UKBouldering.com
the shizzle => chuffing => Topic started by: Fiend on July 21, 2005, 10:36:50 am
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Well this forum only lasted a day without me posting a topic about grades :wink:
It is occasionally of interest to know what grade you can climb, for the purposes of personal progression and estimating what you could attempt on climbing travels...
Okay, so it's easy to find benchmark trad grades. Do a few routes in the Peak, Yorkshire, Wales, and The Lakes (to make up for all the welsh soft touches) and you'll have a good idea that will serve you well throughout the country. There's enough of a general consensus to be able to find some solidly graded routes and know if you can climb them (despite all the nitwits still whining about "blah can someone find me a really really easy e3 that's actually e1 but i just want to claim a number" etc etc SHUT UP).
But for sport stuff I don't know where one goes to find benchmark grades. My experience so far has been that there's a lot of variation, and there's not that many mid-grade sport areas in the country to get a good idea (this is for onsighting sport routes BTW). What I've found (climbing F6a-c):
Peak quarries - variable and can feel hard, rock is strange.
Gordale - felt fair.
Giggleswick - couldn't really tell.
Pen Trwyn - felt fair, slightly soft. Also it's actually good!
Scottish Sandstone (quarries and arbroath) - nails.
Costa Daurada - felt solid at the grade, not so much variation.
Costa Blanca - variable and often piss.
Mouries - nails.
Buoux - variable and often damn hard.
Fontvielle - solid to damn hard.
Orgon - okay.
Orpierre - piss.
Out of that lot I think Costa Daurada was the most consistent benchmark I found, others were too variable.
New Zealand - generally fair but very variable e.g. Payne's - softish, Castle Hill - nailsish.
South Africa - hardish.
....so where does one go to find reliably graded sports stuff that once you've done it you know you can generally do it elsewhere??
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Ravenstor
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Malham or Kilnsey for the steep/powerful/pumpy stuff, Chapel Head for the technical stuff.
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Ooops sorry for the confusion, I meant kinda low-mid-grade stuff, have edited.
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portland it appears to have had 3 or 4 guides in the last 10 years so there must reasonable agreement on grades.
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I was gonna suggest portland. Only place I've done much sport climbing in England, but all the 6's seemed consistent with each other. No sandbags, no big overgrades. And the 7as seemed alright too.
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Gig south or Robin Proctor both look good at those mid grades. If you need the new limestone guide you know where to come!
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Try going to Trow Gill. Lots of stuff in the 6a-8a range, well bolted on mostly good rock.
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Hmmm Portland suggestion quite a decent one.
Any more??
Surely all you hardcore boulderers must have bumbled on F6c at some point and got an idea what's what??
Any comments in the places I've listed??
Incidentally was having a look at the YMC Limestone book the other day, very nice, quite a few inspiring places given it's limestone, and photo-tastic as well, almost worth it for the Gaskins alone. FH if you could just relocate premises 50 miles further south I'd happily pop in for a copy :wink: