Making sense of Font gratton problems.

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Fiend

Whut
Joined
Mar 4, 2004
Messages
13,893
Even by the usual bewildering anomalousness of bouldering morphology and grading, these are exceptionally anomalous (worse than Moonboard """benchmarks"""??) and I'm wondering if there is any way to get one's head around them.

From what I can judge, on slabs, say, up to 80 degrees, gratton problems are merely a couple of grades sandbagged. Then for, say, every 5 degrees steeper, the given Font grade increases a grade, but the sandbagging increases 2 grades. Get to vertical and you've got something given 2 grades harder than a slab but is actually 6 grades harder compare to anything else anywhere else.

Obviously this is due to a very specific style which seems to require very specific traits:
  1. Leather hard, bone dry skin, but not too thick so it wrinkles nor peels.
  2. Bullet hard finger pulp / soft tissue, preferably with no functioning nerve endings left.
  3. Perfectly broken in edging boots, specifically cut and sanded down to fit the footholds.
  4. Extreme flexibility esp in hips. Full balls/minge-to-the-floor frog pose essential rather than merely useful.
  5. Be 60kg or less. For every 5kg over that, also add a grade.
  6. Ideally have climbed Font gratton problems regularly for decades rather than years.
I do like the idea of them, especially off-vert. I made it a mission in 2023 to climb a 6C gratton problem (which I managed in 2 sessions, compared to multiple flashed 6Cs, a few flashed 6C+s, several 7As after brief working etc), I also had two gratton problems I was seriously projecting and will go back for. And I really enjoyed the pseudo-gratton problems on Split Rock in Coppermines (with more conventional expositions of the grading scenario).

But I'm still curious if there is The One INSANE Gratton Trick Bleausards Don't Want You To Know....

grattons (1).jpggrattons (2).jpggrattons (3).jpg
 
My Gratton trick is just to avoid them. Can't justify the skin or the pain, many other nicer things to do. Even if I do get a plus 6 grades added on it's still not worth it.
 
I think Fiend means that the problem is at least 6 grades harder than the listed grade. It's just font being font, there are always weird super hard low grade problems that you think are borderline impossible until some bleausard swans up it in his ancient boots and towel for a pad, before disappearing back into amongst the trees like an weird french nymph.
 
What Chris said. Time and skin in Font is too precious to waste on grattons.

I share your respect and admiration for those who climb hard gratton problems, but I still want nothing to do with it. In the same way I'd be impressed by someone who can walk on hot coals.
 
  1. Leather hard, bone dry skin, but not too thick so it wrinkles nor peels.
  2. Bullet hard finger pulp / soft tissue, preferably with no functioning nerve endings left.
Controversial opinion perhaps, but for the really tiny holds (c. 5mm) that are on the flatter side, soft pliable skin is preferable. This allows the aspirant bleausard to squidge their finger pads into the back of the gratton, effectively making it a 20mm edge. Product placement warning: on a particularly thin Font slab, I found that I couldn't pull on at all without a regular reapplication of Rhino Skin Spit. Other saliva-type products are available. This is also the case for me on Beastmaker 6mm edges: they feel impossible until the skin is flexible enough to squidge into the back of them, after which they merely feel horrendous.

Unfortunately the opposite is true for slightly deeper but sharper-profile grattons, where you just have to love the line and hate yourself.

  1. Perfectly broken in edging boots, specifically cut and sanded down to fit the footholds.

The enjoyment of Font slabs wears off once you realise that you could climb the problem if you just spent £130.

Font grading is a very precise science, but there are a number of corrective factors applied, including:
  • sometimes accounting for height/danger of problem, but sometimes not, depending on who you ask.
  • some older problems are traditional sandbags, or were done before plus grades were invented, or have lost holds, or have got easier due to over-brushing, kneepads, and the discovery of footwork by the masses.
  • advances and regressions in footwear, i.e. pink anasazis were invented, pink anasazis are no more.
Edit: clarified height of problem not climber.
 
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I like a nice gratton but I've got small hands and tough fingertips

I'd rather a gratton than a sloper. Indeed, I'd rather any hold than a sloper, other than a pebble, which are the worst things ever in the world. If a climb is pebbles and slopers, it is Shit. But if it sharp little grattons I can pull like the devil on, it is Amazing
 
I think the many shapes, sizes and ages of bleausards cruising these numbers shows that it solely comes down to climbing skill, and any skin, pulp, or Anasazi based reasoning is just a feeble attempt to hide from the truth.
 
I've seen fingernails being used on grattons where the nails are wedged into the little gap at the back of a gratton. The distal bone is pointing down. I went to find some slopers.
 
I remember hearing about someone superglueing their fingernail to the cuticle to try Duel!
 
Wellsy you disgust me even more than usual. But not as much as teestub and his illogical and unhinged gibberish.

I like Tom's science but not sure how soft skin turns 5mm into 20mm, what would Darth Grader say about that?? I can confirm that as someone with reliably soft skin who gets a split once every couple of years and needs anti-hydral to even think about functioning normally, flat grattons are still horrendous.
 
Fucking LOL 🤣🤣

Just wait, when he ends up like a white, be-spectacled Ronnie Coleman, I'd like to see the gratton-love then!
 
I like a nice gratton but I've got small hands and tough fingertips

I'd rather a gratton than a sloper. Indeed, I'd rather any hold than a sloper, other than a pebble, which are the worst things ever in the world. If a climb is pebbles and slopers, it is Shit. But if it sharp little grattons I can pull like the devil on, it is Amazing
Where did the sloper touch you?

I've never been able to remotely pull on a gratton, never mind put devilish force through one. Horrible holds. Have you never experienced the elemental joy of a perfect grit sloper in perfect conditions?!
 

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