UKC

I was climbing at mile end today for the first time, and must admit I was somewhat confused by what the climbing grade system meant. For example at the traverse in the secret garden, it said, along the lines of V0+ Orange Hold.
I got the gist that they were graded with regards to difficulty. Furthermore when i climbed I did stick to one specific colour. But for future reference what do the prefixed letters and numbers mean, so that i can work out which route to try without fondling all the colours to find one thats not too big, not too small, but just right.

Thanks Again.

In reply to Levains_Alive: Sounds like the vermin bouldering scale (funny reflection on the character of boulderers if ever there was one ). V is just so you know that is teh scale you are using, the number starts at 0 and goes to currently 16 I think, the higher the number the harder the problem.

In reply to Levains_Alive:

OK,what you're looking at are bouldering grades. V means that they're using the Hueco V-grade system. This runs from VB (beginner), V0 (including V0- and V0+, V1, V2.... V16 (!). Some walls, rather than put up a full grading sheet noting individual problems, decide that one hold colour will represent one grade. Some places don't.

Other grading systems you'll see indoors:

Font grades. These are bouldering grades, named for Fontainebleau forest in France. These go 3, 4, 5, 6a, 6b, 6c, 7a .... 8c. There are also half grades (5+, 6b+ etc.). There's a tradition that to differentiate between Font and French grades, Font uses capitals (6B, 7A, etc.)

There's a conversion chart here: http://www.rockfax.com/publications/bgrades.html

You'll also come across, on indoor routes, French grades. These look like Font grades (5, 5+, 6a, 6a+... 9b) and use lower-case letters. They represent the overall difficulty of the route.

http://www.rockfax.com/publications/grades.html compares it to British trad grades and other systems.