UKC

An increasing number of people I talk to these days seem convinced by the H grade and there seems to be a growing understanding of what it is. It's been thought of as a bit of an elitist joke-grade in the past; a sort of theoretical idea that would be useless in practice. But I think a lot of people get why it would be a real benefit to the UK climbing scene and particularly here on UKC!

For those who don't know what it is, it's roughly equitable to the E grade, but makes allowances for how hard sequences are to figure out without beta, how scary certain things are to onsight and how easy it is to miss gear. In recent years people have began to be drawn to it as they started to observe a "flaw" in the E grade. There have been a lot of threads about "the broken E grade", but in actuality, all we need is a slight modification in the mid to high Es/Hs.

It's not a preachy grade, telling people how they should be climbing. Instead it is born out of a necessity to distinguish between two possible methods of ascent, which a lot of people are getting into these days. It's a two-tier system, where the headpoint ascent gets a proper grade and the ground-up ascentionist knows roughly what he's getting himself in for.

There are an increasing number of routes that were originally headpointed (and often inadvertently given E grades that were actually closer to the H grade they should have been given), which are now going to be possible to onsight, but are inaccurately graded for an ascent without knowing first how to do it (which was meant to be what the E grade was for). With the H grade, you can distinguish not only between the ground up and the headpoint, but also between the onsight and the flash.

So, how about getting it on the UKC logbooks and guidebooks? Let's celebrate our beautifully complex grading system and the associated culture!

In reply to Franco Cookson:

no

In reply to Franco Cookson:

3 Pebble Slab an HHVS? My brain hurts.

In reply to Franco Cookson:

I find the combined notation of using the British grades with a bracketed french grade like E6 6b (7a+) for example, much clearer.

Sport grades are generally accepted as Repoint grades and give a clearer indication of the level physically required to climb with the E grade clearly indicating how sh*t-scary its likely to be.

No point making an already hard to understand system harder….

In reply to Stevie989:

I'd go one further and drop the UK grade in favour of a sport grade plus US-style "R" or "X".

But the likelihood of my ever having anything more than an armchair opinion on hard trad climbing is essentially nil, so ignore me.

In reply to Stevie989:

I'd be inclined to agree, especially if font grades were used for shorter routes instead of French Grades. But there's still an inherent incapability to convey an idea of the route's sustainedness.

At this point we'll get someone coming along with the old "the beauty of climbing is that there is the element of the unknown", which is of course the case, but the unknown shouldn't be whether your grade is correct.

In reply to Franco Cookson:


It is an elite grade, anybody who is head pointing a route which has never been on-sighted is elite in my book. Whether it is elitist is another thing but for me what Stevie989 said makes more sense.

In reply to Franco Cookson:

No

In reply to Franco Cookson:

I think rockfax say that their grades are for "on sight" (assuming you can nevertheless get the sequence right) for the lower grades, then there's a point (low-mid Es) where they change to "headpoint". Introducing this change at a set point, if anything, highlights the problem you're talking about.

In reply to climbwhenready:

Are you sure? I always understood climbs not yet onsighted retained the grade for a nominal onsight, so climbs of the same E grade may have different H (headpoint) grades. The real problem with UK trad is the tech grade, as 6c in particular is way too wide a band. Hence the growth of sports or boulder grade information for such routes.

In reply to Offwidth:

No, I'm not. I'm confusing it with their sport system; see http://www.rockfax.com/publications/grades/

In reply to Franco Cookson:
No, the British grading system is bollox enough as it is without more confusion. The way forward is Sport grades with either an X for bold routes or S for safe routes, or some kind of variation thereof. Done.

In reply to Franco Cookson:

No.


After all, it would be far too sensible and go against a Century of tradition of British climbing being insular, backwards looking and resistant to change.

In reply to Franco Cookson:

Just get rid of the adjective grade all together, nobody else bothers with it IN THE ENTIRE REST OF THE WORLD

In reply to Franco Cookson:

The trouble is only a tiny minority of routes would possibly benefit from having an H grade so you'd be adding more clutter and confusion to guidebooks by having other grades which, lets face it, very few would know the meaning of.

As far as I can tell the H grade is only of use in the following two cases:
(a) a route has a hard to spot sequence so making the onsight very difficult for the grade given. Rather than having two grades next to the route description maybe just put something to that effect in the description?
(b) a route is thought to be impossible to onsight. Given that it will probably get E10 or something and no-one will consider attempting it onsight anyway, does it really matter?

In reply to Michael Gordon:



I think the idea is more that, initially, when a route has only been climbed in a headpoint style ascent, it is given a H-grade alone. This is because no one can really understand what it will be like to onsight, and so cannot correctly give it an E-grade, because that's for an onsight ascent only. Then, as standards improve and people get stronger and bolder, someone will eventually onsight it, and will then be able to provide an E-grade.


It does matter! There are loads of routes out there below E10, particularly on grit, which no one would think to onsight for all sorts of reasons. If you imagine a hypothetical route with no protection apart from a bomber placement really specialist bit of kit that no one has on their standard rack, just below the crux at 10m. And then this crux invloves a blind reach to a hidden hold, say a tech 6c move. With headpoint practice, this route would be a well protected, knacky 6c move, making it around H6 or H7 6c. Onsight, this would be a blind 6c move above a death fall, making it E10 6c! Which is a big difference.

Obviously I've exaggerated this situation to prove a point but you can see why it would help.

Whether it is through a H-grade, or through an additional sport grade in brackets (maybe a boulder grade for the little grit routes), something needs sorting out!

I also agree with the point above about the technical grade - I never understand why we don't just revert to using a font bouldering grade to describe the hardest move, particularly when you get to around 6c/7a. Aside from tradition, of course.

In reply to Franco Cookson:

I'd guess that less than 1% of the UK's climbing population climb harder than E5, so it's probably not worth introducing a new classification. If you want to, fine, it makes sense, but don't expect the general population to adopt it.

In reply to dr_botnik:

There are all sorts of reasons why we might want to tweak our grading system but that isn't one of them.

In reply to Fraser:

Tend to agree with this, and this as someone who used to play in the mid E grades a fair bit. Whilst I agree that up in the heady esoterica of E5/6/7+ The current UK system doesn't work very well as most climbers headpoint, that - to me - is more of an issue with the style of ascent than a problem with the grading system. Changing the grading system to fit the style of ascent appears to me to be the wrong way around. Can I have a T grade for top-roping and possibly a D grade for dogging?

OK, no-one is going to on-sight E10 at present as most people have loved ones and a life they want to enjoy, but that doesn't mean some nutter[1] in the future will not.

Lets not break a system that serves 99.999% of climbers and 99.999% of routes very well.

[1] Probably Australian

In reply to Joughton:



I guess it's not a bad way of indicating that a route has never been onsighted. Not that an H grade would be any more useful to the potential onsighter than an E grade estimate, of course. I still think it would be more helpful if new headpointed routes were given the latter unless the FA really has no idea of the likely onsight grade.



For things like the above, couldn't the guide mention what the specialist gear was in order to help the potential onsighter?

In reply to Franco Cookson: The H grade is pointless. E grades with French grades (Font for short grit routes, route grades for longer routes) makes much more sense. Most people understand how they can be applied.

Andy F

In reply to Joughton:


I think it's neat and logical. An E-grade based on imagining how hard a route would be if you climbed it in a different style is pretty silly. The H-grade adds better, more relevant information about the route (how hard it is to headpoint compared to other routes that have been assigned an H-grade), and it adds transparency about the 'status' of the route in terms of how it has been climbed. Once a route has been climbed onsight or near enough, then the H-grade can be relegated to a footnote (but would still be useful for those wanting to take this approach). All academic to me as I don't headpoint routes but I agree with the logic. It needn't become particularly widespread, but it's a good way of describing routes that have yet to have had an onsight (or near enough) ascent, like the dagger symbol but way more specific and useful.


I like the English technical grade. A font grade is no use on a sustained route - where does the 'problem' start and end? If someone said to me that an E4 I wanted to try had a font 6b crux, I'd just ask them whether it was Eng 6a or Eng 6b, knowing that if it was the latter, I'd be bound to fall off on my first go. And more on topic, I might be able to headpoint a route with a font 7a crux if it was a few 6b moves, but it would be out of my league if it was 6c. The English tech grade rocks! Might be different at higher grades I guess.

In reply to andy farnell:



E grades with French grades (Font for short grit routes, route grades for longer routes) makes much more sense. Most people understand how they can be applied.

This bit makes sense to me. The E grade should be given as an assessment of the on sight difficulty.
We have a problem , however , when the route has never been on sighted. This is where a dagger symbol or ? or an H instead of an E should be used.

In reply to Rick Graham:

In reality though just how much use is it?

I'm assuming that the few people operating in that stratosphere of routes that haven't seen a repeat E9/10/11 are more than aware if what they are dealing with.

