[slackline]

People should not be allowed to discuss top-end grading till they've graded climbed a top-end climb.

[Fiend]

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.

[Danny]

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.  

[Danny]

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.

[Paz]

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.

[Fiend]

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).

[slackline]

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 

[Fiend]

 

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 

[Falling Down]

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.

[Jaspersharpe]

I agree. However the thing this thread has highlighted is that this "fuss" is not about grades it's about egos. 

[Pantontino]

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+.)

[Bonjoy]

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?

[T_B]

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.

[Paz]

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

[Moo]

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 . ...and out to lunch

[Houdini]

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? 

[Moo]

E12 7a?  Absurd.   Was E11 consolidated?

Right on Houdini  E11, there is one.

[moose]

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 . ...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!

[abarro81]

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?

[Bonjoy]

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!

[T_B]

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.

[Paz]

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.

[Jaspersharpe]

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.

[Fiend]

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...

[Bonjoy]

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??