It was a minor, inconsequential, point that whilst the information is out there and up-to-date on wiki's, as you say not eveyrone will use those sources.
I've little to add to this debate as its about grades that I'll never be climbing, so I'll never experience how a grade of > E9 correlates to the experience and whether an alternative grading system is more appropriate, but I'd imagine those looking to on-sight or ground-up such routes understand the grades and gain some information about what the route involves from the current grading system that is applied to them.
Personally though I don't think a new grading system for these climbs would change anything. Even if the media stopped putting a big E number to things, armchair critics will still try and equate whatever the new system is back to the E-grade (for a generation or so at least).
On-sight, ground-up ascents are just as news-worthy as head-points* and deserve the same column space (if those doing such ascents are comfortable with the exposure, which may not always be the case).
Oh, and everyone should go and watch On Sight :great:
Is E8+ the trad equivalent of V8+ :P
* As a minor aside weren't some of the harder routes that Joe Brown et al put up TR'd first (see comments on Sentinal Crack (http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=320366))? Not for an instance trying to detract from the great mans achievements (that would be impossible!), but remember reading somewhere that some routes were, although it wasn't necessarily widely acknowledged in the write-ups.
-
No, I don't think side runners were used. It may have been because Gresham was heavily building his profile at the time and hence erring on the side of bigger numbers. Now we've got ground-up ascents where there is kudos to be gained from a downgrade.
So young and yet so cynical ;)
What about old Strawbs then? Does Glowacz get to grade it as the only on-sighter? Even though he's clearly not very familiar with British grades!
This is an interesting one as all the wads seem to fall off it yet are adamant that it's only E6. Madness.
-
It's like the line in the seminal hard grit article - Dangerous Crocodile Snogging - 'once master's edge gets onsighted it should be downgraded, on principle, to E6'. What piffle, marred an otherwise brilliant piece.
-
What about old Strawbs then? Does Glowacz get to grade it as the only on-sighter? Even though he's clearly not very familiar with British grades!
This is an interesting one as all the wads seem to fall off it yet are adamant that it's only E6. Madness.
Ground Up ascents count too. Pete did it in this style recently - he said E7.
-
It is very inresting to hear what people think and am glad that A. Waingright aired those views in the mag artical.I,ll just try and add something, many people who have headpointed E9 and E10 are only E5/6 onsighters.Thats a big difference but understandable, some people are very good climbers but have no kneck or composure, we all know this, and this gap seems to have widened over the years. A few years ago a I could work a sport route 3 grades harder than I could onsight and many of my friends in France and Britain were the same. Nowadays I cant or dont want to. Its the same for me on run out routes or routes with danger, I have basically less balls, the good onsighters in Britain seem fewer than they used to be. A route like Rhapsody could easily be tried on sight and find it odd that a a preliminary try was not attempted by anyone with huge ability and bigger balls, at the worst they would take some falls, at best they might have got an onsight of Requiem. Some one with 9a+ ability could or perhaps would have been able to onsight 8c, even on gear routes, if you think this is too much, well maybe it is, but its always worth having a go if its not fatal. A few years ago I lost faith with E grades, even with the terms groundup, after all groundup doesnt mean so much if you keep trying, and trying and make bits of progress due to prolonged efforts and basically more knowledge, if you are a local you can afford more time than the tourist. I refer to know the french grade and the fall facters on routes that might tax me or injure me. There have been some pretty appaling climbers who have done E9 in Britain and there are some utterly astounding ones who have operated at E6/7. While Mags need selling and some climbers need the Kudos you will see big numbers. Please dont think I am having a go,Worked routes are fine with me, headpointed routes are fine too, big numbers are fine, but please come on, the actual idea of trying a very hard route with super dodgy gear is a joke. Strawberries was not done properly for years and years after its tainted first ascent, it was the tactics used that rendered the ascent possible, and we have the same today, and will have the same tomorrow. E grades still work up to E7, above that you need some very specific info to help you out and that slack is best taken up by lots of verbales. Stevie
-
Ground Up ascents count too. Pete did it in this style recently - he said E7.
I can think of loads of routes with tricky cruxes (Strawberries is a good example in fact) where once you've found that key hold or whatever, they are very doable. The E should try and reflect the anticipated difficulty to get it first time, on the on-sight.
So to argue that as long as someone has climbed a route ground up (however many falls they take), they have the 'right' or are 'better placed' to give them an E grade is pretty weak.
-
I can think of loads of routes with tricky cruxes (Strawberries is a good example in fact) where once you've found that key hold or whatever, they are very doable. The E should try and reflect the anticipated difficulty to get it first time, on the on-sight.
[/quote]
For a time I bought into that 'truism'. Steve Mac recently pointed out that it was rubbish. The route has to be graded as objectively as possible for the easiest way to do it. There is nothing new about that - it was the way it was explained to me when I first started climbing.
-
For a time I bought into that 'truism'. Steve Mac recently pointed out that it was rubbish. The route has to be graded as objectively as possible for the easiest way to do it. There is nothing new about that - it was the way it was explained to me when I first started climbing.
OK then, based on that argument the best placed person to grade a route would be the one on the top rope who had worked out the easiest sequence. Not the ground upper and certainly not the on-sighter.
-
And the E-grade reflects the difficulty of hanging on and working it out....
Stevie I still think you like Adam are confusing two things: relative profiles of onsighting in the media, and information provided by proposed grades. I don't think tinkering with the latter is the most obvious way to help with the former.
-
OK then, based on that argument the best placed person to grade a route would be the one on the top rope who had worked out the easiest sequence. Not the ground upper and certainly not the on-sighter.
:agree:
(For the physical/technical difficulty)
-
Pantonion's going to love that.... ::)
-
E grades still work up to E7, above that you need some very specific info to help you out and that slack is best taken up by lots of verbales. Stevie
:great:
I was reading through the thread, gaining increasing momentum to actually be bothered to reply, and stevie beat me to it.
As an, abet punterish, north wales climber I was pleased to see Adams article, and find myself generally agreeing with most sentiments. I though the preposed grading system was a good example of the time honoured gog device; the wooded spoon. and it certainly stirred things up well.
I understand the E grade system, I like it (and the XS system for that matter) However, probably due to my afore mentioned punter status, I don't really understand why some thing gets a grade harder than E9. Obviously its harder, but more dangerous? - Surely death is death!
I agree that more information is required but maybe that should be along side the familiarity of the friendly E?
Hose
-
I though the preposed grading system was a good example of the time honoured gog device; the wooded spoon. and it certainly stirred things up well.
True!! Although I reckon On-Sight will stir things up more positively and more true to the spirit of Adam's issue than the proposed grade will.
I don't really understand why some thing gets a grade harder than E9. Obviously its harder, but more dangerous? - Surely death is death!
Errr will the adj grade tends to go up along with the tech grade. I think Walk Of Life at eng 7a is probably a lot harder than Indian Face at eng 6b/c...
I agree that more information is required but maybe that should be along side the familiarity of the friendly E?
Better than replacing it entirely, for sure.
-
I don't really understand why some thing gets a grade harder than E9. Obviously its harder, but more dangerous? - Surely death is death!
Errr will the adj grade tends to go up along with the tech grade. I think Walk Of Life at eng 7a is probably a lot harder than Indian Face at eng 6b/c...
Yes that was the niggling thought in my head as I wrote it, but I think its more that I struggle to comprehend the points and subtlties at this end of the scale.
Is it my imagination or is there more room for manuver in terms of difficulty within E5, lets say, rather than E9? or is it that they used to undergrade more in the old days...
-
It's either an open grading system, or it isn't.
It sounds like you're suggesting E10=Death. To me that doesn't work at all. If E10 7a= Death, surely a route with a 7c crux and death fall should be E13 or whatever? You can't just cap the grading at 10, that's never going to work.
-
Is it my imagination or is there more room for manuver in terms of difficulty within E5, lets say, rather than E9? or is it that they used to undergrade more in the old days...
I think the problem is more likely that there is more room for manouver in terms of difficult within English tech grades at the higher levels, due to the historic "nowt harder than 6c" attitude in the 80s...
-
Right, a bit late entry on this topic but here's my 2pence nevertheless.
The facts as I see them:
1. a combination of font/V and French grades is, by far and away, the most useful way to describe the physical difficulty of a climb from about E1 upwards, we all do it ( eg "its about 6c+ to a good rest, then V5...etc")
2. The British system fails on this front because tech grades incorporate two or three font/V grade boundaries and because the adjective component tries to combine difficulty and danger in a fuzzy way eg E4 5c for sustained-ness or boldness? And no, it's not that easy to tell "just by looking" unless you're on 20 ft of grit.