People working at the low-mid E grades would benefit more from the inclusion of a font/French grade as a lot of people have said.

Echo wall/rhapsody/equilibrium et al - everyone is/should be aware of how they have been worked and head pointed. Anything other than a headpoint is news worthy pretty quick.

In reply to Stevie989:


Very useful if you are writing a guidebook or attempting to climb a route not been on sighted.


I thought I agreed with that.


A dagger H or ? gives an instant indication that some research or ability may be needed and that the guidebook grade is not all it appears at face value.

I know of routes as easy as E2 that are in guidebooks and not yet on sighted.

In reply to Jon Stewart:


Yes I can see your point there, I suppose a 7a boulder problem could be a sustained series of 6b moves or one desperate 6c move.

What would better, is if the 6c and 7a grades were narrower. I.e what is now described as a 'hard 6c' move would be 7a, and 7a would be 7b ect. It's all just a bit too vague - 6c moves can be found from E6 to E10. Unfortunately, it's all a bit late for that!

In reply to Franco Cookson:

I like English tech, BUT... they are way too wide above 5a/b

Soft 5c vs hard 5c is nuts, think of how much harder the crux on knightsbridge compared to other E2s

Same for 6a!

In reply to Michael Gordon:


Well I suppose so yes, but the pedant in me is saying that kind of retracts from the onsight...

It was really just an example of how dramatically different a dangerous and hard-to-read trad route can feel on the onsight, compared to a headpoint.

And then you'd think that this could be solved by the FA realising this, and giving an E-grade accordingly, but then this leads to the problem of it being over-graded when headpointed. Which is why it would be handy to have a grading system where a route could be described as being, say H6 to headpoint, but E9 to onsight.

Then there would be other more sustained, more obvious, and better protected routes, which would have more similar H to E grades, because headpointing would make less of a difference to the difficulty of the ascent.

In reply to ashtond6:

I quite like the broad range within a grade.

I climbed a few Brit 5c's and enjoyed them and then got spanked off a sustained E2 5c (few moves believe 5b but plenty rests)

Nothing should be totally sterile. A wee bit scope or leeway is nice.

In reply to ashtond6:

I wouldn't have said there was any more width in the 5c grade than 5a or 5b.

In reply to Rick Graham:

You did agree with that yeah - it was more a general thread reply - my bad.

I've always liked - Scottish VS as a grade!

In reply to Dave Garnett:

yes but, you've got to ask, why does everyone else NOT bother about something that we do? I can't help but feel its to do with antiquated tradition...

In reply to ashtond6:




I think it's more that they're just applied differently in different areas. Pembroke 5c and Peak 5c are not the same grade, even on the same rock type. The crux of Knightsbridge is stiff 5c, but it's by no means horrendous in the Peak (similar to Suspense) - would be solid 6a in some other areas though.

Surprised I haven't been crucified yet for talk of "English" grades... Sorry, all off-topic.

In reply to Rick Graham:



The H grade is meant to be how hard a route is to headpoint, not a warning symbol. These are completely different.

The point isn't that if someone takes a wee fall on a new E2 they substitute the grade for H2. It's that if they headpoint a route and have absolutely no idea how hard it would be to onsight they give a grade which reflects the difficulty of headpointing it compared to other routes they've headpointed. And most folk don't go round headpointing E2s so this wouldn't really work.

In reply to Joughton:
Exactly! Your example is far more common than you'd imagine actually.


I think there are a few misconceptions on this thread:

A) that this is a rare occurrence. It actually happens all the time.

B) that it's adding a new grade to a system that already exists for onsights. Whilst the e grade is meant to be for the ground up, during the 80s, 90s and naughties headpointed routes were often given an e grade that is now wildly inaccurate for the ground up. Many of these have still never been onsighted and remain (not always obviously) dangerously graded.

C) that an additional grade for such routes would damage the current system. Most routes would still only have either or. I'm thinking of those thousands of h5/6s masquerading as e5s today. They'd just be h5s till they were climbed without beta at e6 or 7.

O and rick, are you about for a cuppa this week?

In reply to Franco Cookson:

No. But you do what you like (don't expect folk to join in though)

In reply to dr_botnik:

I was talking to a guy from australia recently who said he wasn't very keen on the grading system they have as it didn't reflect danger/sustainedness etc. He liked the British system.

In reply to Franco Cookson:

No.

Cheers
LD

In reply to Franco Cookson:

I'm not saying its not a valid way of grading these routes.

Physical Graffiti at Dumbarton - Given E5 6b. Its much more accurately describes as a highball 6b - Its not like there's any gear in it anyway (I dunno the nature of Garys FA but I'd assume Top rope practice and given a grade for the onsight?) so I can see your point.

At my currently level I wouldn't look at an E5 without resorting to much Top roping and bringing the route down to my level (which I don't). A Font 6b though - I could have a crack at that.

A grading system, to my mind, exists to be able to compare routes in their difficult/nature which is why I thing the addition of a French/font is more appropriate than a H grade as people already have an idea of what a 6c, for example sport route feels like.

In terms of how sustained it is - well surely you just have to look at it?

A brit (english?) 6a really tell you how sustained a route is but if the Sport grade was higher than you might expect at that tech grade then that would tell you?

In reply to dr_botnik:

No, I think it's because we developed bold climbing where placing fixed protection wasn't an option and so having a fairly accurate idea of the overall seriousness and distinguishing this from the hardest move was more important.

Anyway, it's not true that we're the only ones who bother to grade in this way. In the US they've combined the PG, R or X rating with the numerical technical grade to tell you the seriousness, although not, I think, how sustained the difficulties are.

In reply to the thread:

Yes, of course we should have an H grade where appropriate; that's just obvious for hard routes that have only been headpointed, and where the onsight would be a rather different proposition. Guide-book writers nowadays are way too conservative on the grades front. What happened to the days when guidebooks would innovate in grading?

Similarly, guide-book writers have more or less killed the Brit Tech grade at the top end by their stuffing everything into 6c and their refusal to make sensible progressions to 7a, 7b and then 7c and 8a (yes, 7c and 8a tech grade makes perfect sense -- afterall, it is 20 years now since routes with 7b moves were put up, possibly nearly 30 years).


Not so sure for low to mid Es -- the Brit Tech grade has always seemed sufficient to me. I agree at top-end E, unless people start using the Brit Tech grade properly.

In reply to dr_botnik:


You mean apart from the various Alpine grading systems that abound ?

In reply to Rick Graham:

How on earth would you know an E2 in a published guidebook hasn't been onsighted? Even if true this would be a new, overgrown or terribly minor route (and Ive seconded onsights of all three of those in combination).

In reply to Coel Hellier:

The British tech grade is a bouldering grade and is suited to those routes with a short crux section or even single move. This applies to virtually all routes done prior to the early to mid 1980s. When sports routes began to appear so the stamina of the top climbers increased and rather than getting routes with harder moves we got routes where virtually every move was hard. The boundary is roughly mid E5 to the E5/6 range.

The compression of the UK tech grade (in the 6a-c range) happened in the 1970s and to be honest was mostly down to macho willy-waving.

Pete Whillance and Dave Armstrong produced one of the Lakes new climbs supplements (can't remember which year) and did a sort of Lakes' Top Fifty Technical climbs with four bands, the easiest routes were 6b but rather than bite the bullet and give the harder bands 6c, 7a, 7b they left them all in the 6b/c range.

At the moment the grading system isn't far off: adjectival for climbs below VS in standard; adjectival plus tech grade for routes between VS and E5; adjectival, UK tech and Sports for routes from E5 upwards. All that's needed to accommodate routes that haven't been onsighted or done ground up is a reintroduction of the old dagger symbol (Unicode symbol U+2021) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagger_%28typography%29

In reply to Coel Hellier:



Isn't this more the result of the grades given by the leading climbers of the time?



Agreed.

In reply to Michael Gordon:


There are examples of first ascentionists giving it a high grade and then guide-book writers knocking it down a notch just to be on the safe side. Ultimate Sculpture is an example. The Very Big and the Very Small is another example (though that is a sport route).

In reply to Franco Cookson:

I don't understand what all the fuss with UK Trad grades is. They're not that hard to understand and the quirkyness and variation is just part of the fun. The issue is with the style of ascent, not the grading system. If someone needs it all laid out for them, then surely they can just go sport climbing, or even bouldering...

I think it should just be left as it is and people should just embrace the adventure a little more. Although, I am aware that there's more disparity as the grades get higher, but generally that's what a guidebook description covers.

In reply to JezH:

There's more than just "more disparity" at higher grades; there's a complete breakdown of the UK tech grade above 6b. You could argue that we don't need tech (or indeed any) grades at all as we can say everything we need in descriptions, but if we think grades in guidebooks are helpful at all then it makes sense to have useful grades for all climbs regardless of the level. That means either a wholesale revision of UK tech grades (unlikely since they've been broken for so long above 6b) or the use of other grades (French, Font, H, etc.) instead. Doing nothing is what got us here in the first place, with all manner of grading systems now in use for different kinds of harder routes.

