UKC

What is the answer?

Average - HVS?

Good - E3?

Great - E5?

In reply to Lupine Lacuna:

'Average' = whatever your own grade is!

In reply to Lupine Lacuna: You could check out the BMC 2010 survey for an average, they have it around VS.

Or look here for UKC users: http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/graphs.html

Seems to suggest that trad average is HS.

Have a look at that page and I reckon good would be top 20%, and great top 10%, possibly.

In reply to iforwms:
For most people the perception of 'Average' is generally two grades below their grade, and 'Good' the grade above.

In reply to Anonymous:

Probably right to be honest. If we are walking trad I'd say

Average, VS Good , E4 Great, E7+

In reply to Anonymous:

Average: HS/VS

Good: E2

Great: E6?

In reply to Lupine Lacuna:

There aren't any absolute reference points. What does 'good' refer to? Grade only? What's an average/good/great football player? Sunday league, Championship, Premiership?

What's average/good/great will differ wildly if you consider only your own peer group, your own country, or world-wide.

Maybe you're a "good" climber (gradewise) if you climb F8a and above. Great climbers perhaps pushing F8c. The rest of us are distinctly average . If you live in Catalunya, perhaps the average stretches to F8b+. For the girls..

However, I know plenty of people I'd say are "great" climbers without necessarily reaching any such lofty grades - competent, safe, calm under pressure, skilled, fun to climb with etc.

In reply to Lupine Lacuna:
Average climber - Turns up regularly, carries their fair share of gear, won't fall asleep belaying.

Good climber - As above plus has a tendancy to get up early and cook breakfast.

Great - As above + fringe benefits (ie. Girlfriend)

Therefore I'm an average climber and my girlfriend is a great climber despite only ever having lead a few easy bolted routes.

Grades mean absolutely sod all as most of them are too subjective. (Before I get slated for this just look at the quantity of mud slinging that goes on here about on-sight/head-point/padded/snow-balled/.....)

In reply to Anonymous:

Agreed.

When I was a beginner, people leading VS were good, people leading E1 were great.
When I was leading E1, people leading E3 were good, people leading E5 were great.
When I was leading E3, people leading E5 were good, and "great" was probably E7 and above...

etc...

In reply to Lupine Lacuna:

(based on the alex Lowe grading of climbers)




Well someone was bound to say it :0)

In reply to Lupine Lacuna:

Average- someone who goes out every weekend and pushes themselves every now and again.

Good- Someone who pushes themselves all the time and explores and develops new areas/ has epic winter days out.

Great- someone who has been a good climber all their life and has a past of great adventures.

In reply to Lupine Lacuna:


In terms of ability... Based strictly on what you regularly succeed at Onsight. :

Basic =< HS

Average =< VS

Good HVS/E1

Very Good E2/3

Excellent E4/5

Outstanding E6+

In reply to Lupine Lacuna:

Average climber = my own level.

Good climber = someone more experienced with one or more better techniques.

Great climber = eye opening, impressive climber I learned great techniques from that sticks firmly in my memory. Or someone that climbs well on routes that others tend to fail.

In reply to Lupine Lacuna:

Average climber: indoors F6b leader, will climb to a similar standard in outdoor sport or up to about E1 trad, varies depending on rock type they have most experience in.

Good climber: Sport climbs harder than F7c consistently across rock types and angles, trad will reach E5 and up.

Great climber: Has all the 8s - F8a, Font8A, E8 and climbs hard on all types and angles of rock. 10 years + experience.

In reply to Lupine Lacuna:

Rubbish - Indoor Climber

Poor - Sport Climber

Average - Boulderer

Good - Rock Trad Climber

Great - Winter Trad Climber

In reply to sphagnum:

Where does via ferrata come?

In reply to Lupine Lacuna: Additionally you need to consider their range, it's no good just one rock type, good and great climbers what to achieve on all sorts of rock.

I like Franco's description, how much do you climb to you ability level? If you can onsight HVS and never fall, you're just not trying hard enough.