3. By clearly separating the physical and danger aspects of the grade in the American / DWS / Yorkshire (P1-3) way there can be little confusion IMO.
4. One of the reasons we've ended up in this daft situation with high E grades is because of the stupid caveat "graded for the onsight" - ok, if this is the case then it's totally irrelevant to loads of E7s, and pretty much 100% of things above. Which begs the question: what’s the fucking point in giving a grade of E12 7a? It's probably never going to be onsighted and you're still going to break it down into sport/font grades anyway.
To conclude, I don't really care what becomes of the E grade, it works, but is still a second best to the sport / danger option. So when I'm doing new routes, working routes, onsighting and generally climbing my choice information includes nothing British.
Fuck the E grade, even for onsighting.
-
People should not be allowed to discuss top-end grading till they've graded a top-end climb.
-
People should not be allowed to discuss top-end grading till they've graded climbed a top-end climb.
-
1. a combination of font/V and French grades is, by far and away, the most useful way to describe the physical difficulty of a climb from about E1 upwards, we all do it ( eg "its about 6c+ to a good rest, then V5...etc")
No. I never do that and I don't know any regular route climber who does. I'm totally familiar with sport climbing and bouldering and their grades, and have never found that having a sport grade would provide any better information (it feeling totally inapplicable to apply it to a trad route), let alone having felt the need to even try.
2. The British system fails on this front because tech grades incorporate two or three font/V grade boundaries and because the adjective component tries to combine difficulty and danger in a fuzzy way eg E4 5c for sustained-ness or boldness? And no, it's not that easy to tell "just by looking" unless you're on 20 ft of grit.
No. What is it with people and their apparent aversion to reading guidebooks and looking at a route and putting 1+1 together. I think anyone who says you can't tell MUST be playing Devil's Advocate. There's no way anyone is going see a grade, read a guidebook description that has the words "pumpy" in it or "bold" in it, and be in any real confusion.
4. One of the reasons we've ended up in this daft situation with high E grades is because of the stupid caveat "graded for the onsight" - ok, if this is the case then it's totally irrelevant to loads of E7s, and pretty much 100% of things above. Which begs the question: what’s the fucking point in giving a grade of E12 7a? It's probably never going to be onsighted and you're still going to break it down into sport/font grades anyway.
No. The system works perfectly well because it's all comparable along a functional scale. E12 is 5 grades harder to onsight than onsighting E7. It's also 5 grades harder to headpoint than headpointing E7. Where oh where is the confusion about that?? I also think that "fuck the E-grade even for on-sighting" is hardly going to sit well with the people who want to highlight harder on-sighting is it??
Once again some people seem to be desperate to make grading all complicated and confusing and mysterious when it simply IS NOT.
A grade tells you how adjectivally and technically hard something is. The description, a good look or simple common bloody sense will tell you whether it's adjectivally bold or sustained. This is for on-sighting. Headpoints are given hypothetical E-grades to fit along the scale that already works perfectly well, and everyone knows those higher E-grades haven't been onsighted but are estimated to be proportionally harder to things that have been onsighted. End of story.
-
People should not be allowed to discuss top-end grading till they've graded a top-end climb.
I can vaguely see your point, through the fog of bullshit.
I'm pretty sure I'll never climb E10, let alone E12, whatever such numbers mean anyway.
That won’t stop me from commenting however, it's relevant to this topic.
-
1. a combination of font/V and French grades is, by far and away, the most useful way to describe the physical difficulty of a climb from about E1 upwards, we all do it ( eg "its about 6c+ to a good rest, then V5...etc")
No. I never do that and I don't know any regular route climber who does. I'm totally familiar with sport climbing and bouldering and their grades, and have never found that having a sport grade would provide any better information (it feeling totally inapplicable to apply it to a trad route), let alone having felt the need to even try.
2. The British system fails on this front because tech grades incorporate two or three font/V grade boundaries and because the adjective component tries to combine difficulty and danger in a fuzzy way eg E4 5c for sustained-ness or boldness? And no, it's not that easy to tell "just by looking" unless you're on 20 ft of grit.
No. What is it with people and their apparent aversion to reading guidebooks and looking at a route and putting 1+1 together. I think anyone who says you can't tell MUST be playing Devil's Advocate. There's no way anyone is going see a grade, read a guidebook description that has the words "pumpy" in it or "bold" in it, and be in any real confusion.
4. One of the reasons we've ended up in this daft situation with high E grades is because of the stupid caveat "graded for the onsight" - ok, if this is the case then it's totally irrelevant to loads of E7s, and pretty much 100% of things above. Which begs the question: what’s the fucking point in giving a grade of E12 7a? It's probably never going to be onsighted and you're still going to break it down into sport/font grades anyway.
No. The system works perfectly well because it's all comparable along a functional scale. E12 is 5 grades harder to onsight than onsighting E7. It's also 5 grades harder to headpoint than headpointing E7. Where oh where is the confusion about that?? I also think that "fuck the E-grade even for on-sighting" is hardly going to sit well with the people who want to highlight harder on-sighting is it??
Once again some people seem to be desperate to make grading all complicated and confusing and mysterious when it simply IS NOT.
A grade tells you how adjectivally and technically hard something is. The description, a good look or simple common bloody sense will tell you whether it's adjectivally bold or sustained. This is for on-sighting. Headpoints are given hypothetical E-grades to fit along the scale that already works perfectly well, and everyone knows those higher E-grades haven't been onsighted but are estimated to be proportionally harder to things that have been onsighted. End of story.
I can agree with all of your sentiments here, up to a point.
E grades aren't a total waste of space, they're actually of some use. They ain't broke, true, but I personally gain a great deal more pertinent information from a sport type grade - for both onsights and headpoints (though I've done little of the latter). Those that I climb with tend to agree.
Take a new route I recently climbed after cleaning - about 6c+ / 7a with good gear in slightly suspect flakes and a v3 crux. That works for me.
Or one that I'm working: v3 to good gear and a rest then v8. That works for me too.
I'm not really bothered what the status quo is, because I'm happy with this situation. Clearly this isn't so in your experience, and thats fair enough.
-
The new system's effectively in use already on the gossip mill, so yeah for these popular headpoints, fine.
Although I guess you (and I'd) like credit for the onsighting efforts at Gogarth, I suspect it'd confirm a suspicion of mine that (apart from Caff and Neil) it's usually a surprisingly small canon of high end routes that get onsighted. So if these guys don't engage the services of Max Mosely and come forward from out of the limelight and give us a big lists of what they've onsighted then you'll end up with hardly anything getting an E grade. And then you've got lots of people's dubious definitions of onsight (my own included) to contend with. I just can't see it working perfectly in practise, and it'd look shit in guidebooks - you wouldn't feel like you're ticking an E grade.
Do you know if George Smith onsighted his chossy thrutch a thons? - Giving Ugly 7c (or whatever) X, would just be wrong - every fool know it's E7. End of.
Generally I think the E-grades have a big enough error margin within them for you to be able to work out what E grade it is from the french and R, X etc., even if the style of the FA was not the purest. You get weird ones where the hard bits are reasonably protected but the easier but crucial bits aren't, but they're not well dealt with by E grades either.
-
If by the gossip mill you mean Mick "finger so far off the pulse and so far up his own ringer" Ryan bleating on about it in UKC news threads to in a pitifully transparent or is that transparently pitiful attempt to stir some shit / pretend he's down with the kids of today / suck up to whichever climbing cause seems du jour this week (delete as applicable they're all the same with his posts) then - hopefully for those people who think it ain't broke so don't break it - that will probably do the grade re-inventing cause more harm than good.
P.S. slack---line yeah I guess I have got a bit of evangelism going about this. I tend to be interested in the grading system anyway, but moreover, I think it works, I think it's a good thing in this country (when it's about information, NOT ego, anyway). So this is one arena where I'll fight a bit (although funnily enough another arena where I'll fight a bit is that of promoting on-sighting....so I'm on the same side as Panton, Adam et al, really).
-
P.S. slack---line yeah I guess I have got a bit of evangelism going about this. I tend to be interested in the grading system anyway, but moreover, I think it works, I think it's a good thing in this country (when it's about information, NOT ego, anyway). So this is one arena where I'll fight a bit (although funnily enough another arena where I'll fight a bit is that of promoting on-sighting....so I'm on the same side as Panton, Adam et al, really).
Hence the wad point :hug:
-
:beer2:
Further, going back to the "real" core of the debate i.e. the issue of onsighting being under-promoted, and on a more positive note, anyone who's seen the premiers of the OnSight film itself will be in no doubt that onsight promotion will have taken a big leap forward with this film. Great film, great footage, strong ethical message with little beating around the bush (and descriptions of the experience I personally totally identified with).
