UKC

Hi! So I live in Norway at the moment, and they use just the one grading system for both trad and sport. So when I look at a crag like this:
No match for crag id:22343
there is no way for me to tell whether the routes are bolted or not. Sometimes if I click into a particular route the description might say, but usually not.

Obviously this isn't a problem in the UK with our separate grading systems, but would you consider adding some way to mark trad/sport for those of us using inferior grading systems?

Thanks!

In reply to annak:

Thanks for your comments.

We are just producing the new Lofoten Rockfax guidebook and we have converted all the sport routes to sport grades. I would urge other Norway crag moderators to do this if possible since it is a much more sensible way of grading and the locals in Lofoten are perfectly happy with it, as I suspect other Norwegian climbers will be in their areas.

As to why adding a route type flag is tricky - we could do this but the Logbook system is already incredibly complicated and grading systems are a complete headache for us. So whilst we could probably add something, there is a huge queue of other things in the system that are possibly more urgent at the current time especially since it really only occurs in Norway. I think a solution as I propose above would be easier for everyone. I will let Paul and Martin know though.

Alan

In reply to Alan James - Rockfax:

Hi Alan, thanks for getting back to me.

So a couple of things - first, this isn't just Norway, I was under the impression that almost all other countries than the UK use a grading system that doesn't innately indicate trad or sport.

Secondly, I do some moderating of crags here and I faithfully add the Norwegian grades as specified in the local guidebooks. Since in reality there's not a perfect 1:1 relationship between sport and Norwegian grades, I don't feel comfortable nor ethical in making the decision about how any particular route's grade should be converted to a different system from a different country.

I appreciate this isn't top priority for you guys! I've just been singing the praises of the ukc logbook here, but when people want to know how to see if routes are bolted or not i have to tell them to look elsewhere.

Cheers
Anna

In reply to Alan James - Rockfax:


It's not a one to one relationship though between Nordic and French grades. From n7 upwards each Nordic grade has typically two equivalent French grades. You can see this on your own Rockfax conversation tables. Most people use primarily Nordic grades for sport in Norway, except with hard routes where the Nordic grading isn't accurate enough.

In reply to annak:


Yes, but most countries now use sport grades for sport routes. There are some combined systems but the top end climbers work in sport grades and these will percolate down. In many countries it is the trad routes that are out on a limb with a grading system that doesn't suit them.


I don't see why this is a problem really. It is not as if the grades on UKC are dictating anything, they are just the grades on UKC. The majority of people using the site would benefit from sport routes being given sport grades. The local guidebooks are still free to give the grades they want so I don't see why there is an ethical dilemma. I realise that it isn't an exact science converting them but local knowledge, some online voting and a bit of common sense will go a long way. Anomalies will fast be indicated and can be changed. For an international audience, which UKC has, this would make the logbooks more useful than giving sport routes Norwegian grades.

The main problem here though is that the Norwegian grading system is pretty terrible all round. It is unsubtle, inflexible and crude and just uses huge broad grade bands to cover vast ranges of difficulty and climbing styles. It just about works for the trad routes we cover in the Lofoten Rockfax where the rock and climbing style are similar throughout the islands, even so, the bands are very broad and there is no account for the protection on the climb which can make a bold N5+ a bit of a shock for a seasoned N6 leader.


I can see that this would be useful information, even with a clear grading system. However what it really needs is a clear indication of all routes types which for our current system has 11 different categories. Hence it is quite a big job to work out exactly how to handle it, but I acknowledge that it probably is something we should look at.

Alan

In reply to Alan James - Rockfax:

So my objections to me as a moderator converting the norwegian grades to french sport grades are:
- As the systems don't have a 1:1 mapping, I can only convert routes I've climbed
- But I haven't climbed that much non-norwegian sport, so I'd be guessing
- When I add routes I tend to add the whole crag from the guidebook for completeness, including all the routes I'll never climb. What do I do about these grades?
- Not many people here use the logbooks let alone vote on grades, so they will probably never get adjusted
- Despite the fact that I don't personally think the norwegian system is particularly good, I genuinely feel it's a bit disrespectful to throw out local consensus grades for my stab-in-the-dark guesses. If there was an option to show both grades side by side I might consider doing some conversion, but not otherwise.

But this is all kind of orthagonal to my original request, showing discipline for each route. It would make planning climbing trips to new areas (ie. before I've bought the guidebook) much easier! If that could make it onto your roadmap at some point, that would be awesome.

Thanks!
Anna

In reply to annak:

Hi Anna,

Sorry for the late entrance to this thread. I'll have a chat with Alan today. I see the climbs at the crag you linked to are already in the Norwegian Trad and Norwegian Sport grades so I think something can be done to highlight them fairly easily.

Cheers, Paul.

In reply to annak:


Actually both Scandinavian (Norwegian and Swedish) grades measure overall physical difficulty, same as French grades. So conversion is possible. Rockfax table is a pretty good staring point (you'll never off more than + or two). And if people aren't using the logbook/crag that much, then what's the difference. If you wish the get the best possible information, you buy the guidebook... Free online resources are free, so don't expect to get a silver lining on everything.

Oh, and you could also look 27crags for some of the crags and the grades (they are mostly using French grades for sport there). In fact, as far as logbook and guide, 27crags is vastly superior to UKC (mainly in the guide-portion... logbooks are after all more or less the same).

In reply to Paul Phillips - UKC and UKH:

That would be excellent! Thanks