In reply to john arran:

See my post of 11:22 yesterday and Rick Graham's of 22:34 on Monday.

adjectival for climbs below VS in standard; adjectival plus tech grade for routes between VS and E5; adjectival, UK tech and Sports for routes from E5 upwards. All that's needed to accommodate routes that haven't been onsighted or done ground up is a reintroduction of the old dagger symbol

The only way that the UK tech grade will get sorted out is if a guidebook writer/team take it on. Whillance/Armstrong had a stab at it but it wasn't applied. There's still a lot of willy waving going on: routes don't get graded correctly because others come along and say "oh it's only ..." essentially forcing a false ceiling on the system. It wouldn't be that hard to do: start with a sorted list in the manner of the Whillance-Armstrong top 50 list and introduce boundaries, at each boundary increase the grade.

No-one does it because no-one wants to step out of line.

In reply to john arran:

Broken in what sense? What harm is it actually doing? Seems to me there has always been a bit of flux in the upper grades.

In reply to john arran:


Possible though. I guess it would be similar to when HVS and Extreme were introduced, in that the grades below a certain level (6c?) wouldn't need changing, only the harder ones subdivided.

In reply to DubyaJamesDubya:

I think they mean there is too much width in 6c and 7a. Like if 5a and 5b were just one tech grade we'd all say it's far too hard to tell how hard the moves were going to be.

In reply to DubyaJamesDubya:


In the sense that they're often not even guessed at for new routes nowadays, the width of 6c is laughable and overlaps hugely with the few 7as that exist, and most tellingly that most climbers operating at 6c and above are no longer interested in using them since there are other systems available they see as more useful.

To 'fix' the tech grade problem, surely the easiest solution is to add pluses above 6b/c (and if neccessary minuses)?

Then 6c becomes 6c-, 6c, 6c+; 7a becomes 7a-, 7a, 7a+. Then only the current hardest (undergraded) climbs need to be upgraded to 7b-/7b. If you get an old guidebook, the grades are more approximate than the new system, but still roughly accurate.

In reply to Franco Cookson:

For most people the current system presents few problems. Difficulties arise when routes have been cleaned on abseil with moves tried to see what needs cleaning and when routes are truly bold and/or technically very hard. In the first scenario it is hard to grade things which you have cleaned and tried and it probably takes a while for some kind of consensus grade to settle. This works well where things are actually repeated but not so well when they aren't. The FAs suggested grade is really a suggestion of how hard they think it might be to onsight. For this situation a uk grade should work with honesty about how the route was done/ information about pegs in place/removed etc.

In the second scenario where routes are head pointed because they are so hard/bold a grade for the difficulty of headpointing makes sense as the FA can make an actual judgement about that as that is what they've done. They can't easily make a judgment about how hard it would be to onsight as they haven't done that. Maybe an idea here could be to have actual honesty as to the style of ascent which to be fair an H grade does give.

Maybe actual honesty about the style of FA might negate the need for an H grade. As for uk tech grades being broken: for the majority of climbers in the uk they work very well. For those operating above 6b then I think a French or a font grade might be more appropriate depending on the nature of the route. As usual it will take a long time for any changes in system to take effect; geological timescale possibly!

In reply to andrewmcleod: Bit like what was in Bancroft's mid 70's Peak developments guide

That is the easiest solution but unless it's adopted by a guidebook somewhere then it won't happen because use of French & Font grades for hard routes is already significantly established.

In reply to Franco Cookson:

it's roughly equitable to the E grade, but makes allowances for how hard sequences are to figure out without beta, how scary certain things are to onsight and how easy it is to miss gear.

So an onsight grade then? As the adjectival grade should be

Fine if you want to use it on hard bold routes i but then can that just not be conveyed in the description without embarking on an elaborate coding system?

In reply to Michael Gordon:

Ok. Just seems odd that it got that way. Were people too scared to grade things 7a?

In reply to DubyaJamesDubya:

Apparently so, though as others have noted some of it was the sort of backwards willy waving (false modesty / sandbagging) that it seems only climbers seem to do. I get the impression Cubby was perhaps one of the exceptions, with many of his 7a routes/projects since 'downgraded' to 6c by the likes of Dave Macleod. Not that one can necessarily criticise the latter, since under the current system that is presumably what they are.

In reply to Bulls Crack:



I think I know what Franco meant to say (that it DOESN'T make allowances for these things and therefore differs from grading for the onsight) but yes, he could have worded that sentence better.

In reply to Michael Gordon:



But I consider the onsight to include all those things!

In reply to andrewmcleod:



That would surely be a cop out, a half baked solution which really solves nothing. Better to make them real grades in line with the rest of the scale (e.g. turn your 6c+/7a- into 7a and your 7a/7a+ into 7b).

In reply to Bulls Crack:

Exactly. The Headpoint grade obviously wouldn't include those things.

In reply to dr_botnik:


Coming from the land of ewbank, your grading system(s!) always struck me as needlessly complex. As for making it more complex, well you can guess what I may think of that.

In reply to DubyaJamesDubya:

Part of the reason people were too scared was they were afraid of being ridiculed for (being the first) to grade something 7a, etc

In reply to Franco Cookson:

Yes, the H grade should definitely be widely adopted, but I think it will unfortunately always meet with lots of resistance. This is because big E numbers mean big kudos and big headlines for sponsored heros - the average punter can relate to E grades but many won't be able to relate to what H means. Big H numbers will not sell as many pairs of boots or whatever as big E numbers; it is not in the commercial interest of those with the relevant influence to adopt them.

It would be very healthy for climbing for E grades no longer to be associated with frigged ascents - it might well result in more people climbing properly onsight.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Yes I agree.

When a new route is climbed and given an E grade, the first question asked will be " Did you on sight it ?"

If not, the route will get a note to that effect ( or a symbol or H grade )

The kudos ( and potential sponsor ship ) will then go to the first on sighter who can give the route a genuine E grade.

In reply to Rick Graham:

This is totally stupid. Climbers don't do new routes just for kudos or sponsorship! Doing new routes involves time and effort of cleaning as well as finding the line in the first place. All of this means that it can't be onsighted by the fa. This is fine as doing new routes can be satisfying and fun nonetheless.

James

In reply to james mann:


I agree that new routing is a lot of fun and most of the time has little or nothing to do with kudos or sponsorship, but at the same time I've done new routes from Stanage to Range West to Orkney and I'd say that more of them were climbed onsight than weren't. Onsight new routing is probably the most fun you can have on rock.

In reply to james mann:


Yes, so the new router gets the fun and the first onsighter gets the big E number kudos where it's actually due. Everyone is happy! And the onsight new router quite rightly gets the lot.

In reply to Robert Durran:

That's quite a good point Robert. I guess as long as people are really honest about how things are done it doesn't really matter. I wonder of the really classic routes in Britain which ones were truly onsighted and which were done with a little or a lot of jiggery pokery? By this I mean aid, inspection or top roping. It doesn't necessarily mean bad routes afterwards, just that the style of ascent evolves as climbers evolve, gear evolves and the line cleans up with Traffic. Multiple attempts and tenacity in getting a line done should be rewarded with more than derision about not onsighting in some cases. I am not talking about chipping and other more dubious tactics here.
James

In reply to james mann:


Of course many of the great routes were done with plenty of jiggery pokery and were still great achievements. But the greater pure climbing achievement is definitely the first onsight. If more reward than satisfaction and fun is due then H and E grades respectively are what is appropriate.

In reply to Franco Cookson:

if everyone rates a route on ukc after they have done it then surely the ambiguity might get averaged out and the grade be more accurate?

In reply to Michael Gordon:

But then every old guidebook is wrong, as opposed to imprecise - and every current 6c/7a climb needs regrading.

In reply to Robert Durran: We don't need the H grade. E grades will work fine if they are tied in with Font/French route grades. Just look at awesome Mawson's new route in Pembroke which he gave E10 8b+. E10 indicates the danger, 8b+ the overall difficulty.

Lets be honest, the OP just want's justification for his own grading system as he hasn't a clue how real grades work.

Andy F

In reply to andy farnell:


It's got absolutely nothing to do with the debate about Uk Tech/Font/French grade debate. it's about whether it is sensible to attach a hypothetical onsight E grade (along with the kudos that inevitably goes with it) to a route which has not been onsighted.

I think Franco is right and refreshingly honest in advocating H grades.

In reply to Robert Durran: As others above have said, along with some of the UK's finest climbers, E grades and Font/French grades are the way forward. People operating at the top end understand the system, the grades and how they work. They know the history of the routes.

The H grade is like the P grade. An idea which will be ignored as the current system covers all the bases. Let's be honest, it's just willy waving, a big 'look at me I'm ace'.