So, guys, there it is, your message will be getting out that way, it's good :thumbsup:
-
1. a combination of font/V and French grades is, by far and away, the most useful way to describe the physical difficulty of a climb from about E1 upwards, we all do it ( eg "its about 6c+ to a good rest, then V5...etc")
I don't recall doing that ever. I don't see what the fuss is about with the English route grading system, it works fine IMHO.
-
I agree. However the thing this thread has highlighted is that this "fuss" is not about grades it's about egos. :yawn:
-
The new system's effectively in use already on the gossip mill, so yeah for these popular headpoints, fine.
Although I guess you (and I'd) like credit for the onsighting efforts at Gogarth, I suspect it'd confirm a suspicion of mine that (apart from Caff and Neil) it's usually a surprisingly small canon of high end routes that get onsighted. So if these guys don't engage the services of Max Mosely and come forward from out of the limelight and give us a big lists of what they've onsighted then you'll end up with hardly anything getting an E grade. And then you've got lots of people's dubious definitions of onsight (my own included) to contend with. I just can't see it working perfectly in practise, and it'd look shit in guidebooks - you wouldn't feel like you're ticking an E grade.
Do you know if George Smith onsighted his chossy thrutch a thons? - Giving Ugly 7c (or whatever) X, would just be wrong - every fool know it's E7. End of.
Generally I think the E-grades have a big enough error margin within them for you to be able to work out what E grade it is from the french and R, X etc., even if the style of the FA was not the purest. You get weird ones where the hard bits are reasonably protected but the easier but crucial bits aren't, but they're not well dealt with by E grades either.
I actually think the number of routes given a sport + risk grade in a typical North Wales guide would be very small. Only a tiny percentage have only had headpoint ascents, and the number of 'headpoint only' routes is being reduced all the time as Caff and Pete work their way around the crags. As soon as anybody does a ground up ascent, even one with lots of falls spread over several days, a route can then receive an E grade. The idea that the general climbing public is being denied their E grade tick is ridiculous - this only applies to the very top end climbers. The classic E5s will still be classic E5s - no change whatsoever.
George's general rule is to climb routes ground up - this actually suits lots of the steep, roofy things that he has done. I don't think he top roped Ugly, so it would get E7 6c, even though it is probably worth E8 (next time you are in North Wales and have a spare hour or so, drive down to Trefor and go and stand underneath this route, and then tell me you are not shocked - it's a beast! I've heard people say it's possibly F8a+.)
-
Sorry I’ve not kept up with all the replies to this thread. Did we ever get to the bottom of what exactly the minimum requirement was for the e-validating ground-up is? Is everything allowed so long as no top roping/abseiling/clip-sticking is involved? Could someone point me at the relevant post, thanks?
-
Sorry I’ve not kept up with all the replies to this thread. Did we ever get to the bottom of what exactly the minimum requirement was for the e-validating ground-up is? Is everything allowed so long as no top roping/abseiling/clip-sticking is involved? Could someone point me at the relevant post, thanks?
I think this thread is entering the Shadowy World of the Nematode.
Pantontino argues that so long as you haven't top roped/abbed a route, you can give it an E grade.
-
If by the gossip mill you mean Mick "finger so far off the pulse and so far up his own ringer" Ryan bleating on about it in UKC news threads to in a pitifully transparent or is that transparently pitiful attempt to stir some shit / pretend
I made a joke, I think, about him with his finger up his arse on UKC and it got deleted. No, I meant people actually headpointing these routes are very likely to talk about them in terms of sport grades and prang factor, probably for one thing because if they get overheard saying E9 seriosuly, out loud they'll get glanced at. So one way or other use of sport grades is happening. So you can either keep the elitist cliquey system going on at the moment, where most of us just get drip fed tit bits through the mags etc., or give everyone a fair crack of the wip and publish the information in a guidebook.
1. a combination of font/V and French grades is, by far and away, the most useful way to describe the physical difficulty of a climb from about E1 upwards, we all do it ( eg "its about 6c+ to a good rest, then V5...etc")
I hear your call, but on stamina routes I'd use a french grade not a V-grade. If it's 8a climbing, I don't want to know that it's got 12 V2 cruxes. But for grit stuff fair enough. The slabs have always been difficult to explain using french grades. I think I'd rather have a bouldering grade for the meat of the climbing on doug, Piece of mind, Heartless hair etc.
