UKC

I try not to, but I can't help looking at my average climbing grade in the graphs section of my logbook. 

I try not to be influenced by it; who gives a shit? But still find myself reluctant to log memorable vdiff climbs I've done with my 6 year old daughter for fear of bringing down my average grade.

It's my issue I know, nonetheless I still think it would be a better idea to have the 'mode' grade (i.e. the grade you've climbed the most of) as opposed the mean grade. The mean grade doesn't make much sense. Someone could toprope an e8 and it would count towards their average trad grade. The mode grade would give a better indication of where a climber is at.

I doubt many people have as fragile an ego as me. But if other people are being influenced in their choice of route by their average grade, maybe mean could be switched to mode, or added alongside. It might mean more people (or I at least) can climb (and actually enjoy) an easier route without the nagging feeling that this f*cking climb is nibbling away at all the hard work I've put in this year.

Oh dear... 

Surely average grade is pretty irrelevant compared to, say, hardest leads? 

You could always set up a second 'undiluted' logbook?

Which is it - 'memorable V Diffs' or 'this f*cking climb'?  Only you can decide.

The first route I led was a V Diff - all 500 feet of it. I was on it all day. (Luckily it wasn't Grooved Arete or anything like that. It was in Ireland and there was no-one else on the crag - or maybe even in the valley. So I wasn't holding anyone up.)  It was the most glorious experience. Years later, I used to solo that route in a few minutes; it was the most soulless experience. And yet it was the same route. 

The routes are what we make them. But the grade is just a number, there to give us a steer on how daunting a route's likely to be. If we chase numbers, we're reducing the route to a number. We're denying the potential richness of the experience.

Your six year old daughter will never be six years old again. Yes, you will have other times with her but you will never have this time again. The potential richness of the experience is beyond any grade there will ever be.

Mick

It's simply a historical record. In 20 years from now when you are dragged up some epic by your children (whilst you yell for a tight rope)  you'll be glad that you kept an accurate record of their development and progress. 

(They use statistics in the same way that a drunk uses lamp-posts—for support rather than illumination. Andrew Lang- 1910)

Yeah but how big is yer knob?