Andy F

In reply to james mann:



"Climbers don't do new routes just for kudos or sponsorship!"
I did not say that.
I was agreeing with Rob's post and expanding the explanation of the concept a bit.

In reply to andy farnell:

I agree, but it makes sense to me to use H rather than E for a worked ascent - it is more accurate and more honest.


No, it's the very opposite; it's saying "I'm afraid I only headpointed it". It's actually rather humble.

In reply to andy farnell:




All fair comment.
All I think being suggested is an extra symbol ( dagger , question mark etc ) to indicate whether the grade given and the style of ascent is totally transparent and realistic.
Hollow stars are the same concept in many ways.
Expanding your comment that everybody knows the history of the routes, you might as well forget all grades and say X route is harder than Y.

So quite simple really.
E + tech or Font/ French whatever with no extra symbol or text comments when the route has eventually been climbed on sight.
Some additional symbol or H instead of E until the on sight happens. This treatment can happen to routes of any grade.
One simple symbol neatens guidebooks and can replace loads of waffle.

Surely this is not that controversial, why are tempers high?

In reply to Robert Durran: The OP wants his grading system adopted to justify his own grades. Hardly humble when you look at it that way.

Andy F

In reply to Rick Graham:

I don't think it would work in guidebooks - assuming the 'H' (not been led on sight) is correct when the book is published - possible a big assumption - the information in the book is instantly out-of-date when someone does 'the right thing',


Chris

In reply to Chris Craggs:

In the Lakes ( and elsewhere ) , new routes and repeats and grade revision comments are up dated daily on the FRCC website.

In reply to andy farnell:


Presumably he doesn't feel happy with giving a big E number to a route he has not onsighted, which seems entirely realistic and humble to me. The whole point is that he can't justify an E grade.

In reply to Chris Craggs:


Why is that a problem? The same could be true of a dagger, but guidebook writers have not had a problem using that. Anyhow, the same applies if you give it an E grade -- that E grade could be found to be wrong "when someone does 'the right thing'".

I'm a bit baffled by the resistance to H grades. It seems to me obvious that it is better to give an H grade to a hard route that has only been worked rather than on-sighted. It is more informative and more honest.

As with the tech grade 6c/7a issue, guidebook writers have been way too conservative in the last couple of decades, rather than making sensible innovations.

In reply to Robert Durran:


The OP is the greatest advocate of the H grade because he doesn't know how to use the E grade correctly, as has been discussed at length on this forum. The H grade is his way of disguising his lack of experience outside the N. York moors. He wants his opinions ratified by UK to give himself validity in his grading.

in the first post he says that more people are coming round ti his thinking. In his own back yard maybe, but nationwide? I think not.

In reply to andy farnell:


Yeah, we know you don't like Franco, but still, you're being unfair. His grades have been sensible, and there are notable leading climbers have given H grades to climbs and supported H grades.

In reply to Coel Hellier:
I've never met the lad, so how you can think I dislike him is very questionable.

I do think he needs some evidence of experience outside the N. York moors to give credence to his own grades. As I've stated previously, if he goes elsewhere and repeats other E jolly big numbers, or hard sport and repeats bouldering big figure then I will stop questioning his own grades.

There have been a few uses of the H grade in The Peak, but afaik its gone the way of the B grade in bouldering.

In reply to andy farnell:


If one is doing bold head-pointing at ones limit it is entirely natural to be more interested in doing new routes on home turf than in repeating routes further afield.

In reply to Franco Cookson:

I think you probably already know my opinion on this but... The short answer is no. For a variety of reasons:

1. The 'problem' Franco is talking about is actually exactly the same in sport and bouldering as in trad climbing. Zoolook is probably more like 8a+ to onsight, 8a to redpoint. Short powerful routes are often much harder to onsight than long stamina routes - this is true in both sport and trad. Ondra's hardest graded onsights are 9as. Yet as I understand it, he thinks his actual hardest onsight was probably a short 8c.

But that's just the way things are. You can't start having a route graded: redpoint - 9a, flash with pictures - 8c+, flash with videos - soft 8c+, flash after watching 30 people try it with all possible sequence possibilities over a period of 10 years - 8c, onsight - soft 8c etc etc. It just gets ridiculous. You just grade for the optimum sequence - and if it's hard to spot that sequence, the route gets a reputation as being hard to onsight (but sometimes relatively straightforward to flash etc etc) - and that info can be written in a guidebook description if desired.

2. Style is COMPLICATED. ANY grading system in which the grade given is tied to the style in which a route is climbed leads to one thing - a total clusterf***. If you think about all the arguments about whether or not such and such an ascent is actually an onsight...

3. A route should be graded based on the best (known) sequence and the best use of gear. All the cobblers talked about "grading for the onsight" is just that. This is the only reasonably objective thing which can be given a grade. The SKILL in onsighting is to get as close as possible to the optimum sequence and optimum use of gear. Most people might find such and such an E5 really hard to onsight and end up if they manage it, climbing it by something like a Fr8a sequence. Then Caff rocks up and paths it, spotting the correct (Fr7a) sequence without any trouble. You can't give such a route E9 or H9 or you'd be writing national headlines about people climbing piss easy routes. It's an E5 which takes someone with sufficient skill to spot the optimum sequence.

4. As I and plenty of others have said at length high end E grades work fine when combined with either French or Font grades. See:
http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,23580.25.html
for a full length rant on the subject - and another half way down this long thread: http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=434742

To those people still talking about changing the UK tech grade at the top end to try to make it work - you are pissing in the wind. No one sane who climbs at that level is even remotely interested.

The reason is that the whole point of grades is to allow comparisons of routes. Even the best have climbed very few E9's - so have very few routes of a similar physical difficulty to compare their new E9 to - whereas they have done stacks and stacks of similar physical difficulty sport routes - hence it's extremely easy to assign a sport grade - that's how people climbing at that level compare physical difficulty. Precisely the opposite is typically true at lower grades in the UK - people climbing HVS have typically climbed stacks of other similar physical difficulty HVS's, E1s etc etc - so comparing things by UK tech grade rather than a sport grade makes sense (especially as there are large numbers of low grade climbers in the UK who don't sport climb at all.)


I could go on, but since I think H grades are extremely unlikely to actually be adopted, it seems a little like a waste of time.

In reply to Coel Hellier: So those repeaters of The Indian Face, The End of The Affair etc were only interested in putting up new routes? To quote Carl Sagan " extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence".

Andy F

In reply to andy farnell:


It was indeed discussed at very great length until someone who everybody agrees knows what he is talking about came along and repeated the route, the upshot being that Franco turned out to be spot on and that you had made a veritable arse of yourself. For some reason you are still in complete denial about this.

In reply to Robert Durran: The fact the route in question went down 2 full grades evade you? I was entirely justified in my assessment that the initial grade was wrong. E10 is not E8. And the one thing I didn't resort to was abuse.

Andy F

In reply to Nemo:

What's interesting is that all your arguments could be easily used in favour of H grades! You argue that routes should be graded based on the best known sequence and use of gear. This is precisely what is proposed with H grades... Whether you think it is a good idea or not, E grades are for the onsight. This may be a stupid idea, but it is the standard. In the case of your (extremely hypothetical) example route, then E9 would indeed be the correct grade. After all, it takes an 'E9 climber' to onsight it (even if they find it easy). If this is stupid, then E grades are stupid, which leads us to...

(personally I am fairly indifferent about E vs H grades since they don't, and probably never will, affect me in any way!)

In reply to andy farnell:


That's not what I said, and it does not follow from what I said.

In reply to andy farnell:


No you were not. The grade was given for a normal rack of gear and the grade seems to have been fair for a normal rack of gear.

In reply to Nemo:


Well, no it isn't. In the sport case, if you get the sequence wrong and it's 8c not 8b+, then you might find yourself dangling on the rope. That's a whole different thing than bold trad, where the difference between E8 and H8 could be serious injury.


The argument for French grades is about the technical part of the grade. That's rather irrelevant to the difference between an H grade and an E grade, which is more about the likelihood of serious injury.

In reply to Coel Hellier:


He soloed it. There was no rack of gear. Dave found gear. He gave it E8. Franco therefore soloed an E8. He didn't solo an E10.

Your argument that he only does his own bold solo's and doesn't repeat other peoples is pointless . Lots of others repeat bold routes.

Andy F

In reply to andy farnell:

On the presumption that there was no gear -- which, with any normal rack, there isn't -- the grade was fair enough.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

It's valid to ask whether an "average E8 climber" (ho ho) would be expected to have a bit more than a normal rack though.

Although it's also valid to ask whether, even if they did have dozens of specially adapted bits of gear to fit in mono pockets, they'd be confident of getting the right one in on an onsight lead rather than checking what fits from the comfort of an ab rope. If they wouldn't then, ironically, Franco would have been right to say that it's E10 but wrong to say that it was H10.

In reply to Coel Hellier:


The fact he missed the key piece of gear is his fault. Someone with more experience (of climbing his own and others hard bold routes) came along, spotted the gear, down graded it. So the grade is E8. What bit of that do you not get?

Andy F

In reply to andy farnell:


First, no it isn't, if none of the normal things you can buy in a normal shop would fit. Second, that's irrelevant to whether the grade he gave it was sensible. The fact is that, on the presumption that there was no gear -- which is true for any normal rack of anything you can buy in a typical gear shop -- the grade was fair.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

>"The argument for French grades is about the technical part of the grade. That's rather irrelevant to the difference between an H grade and an E grade"

Indeed - I was replying to a bunch of different things at the same time which ended up being a bit confusing to read I'm afraid.


>"In the sport case, if you get the sequence wrong and it's 8c not 8b+, then you might find yourself dangling on the rope. That's a whole different thing than bold trad, where the difference between E8 and H8 could be serious injury."

Entirely agree. Clearly in the case of dangerous trad routes, if a route is much harder to onsight than the grade indicates, then guidebook writers need to indicate that in some way.

My point is that it is far far better to indicate that in the description - where you can be clear what the issue is - hard to find gear, an unreadable dyno or whatever. Trying to quantify by how much people are likely to cock a sequence up by is my main objection to H grades (along with them being pretty much guaranteed to confuse the heck out of everyone). It depends how good the person doing the onsighting is - it just isn't something which is even remotely quantifiable.

In reply to thread:

A few thoughts.

The H grade may make sense on hard bold routes where it is difficult to guess an onsight grade. The H grade would often be lower than the E grade. For those claiming that the grade would be more precise than guessing an E grade, logically for new routes this would still presumably require the FA to have headpointed a couple of, say, established H/E8s in order for them to compare and give their line H8 - otherwise the grade is no less a guess than giving it an onsight grade would be. Also, bearing in mind the H grade may be different to the E grade for any one route, giving it an H grade gives the potential onsighter no better idea of the route's difficulty than a guessed E grade would.

I'd say the H grade wouldn't make sense for easier new routes for which it is usually easier to take a stab at the onsight grade. For example, say someone headpoints a new route they reckon would go at E4. It is much easier to propose that and note it was pre-practiced than for them to compare with other headpoints they've done (of which there may be few, if any) and suggest an H grade.

H grades shouldn't be used as substitutes for dagger symbols or whatever, as the meaning they convey (how hard the route is to headpoint) is different to simply being a warning symbol.

In reply to Nemo:


Well ok, but the H grade is the only thing you have real information on at that point, you're only guessing at the on-sight E grade if no-one has attempted to on-sight it. That's why it seems sense to me to give an H grade to hard "worked" routes that have not been onsighted. I agree, though, that one should also give information in the description to help the on-sighter.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

I think we're talking at cross purposes here.

As andrewmcleod has pointed out, the way I think E grades should be (and IMO actually are) used is for the best sequence / use of gear - what you are referring to as H grades. So I agree that attempting to "guess onsight grades" is an utterly silly activity.

But I don't care what they're called - you can call them Z grades if you want - I just don't think we need two sets of grades - one for the onsight and one for a headpoint - even if "onsight grades" were even remotely meaningful, which I don't think they are - and even if everyone could agree on the definition of onsight - when it's glaringly obvious that they can't.

Exactly the same as in all other aspects of climbing - the only reasonably quantifiable thing is the difficulty assuming you get the sequence and gear right. Trying to guess by how much different people are going to deviate from the best sequence or miss crucial gear placements just strikes me as utterly unachievable.

If guide writers don't want to give beta, they can just say a route is probably going to feel considerably harder to onsight than the given grade unless you are very experienced. Or as suggested above, they can give some specific details in the description.

In reply to Coel Hellier: By your logic, if someone solo's Right Wall they could take E7 for it. Or E11 for a solo of Indian Face. Or E13 for soloing Rhapsody.

Andy F

In reply to andy farnell:

That's totally besides the point. Birkett's repeat of his route (and comments on the moose one) made it clear that Franco's grading is fine. I've had a play on a few of his routes and they felt pretty harshly graded.

In reply to andy farnell:

You really don't get it do you?
Franco gave the route E10 or whatever in good faith believing, quite reasonably, that there was no gear on it (and Birkett came along and confirmed that his assessment was correct). On the other hand anyone soloing Right Wall knows that there is plenty of gear available.

In reply to andy farnell:


Yes. That would be correct if Right Wall, Indian Face and Rhapsody were all only protected by ingeniously created (Dave Birkett had to file down a slider) bits of kit which were totally obvious. However, this isn't the case for those routes! There's gear everywhere on right wall, you'd have to be well stupid not to see that.

On Psychovsky's though, its very clear that there isn't any obvious protection to be had, so any one who hadn't found this piece of kit, would be forced to solo if they wanted to do the route. Anyone soloing right wall would be consciously neglecting the many obvious placements, voluntarily ignoring them. That's the difference.

Also you chose rubbish examples there. Soloing Right Wall would never be E7 - its not sustained enough at 6a to be E7 6a. And I doubt soloing Indian Face would add more than a single E point because the gear doesn't really protect the crux move anyway.

In reply to Robert Durran: Ah you beat me too it!

In reply to andy farnell:

No you were not. You presumably had absolutely no way of knowing that an obscure piece of gear was available (and if, by some miracle, you did, why didn't you say so?)

In reply to Robert Durran:



E10 based on what? Prior experience? Lots of E9's? Routes by other people of a similar grade around the country? He had none of that before he gave it E10/H whatever. That is why I questioned the grade. A complete and utter lack of any benchmarking what so ever.

I asked a valid question. It was answered by the second ascentionist, who gave it E8.

Andy F

And the H grade is still a pointless idea.

In reply to andy farnell:
Dave said E8 with the beta that you need a specific filed-down slider...you could argue a classic example of an H8. Onsight without he said E9/10. If you had just stuck to pointing out his inexperience in grading E10's in a polite way you might have come out of all this looking sensible. Instead people get to read what actually you said on here.

http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=559361&v=1#x7449749

http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=558675&v=1#x7442752

http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?n=558648

In reply to Offwidth:


Precisely. And if, once Birkett had vindicated Franco, he had backed down with good grace, he might not look so daft now. Instead he has persisted in digging himself into a hole which is now so deep that he is probably posting from Arapiles.

In reply to Offwidth:


^what Offwidth says here +1
Plus the OP is a great exemplar of adventure in climbing which is why, I guess, he receives so much support across the UKC constituency and deserves more. As a punter, my grade stops before H grades would kick in, but it looks like a no brainer for routes like Psychovsky's, much like the French grade informing trad, and the UK tech grade informing low end V and Font grades.

In reply to Robert Durran:

I will back down from my position. When the evidence changes.

Franco worked the route extensively, gave it a grade he wasn't qualified to due to a lack of experience. Dave came along with the right gear, repeated it extremely quickly, gave it E8. The grade is for the easiest sequence with the gear. The fact is Franco soloed an E8. Impressive, but not E10.

You do not grade routes for a solo and give it a different grade for doing it with gear.

At some point in the future he may well get a passport and leave his local area, repeat other big numbers and prove himself by benchmarking against known routes. When/if he does that I will be first in line to congratulate him.

This has always been my stance. Evidence is everything.


Andy F

In reply to andy farnell:


I give up. You are clearly beyond reason. Everyone else gets it. You don't (or choose not to).

In reply to andy farnell: don't agree with you here, if a technical advance comes along (Dave's gear) and changes the grade then that new grade doesn't get backdated. This is different from a misgrading. The fact that Franco soloed it is a red herring, he only did that because there was no gear then available.

I suspect that the guidebook will grade it E8 but will note that the grade is only valid if you have the correct specialist gear.

Your wondering about lack of benchmarking is a valid query but in this case Franco got it about right.

In reply to andy farnell:
The amount of conviction you have in your opinion is astounding. In fact even assuming you were 'right' about the grades (which I disagree with) it would only be by accident and for all the wrong reasons...

I believe Franco gave it H9, since his preference is for H grades? When Dave gave it E8 including the piece of gear, then he wasn't really grading for the onsight (as is actually typically at high grades?) but assuming beta about the gear.

The interesting thing is this - the route might very well have been E10 (as a pure solo) before Dave Birkett climbed it. No-one could be expected to have the right gear on an onsight attempt (before Dave), since it is so obscure, and so the grade would have been E10. However since 'everybody' now knows about the gear that changes the grade in the same way that guidebook beta is normally considered within the onsight. So really both Franco and Dave were right, but only because Dave lowered the grade by spraying beta :P (not criticising by the way!).

In reply to Michael Hood:


Franco seems to polarise opinion but I suspect there's some middle ground here. If a filed slider nut is 'bomber', the I'd wonder if a folded over nut would be 'good'... but then obviously that would block a good hold and be fiddly, something which Franco must have considered for the OP. . I'm an armchair punter so I don't know what the consequence of that is on the grade, there must be precedents of this?

In reply to Franco Cookson:
In my opinion the grading system needs an overall difficulty grade which does NOT include danger. This could be the current E (onsight), H (practised) or new I (inspected) grade. Then a grade for the hardest move - use the font grade? or extend english tech? then a grade for the seriousness (R or X).

This solves ALL the problems of the current system - by combining the adj. grade and tech grade as per today you know if you can physically climb the route, and the style in which it has been led. H graded routes will eventually become I then E graded. The danger grade will then tell you what sort of route it is.

In reply to Toerag:


That's the system we have already - the adjectival grade is the overall grade.

To (mis)quote Dennis Ritchie: "Those who don't understand the UK grading system are forever reinventing it, poorly"

In reply to everyone:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvlTJrNJ5lA&list=RDnvlTJrNJ5lA#t=0



Andy F

In reply to Bob:

"In my opinion the grading system needs an overall difficulty grade which does NOT include danger"


Eh, no it's not the system we already have. The adjectival grade includes danger. Toerag suggests an overall grade not including danger and the obvious answer is a French grade (which is conveniently informally already in use anyway).

In reply to Robert Durran:

Oops! Missed that bit of shouting

However introducing a rating system based on something even vaguer than technical difficulty is not going to make things any easier.

Why are people trying to reinvent the wheel? The current system works up to a given speed then bolting on (sic) the French/sports grade covers the higher end.

Which is exactly how it should (IMO) work and indeed how it currently works pretty much everywhere.
e.g - Masters Edge would be E9 if you didn't know about the tricam in the shothole and were grading "for the onsight" where someone set off with a normal rack. But giving it E9 is just daft.

If you were writing the Millstone guidebook which of the following do you think is the clearest:

1. Masters Edge E9 H7 6c
Description: Climb the arete.

2. Masters Edge E7 Fr7b+
Description: Climb the arete. Protected by a crucial Tricam x / Alien y in a shot hole at half height.

IMO the second is far far better. And that's in a really simple clear cut case where there is just one really significant factor which changes between a true onsight and a headpoint.


If you start giving things like Masters Edge E9, you are going to have to completely regrade loads and loads of stuff, generating no end of confusion for zero gain. On hard routes there are loads of them which have specialist gear - trying to guess how hard it might be for someone to onsight them without that knowledge is both impossible and a complete waste of time.

The only plus I can see for H grades is that I suspect Alan / Jack will probably like them, because they would generate no end of traffic to UKC to engage in ridiculous grade debates!

In reply to Bob:

H grades seem like a sensible enough idea. It's hard enough to compare the relative difficulties of routes in the style that you actually climbed them - presumably it's much worse having to guess relatively how difficult it would be to onsight them despite the fact neither you nor anyone else has ever onsighted the routes in question or in fact anything else comparable. It would also mean that when someone headpoints their first H10 it's definitively the hardest thing they've ever done in that style, whereas their first E10 could in principle be easier to headpoint than some of the E9's they've done previously.

Whether this stuff is important enough to be worth the faff of introducing a new extension to the grading system is open to debate, but the fact that adding H grades would give better and more honest information than the current system isn't.

In reply to Nemo:

The shotholes at Millstone take folded nuts...they are not specialist gear and you can see what is required by testing on the ground on similar holes. They also take some narrow-headed cams. A classic H grade was John Arran's Doctor Doolittle... the grade was given as H9 7a in the definitive guide.

In reply to Ramblin dave:

Just add the dagger symbol to the description then. The argument that it's information that will go out of date once (before) the guidebook is published is irrelevant - half the cliff could fall down the day after, guidebooks are only ever snapshots of the time they were produced. These days you only have to do a check on here/FRCC/CC/SMC websites to find out any up to date info. The H grade would also be wrong as the route now deserves the adjectival grade it should have been given in the first place.

Grades are a best guess, for existing routes it's a consensus of guesses. If a first ascensionist thinks a route is "X" but it gets regraded to "X-1" or "X+1" then so what? The first ascensionist got it wrong, it happens.

In reply to Offwidth:


Doesn't Rockfax give that E10? Has it been repeated?

Nemo:


Offwidth:



This disagreement is exactly the reason why H grades (and any grading system that involves making allowance for a hypothetical ascent) are daft. I'm in the Nemo camp that, in reality, E grades do not "grade for the onsight", they just grade in the same subjective, random way that all grade systems do.

In reply to Bob:


Thanks Bob

I was just going to post exactly the same thoughts, but probably not as eloquently.

In reply to RupertD:


No, it's why trying to grade routes that never get onsighted for the hypothetical onsight is (occasionally) daft. The H grade (or "E grade for the headpoint" for fans of that approach) would be simple, because any headpointer would either be told or figure out what the gear is, so you could remove any argument and just assume that they have the right gear and know how/where to place it. The "E grade for the onsight" will be simple enough once enough people have tried to onsight it that we can see how many of them worked out the gear from the ground, and hence have an educated guess at how canny you have to be to do that and how bold you have to be to assume that you've got it right. Otherwise we'll just have to suck it up and accept a degree of daftness from time to time.

Do folk still put nails in Braille Trail? Should that get an extra E point because you can't buy them in Outside? I dunno, most of the world seems to manage with fairly linear one dimensional scale and most people operating at the top of the big numbers will have some idea of a route's back story.

In reply to Offwidth:

Ok, maybe not the best example - it's just a famous one that most people know.

But there's stacks of hard routes with weird gear. If you try to have different grades for different styles, you end up with someone who's read guidebook a (which gives the beta) claiming an E7 onsight for route x. Someone who's read guidebook b (which doesn't give the beta) claiming an E10 onsight for the same route. And that's all assuming people could actually agree on the definition of onsight, which they can't.

As I said above, IMO grades and climbing style need to be kept completely seperate or you just end up with an utter shambles.

In reply to RupertD:

I prefer an honest guestimate at E grades but I do regard them as for a nominal onsight. Some extremes barely feel any easier after a headpoint, others feel like they drop several grades so there is a difference here and its no surprise on logged climbs the most headpointed extremes tend to be those that do feel most easier after the headpoint. I thought H was an interesting idea for bold routes with especially tricky sequencies and worth preserving as such in Froggatt.

Incidently those Millstone shot holes help on routes as low as HVS (if you use them) so its not just an issue for top performance climbers.

In reply to Nemo:

Sure, but then guidebooks (should) give the gear beta at that grade.

In reply to Offwidth:

Which removes the primary reason to require a different grade for onsighting!!!

In reply to Jamie B:

Not sure...The grit list still doesnt list one (at E10... which is what the H9 means) but impressive things have been happening of late and I could have missed it.

In reply to Nemo:
Onsight is with the guidebook info. Many route descriptions note modifications to grades under different circumstances to the strict guidebook description.

In reply to Offwidth:

Which is precisely what I've been arguing for from the start! Do what is required in the description - don't try to use a separate grading system for it.

In reply to Nemo:

Just read Nemo's post on the other channel

http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,23580.25.html

A good case for abandoning UK tech grades for the higher E-grades on the basis that climbers operating at those grades instinctively judge difficulty on the French scale.

When introducing beginners to outdoor climbing I find that they also instinctively judge technical difficulty on the French scale. They've just spent a whole winter measuring themselves against those grades at the wall. Why do we not replace UK tech grades with French grades at the easier end of the scale as well?

Martin

In reply to Martin Hore:

See my post from yesterday or Wednesday but basically the French grade is best used on pitches that are fairly even in standard throughout the length of the pitch whereas most UK climbs are quite "cruxy" so tend to be better described by the UK tech grade.

I wrote a piece http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=3068 about most of what Nemo is also arguing for, in 2010!

In reply to Martin Hore:


That's only because they've only ever climbed indoors! Hardly a good reason to change outdoor grades. All they require, as with any system, is a bit of getting used to.

The overall grade already includes the physical difficulty of climbing the thing (French grade). What is really handy (and the beauty of British grades) is knowing the tech grade so you instantly know if there are any stopper moves (French grades don't tell you that) and can assess the protection, strenuousness and sustainedness based on comparing between the overall and tech grade. It's not infallible but does the job better than any other system.

In reply to Martin Hore:

Exactly my point. Brown's Eliminate works well as a f6a R, how about 3 pebble as f5 R?

In reply to dr_botnik:

The lack of a single headline grade for any given route is the main argument against that, I think. A U-rated F5 and an X-rated F5 are rather different propositions, and people like to be able to say "I lead my first HVS" rather than "I lead my first F5 R although I've previously lead an F6b U" or whatever.

That said, I'm not a great fan of the UK tech grade as "second piece of information after the adjectival grade", although not bothered enough to think it's actually worth changing. Most people I know mainly seem to use them imperfectly to try to spot how well protected a route will be (eg - "VS 4b? Sounds a bit scary...") which suggests that maybe we'd be better of just giving the protection rating in the first place.

In reply to andy farnell:
You are off your face. The h grade of a route is generally lower than the e grade.

It's about not having to bother with the hypothetical. You can judge the h grade fairly accurately after a headpointed ascent. So, say with Pyskovsky's, which you seem obsessed with for some reason, it was h8, seeming like an h9 before the gear was found, with the betaless grade of e10 totally irrelevant until someone climbs it thus.

Although the h grade is for ascents with beta, its existence allows the e grade to be kept accurate for onsights. Currently we have a bit of shift downwards with a lot of e grades as people headpoint very betary routes and don't think that they can give it a big e grade, because what they did wasn't very hard.

In reply to Franco Cookson:


So is the idea that, say, headpointing an H3 is roughly equivalent in difficulty to onsighting an E3 (in the sense that roughly the same proportion of the climbing population would be capable of doing it); so if it was felt that headpointing Right Wall (heaven forbid!) was a roughly equivalent achievement to onsighting Foil, then it would get top end H3?

In reply to Robert Durran:

No. It's best to think of the E grde s being dependent on the H grde. So n H7 would be E7 when it's onsighted, unless it ws prticulrly hrd to onsight, in which cse it could be E9.

In reply to Franco Cookson:


Ok, that's more like I had thought.

In reply to Franco Cookson:
I might have missed the point but to my mind the use of the H grade doesn't really describe the climb any better than the current system? Just the nature of the ascents to date?

If H7 = E7 …

In reply to Stevie989:

Wht it does is enbles onsight scentionist to see the style it's been climbed in in the pst nd the grde it ws for the hedpoint.

It enbles the hedpoint scentionst to hve n ccurte grde for the style the route's been climbed in up to tht time nd combts grdes being simply rndomly positioned somewhere between the onsight nd hedpoint.

nyone who thinks tht the E grde currently either refelcts the best estimte of the onsight or hedpoint grdes for certin route is deluded.

Ultimtely the uestion is why not? It's consensus nd experienced-bsed system tht would be very simple to implement, rther thn the guesswork the current system is bsed on.

Who cres wht the onsight grde is going to be for route tht is never likely to be onsighted? nd even if it is, the guess is probbly going to be wrong.

In reply to Franco Cookson:

Thought of getting you 'a' key fixed at the same time as you're fixing the UK grading system, or are both unnecessary?

In reply to Offwidth:


Just on a point of accuracy, Dave actually said it was a filed-down slider-*LIKE* gizmo (and thus not actually a slider, and is presumably something highly obscure that you can't actually buy any more).

In reply to dr_botnik:


Using French grades with an extra number for danger is very logical, but the bland US film classification codes for danger/scariness miss out on the single best attribute of the UK grading system: adjectival grades sound cool in an eccentric/retro sort of way.

So why not have a French grade to tell you how hard the route is but use a properly scary sounding adjectival grade to tell you how dangerous it is.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

Except Brown's Elliminate has gear at feet at the crux (and in my experience of sports polish on easier routes in France I've found crux moves on most f5 sports routes a lot harder) and then it gets bolder as it gets easier. As a lead I think it is overgraded and should be top half E1 and as a headpoint maybe as low as H0.

In reply to Offwidth:

Whilst part of me agrees with you; isn't playing the "down grading" game what got us into this mess re: numerical grades? surely you don't want to break the adjectival ones in the same fashion?

In reply to dr_botnik:
Not at all, this is about consistency. Loads of bold E1s are harder so either we upgrade all them or downgrade the exceptional soft touch E2s.

In reply to Offwidth:

I'm not convinced the BE should be E1. The gear for the crux is further away than would be typical at E1 and you really wouldn't want to fall from anywhere higher than the crux. Low-end E2 seems fair to me. Which bold E1s do you see as harder?

In reply to Coel Hellier:

The gear for the crux is similar as for the HVS Ginny Come Lately (which I fell off on an attempted onsight and still find harder). In your neck of the woods anything bold in The Roaches guide that is top half in the E1 graded lists (....so I'd be asking you name me ones over there that are easier). On Stanage, Nightmare slab tops the graded list for E1. There are few bold routes on the top of the Froggatt list but its easier than most of the top half adjectivally. Almost any bold E1 on the Moors, all the Yorkshire top end bold E1s. Will that do for starters?

In reply to Offwidth:

Knowing Peak grades, I imagine this one is correct and the others are wrong!

In reply to Offwidth: I always wondered why BE had gone up to E2. On a similar vein why has Wuthering gone up to E2?

In reply to Franco Cookson: Franco old boy, you have it all wrong. I'm not obsessed with psychotic squirrel or whatever you called the route, I would just like to know what you are basing your grading on. It's not nationally recognized routes as you don't appear to have done any.

Andy F

In reply to Offwidth:


The gear on BE is also off to the side, as well as a similar vertical distance. Ginny Come Lately also relents quickly after the crux, with more gear, whereas BE is 5a/4c where you really can't afford to fall. Given that GCM is top-end HVS (IMO) I'm ok with BE at about 1 to 1.5 grades higher.


Hmm. Enigma Variation has been given E2 is some guides. I'd put it borderline E1/E2, though the actual climbing is easier than BE. Hawkwing I'd say is easier and better gear than BE. Tower Face -- ok, that could be harder. I've always been scared of it so never tried it (especially after seeing a solid E3 leader fall off it and rip gear). It could easily be undergraded. Dorothy's Dilemma, still E1 owing to the lack of gear, but easier than BE.


And has always seemed a silly grade to me, especially given the possibility of bouncing off the grassy ledge. Personally I think that guidebook writers never make enough allowance for unprotected climbing (cf Don's Delight).


Remind me to stay clear then!

In reply to Offwidth:

So what about Sundowner at Froggatt getting downgraded from E2 as well eh? its barely 5a. Or Dry Rot at Stanage? the 5a move there *might* even be protected? Isn't there an E2 on the moors thats only 4c, some hanging boulder with a path of smears at about 4c?

Thing is; these natural rock formations are formed from a multitude of random forces applied over millions of years leading to a multitude of possible arrangements. How we expect a graded numercial measure of these to EVER resemble reality is the biggest joke. Just accept it as the vague yardstick it is; and if theres a chance someone could die doing it, best give fair warning eh? Even if, strictly speaking, it isn't that hard. Does E2 5b really say "watch out"? is using an R or an X any better?

In reply to Offwidth:


Almost right, it's V0 (H) with the direct start, the H is for highball....

In reply to dr_botnik:



It may do depending on ability and in combination with the route description and looking at the climb


is using an R or an X any better?

No

In reply to Michael Hood:
I think Wuthering is E1 as well but it is more morpho. Hardly anyone belays tied down on the left with double ropes so maybe they like the extra risk of the swing back into the chimney.

In reply to Coel

Dorthy's is easier but halfway up the E1 list and yet bolder on slightly harder moves and Hawkwing a more intimidating onsight. Enigma Variations is the grade BE should be for the necky 4c/5a stuff. They are also three of the four routes (Safety Net is the other) I think should be moved a few notches down the graded list. The gear being on the left on BE when you come in from the right means you can build a poor man's baby bouncer (with double ropes) that stops the uncontrolled swing round the arete. On the Roaches guide, JCM 'too hard to be Extreme' HVS front, have you onsighted Teck Crack, Matinee or Masochism?

In reply to dr_botnik

Sundowner is an artificial eliminate route...solid E2 by the original line but E1 if you stay close to the crack. I've not done Dry Rot, nor the Moorland E2 4c. Grades are of course subjective but bold as opposed to sustained E2 5b to me means very bold 5b or deathly 5a and I just think having loads of serious E1s being adjectivally harder than a classic easy E2 is best dealt with by downgrading the soft exception. Anyway, enough of the thread hijack.

In reply to Franco Cookson:

Franco,

I'm more than a little surprised that we haven't seen a guidebook from you and your hobbits, espousing the virtues of Moors crags and formally launching the H grade. All of your anxieties and dreams rolled and sold into a single mighty tome of awe.

J2V

In reply to Michael Gordon:




Er, why not? "X" almost explicitly means "watch out". To my mind that's better than "read the route description and look at the climb and combine these with the adjectival and tech grade then you might be able to figure out how necky it is, assuming that you can see the whole route from the ground and that the route description tells you how necky it is."

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:


I like the system in the Jingo Wobbly Font book - a tombstone for iffy highball routes and a coffin for the few certain death routes. Maybe it should go 'S', 'I', 'T', 'CD' for 'safe', 'iffy', 'terrifying' and 'certain death'...

'I climbed that new 5a CD on the weekend'.
'What's the CD stand for?'
'Certain death...'

In reply to Offwidth:


I confess that no I haven't, though I hardly think that those routes (as graded) are good benchmark choices on which to anchor the grading system. I have a slight suspicion that you might be over-familiar with BE. I wouldn't agree that Hawking is a more-intimidating onsight. But, for all I've said, I would put BE at the bottom of an E2 graded list.

In reply to Coel Hellier:
I found both routes much easier than I expected. Maybe Hawkwing suits me a bit with its reach benefits and slopy breaks, but I doubt that is the case for BE as vertical crimp routes tend to be my weakness. Anyway finding extremes easier than I expected is not a common experience for me on grit, especially as I fail to second quite a few cleanly and still back off a number of VS climbs (to be fair, in recent years these were most recently mainly yorkshire and on peak moorland). As I said I'd try and stick to the topic, I'll bring in another trad angle: over in California the granite slabs are graded tougher compared to the cracks (which match grade conversion expectations....5.9 ~ 5b etc.... whereas 5.9 slab is normally 5c and often approaching 6a at JT). So although benchmarks are good in my view I'd prefer them realistic and consistent across styles on onsightability. Add in headpointing and soft touch bold UK routes in the extreme grades get way more traffic than the protectable burly routes.

In reply to andy farnell:

You appear to confuse two issues here.

1) Am I experienced enough to grade my experience

This is all any of us can do. You climb what you climb and then you give a grade for that. Yeh, Psykovsky's might not have been H9 (although Birkett H8 may well be ), but what I climbed was. This doesn't mean there should be a separate grade for the solo, just that I didn't get the easiest way of doing it and hence my experience was harder than it should have been. The point you seem to be making is that I should have repeated "nationally recognized" routes, so that I could have been able to grade my experience more accurately. But, despite not doing this, I got that right. Let's face it, what this is actually about is you not liking the fact that I've climbed new routes in the Moors without giving some kind of nod to what's going on in the peak or the lakes or whatever. This is about ideology. If I had repeated a hundred E8s elsewhere, I would have still given it H9, because I missed the gear/ chose not to use it.


2) Am I experienced enough to know what a route is

This is arguably a valid point you could make. You could say that I haven't repeated enough routes to know how to find gear properly and know how lines should be climbed. Perhaps this is the case? It was perhaps a romantic notion of not using boltesque stuff that resulted in a route being overgraded.


But how much of a crime is that really? Is that really what bothers you? I don't think so. You can pretend there's no animosity in your posts, but look at the way you disrespect the Moors and Psykovsky's Sequins. Why's that? I think this is more about you than me.

In reply to Jonny2vests:

Yeh, there's a chp called Steve Crowe who's been producing the guide. He said a new one would be out about six or seven years ago, but it hasn't happened yet. Maybe one day, I've got most of a guide written, but I don't have very good software or the time to set it out to the standard that's required these days.

In reply to Ramblin dave:


I should qualify by saying I have no experience of the US grades. But it seems to me the British system tells you not just as much but more, and that includes how bold/risky a route is. Because the overall grade takes everything into account it is more useful for showing what level of climber is likely to manage a particular route. In other words, it really indicates the 'feel' of the route, and gives an indication, for example, that the solid E2 climber, if they are happy committing to the route, should make a good go at an E2 5b, E2 5c, E2 6a etc. You might not know exactly how bold it is but do know that if stupidly bold the climbing will not be that difficult, or it's not that sustained etc. The main thing is you know the overall level of the route.

It seems to me using an R or X is far too unspecific to be that useful. When does one become the other? Totally Safe, Runout and Death are such big step changes compared to the detailed insight you can get from British grades.

In reply to Coel Hellier:


Brown's Eliminate - E2 (Fairly easy but dangerous if you fall off post-crux)
A Brief History of Time - Mod 7b (Armchair safe but very very difficult to understand)

In reply to Offwidth:


They always will do from headpointing. Working something strenuous and well protected will not see the same grade gains. It's not necessarily because the bold routes are soft but because headpointing makes more difference in taming them.

In reply to Ramblin dave:


Very few E2 5bs would get X though, almost by definition. E3 5b almost explicitly says "watch out" (yes there are a few with adequate pro, but not many!)

In reply to Franco Cookson: Franco, by not having experienced routes around the country you aren't going to have that yardstick by which all are measured. People who operate in a bubble don't get the bigger picture and don't have the usual calibration. Hell, for all I or you know you may be under grading everything by 3 grades. But without travel you (and everyone else) won't know.

I have no beef with you or your area, I would however like to see some rationalisation of your areas grades. It may be your E9's are just that. As I have openly said before, evidence is everything. And if you provide it, I will be the first to congratulate you.

Andy F

In reply to Franco Cookson:

The thing about adopting H grades is; realistically, headpointing is going out of fashion.

I can see how it totally makes sense for you Franco, exploring these undiscovered gems on the moors, but in areas like the peak where most climbs are pretty well fleshed out and you can quite easily gain micro beta through the forums/videos then the preferred style of climbing is ground up. In that context, on sight grading makes more sense. No one really seems to headpoint like they did 10 years ago, Probably because it takes more balls to onsight or ground up, so if your in the pub and you're like "yeah, i did that E£" the first question is "on sight?" and if you're like "naah, with pre placed gear after a top rope practcie" People aren't then gonna turn around and use a numerical H grade to express how much of a pussy they think you are, they're just gonna turn around and say it. Unless they haven't climbed the thing, then they'll just shut the f*ck up.

Ofcourse, none of that takes away from the point that in an area less well-extensively documented (like your fine parish) that extra bit of info might just help flesh the descritpion out in the guides. I second the bloke who said you should get your own guide out mate, then you can put whatever you like in it. Bet Farnell holds a book burning though lol

In reply to dr_botnik: I'm an atheist. We don't burn books, just read them.

Andy F

P.s it's sure to be on my birthday list.

In reply to Michael Gordon:
I like the adjectival grades. There's a great deal to be said for having a single headline grade that expresses, all things considered, how hard the route is.

The thing I think is a bit odd - or at least, not what you'd go for if you were designing a grading system from scratch - is that the extra bit of information that you provide when you give the full grade is "how hard is the single hardest move when taken in isolation".

Basically, when I'm looking through a guidebook, I'm probably wondering what there is for me to have a go at, or whether a nice looking line is worth having a crack at. So the basic question I'm asking is "am I likely to be able to get up that route", and the adjectival grade answers that pretty well. The second question is "if the answer to question one was 'maybe', what's the worst that can happen if I decide to take my chances and it turns out that I can't?" The British tech grade doesn't really tell me that, but a danger grade would.

In reply to Ramblin dave:

Interesting - the tech grade has always been just as useful to me and it's how I think of how hard technically a route or problem is regardless of whether its given a French, V, Font or whatever grade.

In reply to andy farnell:

You have your evidence though - quite a few of these routes have been repeated and confirmed. Why do I need to repeat routes elsewhere when it is obvious that I know what an H8 is? Two people hve now sid the Hypocrisy of Moose is E8 (although not repeated it). Psykovsky's is H8 apprently. Loads of people have been on the mountains of E7s.

If Birkett says two of my routes are H8s, then surely I now have my yardstick for what H8/9 is going to be? And even if they were out, they're inline with each other - so what does it matter?

Can you tell me what this is actually about? I don't get it..

In reply to Franco Cookson:



Don't worry about it Franco, I don't get it now either.

I do like daggers though .

When you calling in for a brew?

In reply to Franco Cookson: I'm clearly not the one who gets it. Your own routes aren't a yardstick. Other peoples are.

Andy F

In reply to Offwidth:


Probably because once the step across is completed, its unfalloffable before the gear on the face.

In reply to andy farnell:

>

If your own routes are confirmed as being a particular grade then you can justifiably use that as a yardstick for other stuff you do.

In reply to Ramblin dave:

>



We may have to agree to disagree, but I would say the tech grade usually does tell you that when combined with the overall grade, the description and looking at the route. Of course, as you say, 'X' for example says this slightly more explicitly but then it obviously doesn't tell you something else very important about a route - how hard the route is technically. Even if it was very well protected, you might have liked to know the E3 you liked the look of in the guide was tech 6b . So the tech grade is pretty essential really for "am I likely to be able to get up that route".

I could see more of an argument for using an X symbol or something as well as the overall and tech grades, but then it would be superfluous once you had all the other data. Many route descriptions will include 'unprotected', 'serious' etc anyway.

In terms of picking routes quickly and easily, I quite liked the smiley face symbol used in On Peak Rock for properly well protected routes. I think this is a bit less open to interpretation than the other end of the scale, as different folk will have different ideas of what 'runout' means in practice, for example. Maybe not something for a definitive guide but quite nice for a quirky selective one.

In reply to Franco Cookson:

Too add my two pence... I'm firmly in the E6 6b (F7a+) camp. Better than f*cking around with H grades.