With point 2) rockfax even tried giving symbols for pumpy, sustainedness/ technical and powerful. But they never implemented the caveat `for the grade', as on anything at E7 and above you could probably guarantee a little of all of the above is involved, so even explicit symbols gave you no more information.
In reply to whoever in a moment of originality mentioned it's all about egos:
Yeah? Well so what. That's climbing
-
No. I never do that and I don't know any regular route climber who does. I'm totally familiar with sport climbing and bouldering and their grades, and have never found that having a sport grade would provide any better information (it feeling totally inapplicable to apply it to a trad route), let alone having felt the need to even try
Many climbers think in V/Font grades and sport grades for trad routes. You're out of touch :yawn:. ...and out to lunch
-
E12 7a? Absurd. Was E11 consolidated?
Just how far can 7a be stretched? If well protected 7a is E4 (Vlad the Arete - Dinas Bach, for example) how many degrees of danger can one allow before it (the system) crumbles?
-
E12 7a? Absurd. Was E11 consolidated?
Right on Houdini :goodidea: E11, there is one.
-
No. I never do that and I don't know any regular route climber who does. I'm totally familiar with sport climbing and bouldering and their grades, and have never found that having a sport grade would provide any better information (it feeling totally inapplicable to apply it to a trad route), let alone having felt the need to even try
Many climbers think in V/Font grades and sport grades for trad routes. You're out of touch :yawn:. ...and out to lunch
A thread with "top end" in the title is no place for me to comment, but Fiend's remark makes sense to me - within limitation.
I do much of my trad on grit and rarely feel that the climbing is aptly quantified by a sport grade; my experience of sport climbing being limited to long, sustainedly fingery pitches of continental limestone. Trad grit routes just seem better characterised by their cruxes - which is what the current system does (with an adjectival modifier for notable danger or strenuousness). The mooted alternative of replacing the UK technical grade with a bouldering grade wouldn't add much information either: the overall difficulty of a short sequence generally compares with the difficulty of its hardest move.
However, sport grades would feasibly add information additional to the existing trad grade for climbs characterised by sustained difficulty and preferably no stopper crux e.g. many limestone trad routes. Although, having different grading systems for different rocks / types of climb seems a bit messy. In addition, I am not sure whether the physcial difficulty of protecting routes is really within the ambit of sport grades. They strike me as being limited to purely gymnastic matters rather than whether fiddling wires in is particularly difficult etc. Would an R/X system describe how physcially strenuous it is to adequately protect a route - rather than how spaced such gear placements are?
Reading that back I'm not sure whether it makes much sense.... still, at least typing it distracted me whilst chiled water worked its magic on my elbow!
-
Would an R/X system describe how physcially strenuous it is to adequately protect a route - rather than how spaced such gear placements are?
Good point, I'd not thought of that before.. If the crucial placements are good but fiddly and awkard at a strenuous point of the route does this get counted in the 5.?? grade part?
-
Sorry I’ve not kept up with all the replies to this thread. Did we ever get to the bottom of what exactly the minimum requirement was for the e-validating ground-up is? Is everything allowed so long as no top roping/abseiling/clip-sticking is involved? Could someone point me at the relevant post, thanks?
I think this thread is entering the Shadowy World of the Nematode.
Pantontino argues that so long as you haven't top roped/abbed a route, you can give it an E grade.
Hmmm, sounds simple, but I’d bet it would get messy in practice.
So one of, if not THE main point, is to apportion credit more fairly among ascents of different styles.
Example. Climber A spends ages searching high and low along the coasts and hills and comes across a striking new route possibility on a new crag. The easier upper half of route is sufficiently vegetated that a ground-up ascent is totally out of the question. The crag is remote and he hasn’t got a trained monkey to do his dirty work for him so he is forced to blow the ground-up with a quick clean by abseil of the top bit. Route cleaned he returns another day and cruises the route from the ground with no practice.
Climber B, who is desperate to impress his sponsors, turns up and gets his mate to ab and toprope the line for him. His mate cleans all the holds, works a sequence for him, chalks and tick marks all the crucial holds and repeatedly demos the crux. He also spends ages finding every conceivable placement and checks what gear is needed and in what order. Climber B armed with this beta proceeds to take all day to complete the route, takes several unspectacular falls but getting there in the end.
