Two great articles there. I see you having a running theme that 'On-sight climbers don't get the media recognition they deserve'. I agree that this is partly media led, but I think there is also some schoolyard jockying involvolved. Headpointing and broadcasting achievements being seen to be much less cool than onsighting and keeping-your-head-down-I-hate-media-why-don't-I-get-paid-for-climbing-grumble-grumble type attitudes which I think are rife in climbing, especially at the upper grades. I also think that there is a certain issue with the E grade, although it's open ended, there are some limits to it which will run in line with sport/technical difficulty of the route in hand. I still find it hard to contemplate that certain death isn't the outcome of some of our E10's at technical 7a, wouldn't this be the equivalent of E7 6a .......;o) Jack: Yes, the E grade is broken!

-)

Jack I have been consistently impressed with the standard of articles and editorials in the last few months, and these two editorials are of the same high standards. I don't think the E-grade is broken, but I certainly think it has been misused quite a lot.

good choice of routes to illustrate the bredath of the E5 grade. some random thoughts: - everybody knows the difference between an E8 onsight (if there were one) and an E8 headpoint, this is usually made clear in the reporting, so where is the confusion. - saying "nobody knows what E10 is like to onsight" should be qualified by adding "at this point in time"....some wad will be along in the coming years to do just that....let them settle any debate on the grade. - i am sure a statistician would point out that climbing grades correspond to a normal distribution (skewed to easier routes)....that's why you don't have a whole bunch of E11's all over the place....so at least the current distribution of grades at the top end is what you would expect.