In reply to Ava Adore:

Sycophant - Via Ferrata Climber

In reply to John Lewis:

If you hit the deck you are trying too hard

In reply to Lupine Lacuna:

I’d say roughly as follows:

- ‘average’ climber: 50% of all climbers are “better” than you (ie they regularly on-sight and red-/headpoint at a level above your equivalent)
- ‘good’ climber: 10% of all climbers are “better” than you
- ‘great’ climber: <0.01% of all climbers are “better” than you

In reply to sphagnum:


Average Climber - You regularly post on UKC belittling other forms of climbing

Good Climber - You occasionally post on UKC to give or get advice

Great Climber - You've never heard of UKC

In reply to Anonymous:

Completely irrellevant climber - You post on UKC anonymously

In reply to Fraser:


I agree with Fraser. That's SCIENCE.

You can break that down with UKC graphs:

Average is somewhere around VS/HVS or F6a/6a+

Good is E1-E2ish trad and 7aish (trad seems low?)

Great is E6ish and F8bish.

I'd also say that to be a good or great climber you have to be able to achieve near your maximum level on a lot of different rock types/angles. Otherwise you're just a specialist.

In reply to Cragrat Rich:
Not completely irrelevant or you wouldn't have felt the need to reply.
As for anonymity, I presume it says Cragrat Rich on your birth certificate?

In reply to Anonymous:

What about Gritstone Climbers ?

In reply to Lupine Lacuna:

average VS

good E5

great E8

all onsight

In reply to Lupine Lacuna: the problem is that average and good are not mutually exclusive. redefine the peramiters a bit.

In reply to Lupine Lacuna: I like the UKC graphs but what they tell you is the frequency that a given grade is climbed. As a result there are many people who lead E3 that will still climb classic VS routes.

What they don't tell you is the max grades each year against number of climbers.

In reply to Anonymous: haha BOOM!

In reply to Lupine Lacuna:
average = safe and has fun
good = safe and has fun
great = safe and has fun
does it matter????

In reply to Lupine Lacuna:
Was hoping to be enlightened...I'm still looking for the answer! I sometime wake up in a start, perspiration pearling down my forehead wondering if I even make it to the average lot.
What a hard life! To make sure I keep going climbing as much as possible.

In reply to Cragrat Rich:

Spoken like a truly weak trad climber

In terms of an ability to actually do lots of truly hard moves - climbing E2/E3 (or say F6a/6b - even with sparse gear) does not = very good.

But we've been here before

In reply to James Moyle:

Not forgetting it is obviously only giving you those climbs that are logged. There are an awful lot of climbers that have never even heard of UKC let alone logged their climbs here.

In reply to 1234None:

If I sat in a bar and someone asked me "are you any good at climbing" and I replied "Not really, I'm good, but not very good. I only lead up to E3"
I reckon i'd be doing a lot of hard working HVS leaders a big disservice!

The perspective here has to come from the man in the street viewing climbing as a whole.
Not from a seasoned Yo-yoing ground up pad merchant whose lost all perspective on grades anyway

In reply to Lupine Lacuna:
I'm kinda with Franco really, isn't alot of it a mental thing really

Average - Gripped but still smiling and in control (ish)

Good - Feeling smooth, looking smooth with occasional moments of butt clenching!

Great - Calm, almost zen like state floating across the rock. A still mind.

In reply to Lupine Lacuna
upto e3 average
e4 to e6 good
e7 and above great

In reply to Cragrat Rich: Excellent is a bit much for E4/5, these range from Fr 6b ish to Fr 7a ish which isn't exceptional; I know you've got to place gear and all that but they're usually 'only' a few metres of involved climbing (I'm over-simplifying but you get the idea).

Also, this is very grade focused, good and great can be achieved in many ways...

There are many ways to look at this...

what about a climber who has been climbing for 6 months, and onsights E1 and
Hvs . ?

or a climber who has been climbing for 20 years and has only just onsighted his first E1 ..

Is one climber better than the other? is one a good climber or just average ?
This is a hard thing to judge, i would have to say a great climber is someone who has influenced climbing and has influenced others and made an impact ( lol..not by dfalling tho.) a good climber is the successer of a great climber . . . and the rest of us are just average . . .

In reply to Cragrat Rich:

I reckon that answer would be just about spot on to be honest....despite the fact that it might damage your own ego a little


The question was asked on a climbing internet forum. I suspect only ego-driven climbers give a shit about what makes an excellent climber, a very good climber or just a good climber. I strongly suspect that the man in the street doesn't give a shit really.

In reply to 1234None:

ps _ I am bored at work - get yourself down to the peak the next few days and we'll do some excellent routes, and maybe a few very good ones too.

In reply to 1234None:

No can do unfortunately.

The weather is forecast to be either poor, unstable or slightly dodgy ;(

In reply to Anonymous:

There's some good examples of exactly this on the thread. While it's relative to what you can climb yourself, it's also, like everything else, relative to the people around you.

I think that those saying E3 is 'average' is a very blinkered view. It translates as "those who climb a lot, only go on climbing holidays, whose jobs come second to their climbing, have climbed for years, and never get past E3, aren't very talented". Which is pretty fair. But those E3 climbers aren't average climbers by any stretch of the imagination, they're much more experienced and dedicated than average. But they probably only climb with other very experienced climbers.

I consider myself 'average-slightly worse than that' for people as serious about climbing as me. Which isn't hugely serious (I don't train, and don't constantly push myself), but I do climb several times a week. But when I go out to Stanage and I'm on an E2, or I'm soloing HVSs, I'm not the average climber at the crag. But then, if I went to Raven Tor, things would look very different, since I wouldn't be able to get up the standard warm-up. It's as much about peer group as anything else.

In reply to ksjs:

Just to labour a point (not something I often do)
The Op was talking in Trad grade terms, and we all know that Sport climbing isn't 'proper' anyway...
And don't forget I was talking about where a climber regularly onsights at :

So all that said... If I witnessed a person who whipped through a few E4/5's onsight, I really wouldn't have a problem with handing them the title of 'Excellent' climber.

Don't forget on grit etc, we'd (well me anyway) be talking about E4/5 onsight WITHOUT pads!

Also, I'm very interested in your comment on becoming known as 'a great climber' without being grade focussed.
We can debate this forever, but the quest to become anyone who is anyone in climbing is entirely driven by grades, as in numerical values assigned to climbs!
I don't think Brown, Dawes, or Mcloud got 'great' status through 'amount of quarrys cleaned up' or 'wild flower expertise'

In reply to Cragrat Rich: I'm sort of discounting natural grit (no offence to anyone) as it's a bit of a law unto itself in terms of grades, gear and 'fairness'.

I was simply equating the objective difficulty of trad with sport to give a more balanced view on what E4/5 was actually worth as opposed to all the image and emotion laden ideas that many people associate with these grades. This is a level that is achievable by many / most, maybe not across all rock types or styles but it's definitely not some imaginary realm.

Great for me might mean all the names you cite but it may also mean someone who's vastly experienced, extremely competent, is fully engaged with their climbing, continues to make effort to progress, appreciates the environment they climb in, gets something 'other level' from it all and is very positive to climb / spend time with.

In reply to Franco Cookson:

I think that's an excellent definition, particularly as unlike many you don't fall into the trap of being just technical/grade orientated. It's about ambition, commitment, enjoyment and individual ability

In reply to ksjs:

In reality though, that comparison loses it's credibility as you get up the E grades doesn't it.
A point is reached where you're strong enough for E4/5 without question, but you won't go charging up there willy nilly.

It's just the nature of the beast with Trad.

I think your logbook reflects that - someone who is not necessarily fullfilling their grade potential on Trad when compared to the supposed sport grade equivalent performance. Which is normal i'd say!

Anyway, you're a very good trad climber, more very good than me, but not excellent!

In reply to Franco Cookson:


Do you HAVE to do the epic winter days out bit, to be good?

Can't I be a good climber who pushes myself all the time and explores new areas, but goes to Citybloc then relaxes in the evening next to a warm open fire with slippers on, watching Columbo during winter??

In reply to Lupine Lacuna: i think this thread has succesfully established that what makes a good climber is entirely subjective and personal!

In reply to tradattack:

So here's an even more personal approach:

Average: Some one I'd be happy to climb with.
Good: Someone I'd like to climb with.
Great: Someone I'd love to climb with, but would be happy to watch climbing.

In reply to Cragrat Rich:

To an extent; my impression is that once you get to E6 the number of things you can throw yourself at starts to seriously dwindle. This simply isn't the case with E1 - 5. Hopefully I'm wrong though and I'm just falling into the 'the next grade up is hard' mindset (I doubt it). Mind you, I'm only just scratching the surface of E5 so some time to go before I start moaning about lack of E6s to go at.

As for being good / excellent, I have no illusions. I just try hard and enjoy climbing against myself.

In reply to Lupine Lacuna: Probably in my mind:

Average HVS-E2

Good E3-E5

Great E6+

Onsight of course

In reply to Lupine Lacuna:
used to be a lot easier to grade climbers using the colour and style of legwear
I graduated from black ron hills to shin length non shiny tights...
...don't spoil my delusional memories of what that means..

In reply to Duncan Campbell:
Average - sub 7a+
Good - 7a+ - 8a
Great - 8a+

All onsight of course.

Andy F

In reply to Lupine Lacuna:

Average - Regular VS to occasional E1.

Good - Regular E1 to occasional E4.

Great - Regular E4 to occasional worked E8.

Demi god - Regular E6 to occasional worked E10.

In reply to Lupine Lacuna:


Average climber = broad minded

Good climber = Even more broad minded

Great climber = good positive attitude and.. +++ broad minded. Heh!

In reply to Lupine Lacuna: "The best climber is the one having the most fun"... can't remember who said this but he was dead right!!!

In reply to sphagnum:

I like that... makes me a Great climber lol

Interestingly, no one has mentioned new routing. For example someone might be an E5 onsighter and new router. Its hard to argue they are great, isnt it?

In reply to Euge:

Makes me a good one.. and heaven forbid as he will just love this.. Andy on that other thread a poor one, ha ha.

In reply to Euge:

Agreed

In reply to Anonymous:
Like.

In reply to Euge:

Trite bollox. The best climber is the best climber and the person having the most fun is the person having the most fun.

Only in climbing could you consider nominating Reg Postlethwaite from Accrington as the best in their sport simply because he goes around with an innane grin on his face.

In reply to atlantis:

You know Andy's trad experience appears to be significantly greater than yours, don't you?

In reply to Lupine Lacuna: I think it depends where you live and who you knock arround with.

In reply to andy farnell: Yeah, I'd definately agree with that, I am a seriously average sport climber, and am a borderline average/good trad climber, cos trad's what I do (poorly) best innit.

Dunc

In reply to Lupine Lacuna:

isn’t it a sliding scale ...

I always feel that I am average those knocking out grades above me are good and those constantly ticking top end or inspirational stuff are great.

those who can do top end stuff and still sup a good pint or nine are just plain leg ends

In reply to GrahamD:

grumpy bastard

In reply to Lupine Lacuna:

an average climber does stuff everyone expects them to.

a good climber does stuff not everyone thinks they can.

a great climber does stuff no one else ever thought of.

In reply to Lupine Lacuna:

An average climber is average, a good climber is good and a great climber is great?

In reply to tradattack:

Possibly the most complimentry thing I've heard all week.

In reply to GrahamD:

ahh. well that would explain your grumpiness.

In reply to sphagnum:

That put a smile on my face for some reason! (mainly because I'm rubbish/poor, but trying to become good!).

In reply to Lupine Lacuna: Me.

In reply to Anonymous:


lol!

In reply to John_Hat:


PS. A sensible answer to a silly question.