Hello Franco,
We've never met but, over a few years on this site, I have seen various reports of your exploits, falls, first ascents and also, sadly, the rather ham-fisted attempts to discredit you.
I'm a person that values honesty and integrity quite highly both in my professional and personal lives. But even more, I see every single day instances where it is not about honesty or integrity but simply about whether the outcome is "reasonable" or not.
Climbing, as you do, at the top ends of the trad/headpoint grade scales, it is clearly a very difficult not only to put up new routes but also to make an assessment of their grade. I mean, for God's sake it's hard enough down here deciding between Hard V Diff and Severe!
I'm just a member of the audience, a bimbling climber, but with a bit of luck and being in the right place I've had the fortune to climb and name and grade many new routes over the years. It's not easy, and you know that as soon as you grade a route someone else is going to come along and tell you that you overgraded it or it's a sandbag or whatever. But what I always did, and what I believe you have always done, is make your best estimate and a reasonable assessment of what you feel the grade to be.
There is no "rule" as to who is allowed to grade a route in a certain way. There is no "rule" as to what qualifies a person to assess whether something is Hard V Diff or Severe. I don't subscribe to the notion that, unless you have climbed x number of other comparable routes on x number of crags in x number of countries then you are utterly incapable of grading. If you can climb it then you can make your own reasonable assessment of what you think the grade is, and I believe we should have an assumption that the climber is being reasonable until someone else comes along and climbs the route themselves.
Certainly it is not for keyboard warriors to tell climbers what they should or should not climb or how they should or should not grade.
So, Franco, keep inspiring us, because you are an inspiration and you are a champion for the less well known climbing areas, and you are giving us a view on what it is like to push yourself in your climbing at a level most of us can only dream off.
Mat
