UKC

I must have blinked, when did the logbooks and Rockfax change from 4, 4+, 5, 5+ to 4a, 4b, 4c, 5a, 5b, 5c and why?

Was it felt that more granularity was needed for us punters or does this bring UK into line with other areas?

Isn't this going to get a bit (more) confused with UK tech grades?

In reply to Michael Hood:

Yes

In reply to Michael Hood:


We made the change a few months ago but the system is quite complicated so it will be a gradual change across the various database and guidebooks.

The mistake was made many years ago when we adopted the 4, 4+, 5, 5+ system based on the Spanish Rockfax guides since that is the system used mostly in Spain. However the rest of Europe favours 4a, 4b, 4c, etc. so we decided to switch to this when publishing the Dolomites guide. (In fact they use a 4a 4a+, 4b 4b+, etc system in some places in Italy, but this degree of sub-division seems excessive).

At the moment we have switched all old grade 4 routes to be 4a, and all 4+ routes to be 4c. Paul will do some automatic assessment based on grade votes to fill the middle 4b and 5b ranges later on.

Alan

In reply to Alan James - Rockfax:

Hi Alan

I feel that this is a welcome change, especially once you get above 5a. However there airways to be a glitch whereby 5b does not aappear as a grade on the voting side panel.

Regards

Tim

In reply to timjones:





Yes, I pointed this out at the time, but was ignored.

In reply to AndrewW:


It was added to the very long ToDo list.

Alan