> The New Real Grades Revolution: A Proposal.
>
> So there I was chatting away to a pal from North Wales and he mentioned the new LLanberis guidebook, seems a handful of routes have ascended a grade or 3. One of which was an E6 I on-sighted last year that left me with a distinct feeling of disappointment at how soft it was. also the face that it will be up graded to E7 what a crime! So what’s all this about then folks? Surely climbs should be getting easier with lighter stronger gear and climbing walls pushing the average standard of fitness into a new level. Beaugest (E6 6c) was climbed before sticky rubber was invented.
> Lets get in the Delorian for a trip back in time to the 80’s. There was no excuse for the dress sense and Jerry Moffat with bleached hair still makes me feel queasy, but these folk were going out and putting up nails onsight/ground up routes, sometimes on gear they had made/modified themselves. E6 was once F7c climbing on gear. The E6 route I did felt more like a really top end 5b. altho 5b is desprate most of the time, but apparently i say everything is 5b acording to my mates, So seems that doing an older route means crying aloud ‘By the Gods, that’s never an HVS! At least E4 I tell you!!!’ *****C’mon people, we had that ages ago when everyone was reluctant to be the first person to declare their route was the new E1 grade, and sure some HVS’s did rightly get upgraded to E1/2. Where is that old school decorum? Why is there such a clamour to upgrade? When older routes got sent the gear was less effective, and the climbing shoes were not a patch on even the most basic of today’s stickies. Climbers found cunning and ingenious ways around technical problems and seemingly sparse protection. Has our dependence upon finger strength and obvious, reliable gear diminished our cunning and adventurous nature? The inability to chicken wing or butterfly jam doesn’t mean the route is harder because there are no crimps, it means you fell short of the mark buddy. Deal with it.****
> I want to jump wholeheartedly onto the bandwagon of blame the mEdia (I thought that was very clever when I first saw it!) So here is my proposal for the revolution;
> - Stop upgrading stuff if you can’t do it and because you define yourself as an E(fill in grade) climber, but getting an embarrassing spanking on an E(fill in grade) in front of your ‘shirt off/beanie on’ friends makes you feel silly.
> - Climb onsight/ground up or at least be honest about the style of ascent and bloody well give routes/first ascentionists the credit they deserve for being way ahead of their time.
> - Remember what grades really are; a ‘guide’ not gospel, according to ol’ Steve McLure, being able to climb 9a doesn’t mean that you can bag any 8c (ref: Magic grades article from ages ago when that 9b+ was sent in Andalucia)
> - Bring back the old school mentality, stop being a bunch of pussies ‘oh my god I might fall and hurt myself on this it must be E15’ (yes I was exaggerating for effect) Let’s try ‘Hmmm, ground fall from 10mts, but easy climbing to good pro, tastes like E1.’
> SO JOIN THE NEW REAL GRADING REVOLUTION, IT’S THE NEW BLACK YOU KNOW
> Next week we discuss whether or not Archangel should be E9 or Mild VS: You decide......