Who is the hero? Has the new system succeeded in more fairly apportioning credit? History will not record the detail, just that A headpointed the route and that B did it ground-up.
My point is that the labels Headpoint and Groundup cover a huge range of styles. Once you introduce extra incentive to achieve one style over another you influence the way people, especially the sponsored, do things.
It sounds like ground-up allows for gear placed on lead to be left in after a fall, so long as the rope is pulled. Is that correct? This could render some ground-ups much easier than a headpoint where placing the gear on lead is the crux of a route!
-
It sounds like ground-up allows for gear placed on lead to be left in after a fall, so long as the rope is pulled. Is that correct? This could render some ground-ups much easier than a headpoint where placing the gear on lead is the crux of a route!
Let's be honest now, a lot of the ground up first ascents done at places like Gogarth involve a lot of frigging around and leaving of gear in place. Fantastic adventures, but as you say, these things are never black or white. In reality, it would be rare to do a totally pure first ascent on-sight, ground-up of anything harder than E6. So to me it's a bit weird to say that just cos you've started from the bottom on your 'worked' attempt, you get to give it an E grade.
-
Bonjoy I take your point but Climber B could just as easily bugger off elsewhere and warm up while his route is being cleaned - or ideally clean another line for his `lackey', and then both parties can have a go at the onsight of a new route.
Abarro - the difficulty of placing gear can go in the French grade - Parthian was described as 8a+ climbign but 8b to place the gear.
-
Bonjoy I take your point but Climber B could just as easily bugger off elsewhere and warm up while his route is being cleaned - or ideally clean another line for his `lackey', and then both parties can have a go at the onsight of a new route.
Paz, I don't think you do. :-\
-
My point is that the labels Headpoint and Groundup cover a huge range of styles. Once you introduce extra incentive to achieve one style over another you influence the way people, especially the sponsored, do things.
Yes, many shades of grey.
In recent years there seems to have been quite a bit of pushing styles forward past the headpoint norm - in a variety of ways, not all of which are as clear as ground-upping or on-sighting, but all of which show a good progression. Ground-upping above mats, ground-upping with falls, on-sighting with reversing, flashing with beta etc etc. When I read about any of these I take interest and have plenty of respect for the people doing it. Just because such ascents aren't as good as a pure onsight, doesn't detract from them, they're still noticable improvements over full-on headpointing. It definitely seems like you couldn't have a clear cut-off point....better just to applaud whatever improvements happen...
-
Fiend - So you think in my example, the new grade system would be "applauding an improvement in style" by crediting climber B with the E grade??
-
Abarro - the difficulty of placing gear can go in the French grade - Parthian was described as 8a+ climbign but 8b to place the gear.
I wouldn't say placing the gear adds anywhere near a full half french grade on Partheon, its more hard 8a/8a+ than 8a+ and you place the gear from what could be described as a matchable 'jug' with a heel on the flake obviously with the gear placements racked and organised to go in quickly........its not the making or breaking of doing the route by any means.....
-
Fiend - So you think in my example, the new grade system would be "applauding an improvement in style" by crediting climber B with the E grade??
I'd say, as your (somewhat polarised, but a fair point) example is designed to show, it's all pretty grey - so how can you allocate a black and white grade transition (whatever -to- E) based on that??
I think both of those are an improvement in style over full-on headpointing in their own ways, as to which is better it's comparing apples and pears, that's why I think all improvements should be applauded without actually drawing a line in the sand.
(I mean okay you can have the absolute pure on-sight flash which is great but there's so many variations below/before that that deserve some credit, it would be churlish and unrealistic to have such a cut-off point).
-
It seems a lot more clear cut to me! I'd say, in my example climber A, who is not considered to have ground-upped the route because of the unavoidable abseil cleaning and will, despite flashing the route, therefore be lumped into the headpoint box, has in reality made a hugely more stylish ascent than the so called ground-upper B, who has done the route with loads of falls and loads of beta.
The point is, this new system does nothing to distinguish between a good style/bad style headpoint/ground-up. There are plenty of circumstances where a a ground-up can be several steps behind a headpoint in style. Ergo is there much point in the new system if it doesn't do what it's invented for?
-
So, Bonjoy are you are prepared to ditch the whole concept just because there is potential for a lack of clarity in a what will surely only be a very small number of cases? ::)
To state the bleeding obvious once more: all ascents in whatever style are open to fudging, boundaries blur, real life doesn't always fit into nice neat categories. However despite this the number of times that this would be actually become an issue would be - in my opinion - miniscule. Basically, if a route is done in the general spirit of the ground up prinicipal it would warrant an E grade. I really don't think people are going to be as keen to bend the rules as much as you suggest, at least not just for the sake of it. If rules get bent it will be because the nature and condition of the route pushes the outcome in a certain direction. I seriously doubt that the perverse Climber B scenario would be a common phenomena.
Even on crags were most first ascents have been done in the 'abseil cleaned', but no top roping style, subsequent ground up repeats have normally occurred very soon after. Thus the supposed big issue of a blurred definition is very quickly eliminated.
-
Maybe. I'm not so sure monkeypointing, whereby you get some poor stooge to do all the cleaning and beta gathering for the intrepid ground-up hero, wouldn't become popular if the first e-tick become a highly coveted accolade. Perhaps this is more of an issue on the grit.
-
E12 7a? Absurd. Was E11 consolidated?
Just how far can 7a be stretched? If well protected 7a is E4 (Vlad the Arete - Dinas Bach, for example) how many degrees of danger can one allow before it (the system) crumbles?
Which in a way is my whole gripe with the British system.
Vald the arete is quite perfectly described by two characters: V and 8 (plus perhaps? ;)) - I don't know many "E4" climbers who could get up it. "British 7a" includes moves that I have a fair chance of working on and those that I can't touch.
I don't think anyone else in the world that has a problem with applying a 'normal' grading system (Oz, States, French) to a whole multitude of styles of rock and climbs - and yes, that includes bold adventurous trad.
Looking at a supertopo guide, at the grade conversion chart, the British system is, at best, confusing, and in reality a bit of an embarrassment IMO.
I certainly don't have an issue with onsighting lack of kudos / headpointing glorification, I couldn't care less.
I just find french grades a whole lot more informative all round - clearly I'm not alone.
If the E grade is totally suitable then why are french grades starting to crop up in guides, F&RCC for example, and why do we have whole threads on cocktalk about the french grades of classic trad routes?
People seem to want the information. But why? If the E grade is as informative, as some would say, then what use is this extra information?
-
Vlad the Arete isn't 7a anyway! British tech grades are designed to grade the hardest move encountered on a route. The hardest individual move on Vlad is probably 6c. The fact that is has a sustained sequence of 6b/6c moves doesn't make it 7a. I suppose this is where a bouldering or possibly a french grade would be useful giving more information on the overall difficulty.
-
Vlad the Arete isn't 7a anyway!
This is opinion not fact. And I think V8 is a wee bit silly considering the position/landing/historical style of ascent. V8RX?
I've nothing more to say about E12, seems a rarified concept to me. I wonder just how far technical grades can applied over all. Where do you cap their use along the E scale? Like Haston I don't see how they can be applied effectively (in the upper reaches of our system).
-
It wasn't that long ago when E5 onsight was a rare beast and E6 was more likely than not a headpoint.
Times passed, things changed, people moved on.
On a tightening curve, climbers are getting better faster now than ever before, and what's a headpoint now will soon be a ground up classic, before being a onsight tagret a while later and a route for the masses in the long term.
sic transit gloria mundi.
Let's keep the E grade as to be honest I think it works better than any other grading system.
(ps I haven't read the whole thread)
-
Vlad the Arete isn't 7a anyway!
This is opinion not fact.
Grades are never fact.
But anyway, the point is V8 describes what you can expect physically quite well, better than 6b/c/7a at any rate.
-
It wasn't that long ago when E5 onsight was a rare beast and E6 was more likely than not a headpoint.
Mmm, I think E5 O/S are still pretty rare. The logbooks on the other channel show 0.5% of all routes logged being E5 but that doesn't necessarily mean they were o/s'd. Conversely, the entries between 6c+ - 7b account for 14%. There's plenty of strong people but not many putting it to use on E5's. Obviously all do not use the logbooks BUT its probably a reasonable measure.
I suspect that there was more E5 o/s'ing going on 20 years ago than there is now :o
-
I think if anybody is unsure of how E grades convert to sport grades check out 8a.nu and look at the info from the last couple of days to clear it up, cocktalk gets a mention as well :wall: