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Classic Eastern Grit Across the Grades

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 UKC Articles 13 Apr 2015
Left Unconquerable at Stanage. Andy Birtwistle climbing., 5 kbChris Craggs selects 10 classic routes from across the grade spectrum on the Eastern Gritstone edges.

Read more at http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=7222
 Andy Moles 13 Apr 2015
In reply to UKC Articles:

If the start of London Wall 'feels' 6b, in what sense is it not 6b?
 Graham Hoey 13 Apr 2015
In reply to UKC Articles:

Regarding Whillans' ascent of Sentinel Crack ('or so the stories go') - he is on audio tape describing his solo ascent, or is this a suggestion that he was telling porkies?
 chris fox 13 Apr 2015
In reply to UKC Articles:

So Lucie Sedlarova's alter ego "Emma" is climbing Powder Monkey Traverse !!!!
 john arran 13 Apr 2015
In reply to Andy Moles:

> If the start of London Wall 'feels' 6b, in what sense is it not 6b?

Always used to be 6b for the start but 6a for the crux at the top. Can't imagine it's changed much.
 john arran 13 Apr 2015
In reply to UKC Articles:

Re: Profit of Doom. " Many pre-place the gear in the groove on abseil which reduces the commitment and possibly the grade."

That's right; the grade is definitely reduced ... to E4!

Without being able to see the gear it's absurd to expect a typical E4 leader to launch into that crux sequence, knowing that if the very sketchy-looking gear does rip the fall will be a painful clatter on the slab below. In fact I'd say that because of that it's no longer really a great classic, as it's only feasibly onsighted by folk climbing above the grade. Shame.
 Chris Craggs Global Crag Moderator 14 Apr 2015
In reply to john arran:

> Always used to be 6b for the start but 6a for the crux at the top. Can't imagine it's changed much.

Nah - it has always been old school 6a!



Chris
 Mick Ward 14 Apr 2015
In reply to Chris Craggs:

Old skool 5c = 6a?
Old skool 6a = 6b??

Etc, etc.

A bit like those times tables we used to have to learn... with old skool teachers... and old skool canings, and... (sorry, just couldn't resist!)

Mick
 Chris Craggs Global Crag Moderator 14 Apr 2015
In reply to Mick Ward:

I am happy to be corrected but I don't think London Wall has ever appeared in a book at any other grade than E5 6a,


Chris
 john arran 14 Apr 2015
In reply to Chris Craggs:

It's a good example of the common practice of ignoring hard starts in awarding technical grades so as to better describe the crux. An extreme example is Green Death (E5 5c but with a start that's very much harder than 5c) but it's really very common.
My suggestion from years ago was to add an additional tech grade at the start in such cases (making London wall 6b E5 6a and Green Death something like 6c E5 5c) but it was never taken up by any guide authors. Probably better off as a Font grade prefix nowadays.
 John2 14 Apr 2015
In reply to Chris Craggs:

You can always rely on Paul Nunn - E5 6b.
In reply to john arran:

For what it's worth I don't think the start of London Wall is even close to 6b and never have, but then I have thin fingers. Also, just of half the people who have voted here think it is only 6a - http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/c.php?i=10793

Green Death is an interesting one since by far the most useful information is that the unprotected move high on the route is 5c. Giving it E5 6b wouldn't really give the correct impression. Also, you can start by traversing in at 5c and this is how we have described it with the direct start as an option.

Alan

 deepsoup 14 Apr 2015
In reply to UKC Articles:
There being a (kinda sorta) 'one route per crag' rule here - is Great North Road the victim of London Wall's success?

Croton Oil is a great route at HVS 5a, but GNR is undeniably greater in every respect bar the novelty of the abseil descent.
Post edited at 11:12
 john arran 14 Apr 2015
In reply to Alan James - Rockfax:

> For what it's worth I don't think the start of London Wall is even close to 6b and never have, but then I have thin fingers. Also, just of half the people who have voted here think it is only 6a - http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/c.php?i=10793

I'm pretty sure that if the top and bottom sections were reversed it would get 6b and few would be objecting
It's also an example of how the 'hardest move' idea becomes difficult as soon as several such moves are stacked together, like in the bottom crack. I'd agree that any one movement would be possible at 6a but tech grades more commonly apply to a short sequence and that gets harder fast at that angle and with such poor footholds. It always amazed me how such an important part of the grading system relies on identifying a single hardest move and yet the definition of a move has never been agreed. Still, most of the time it works well enough so I'm not suggesting it needs a radical overhaul, but a few anomalies such as hard starts definitely cause it problems.


> Green Death is an interesting one since by far the most useful information is that the unprotected move high on the route is 5c. Giving it E5 6b wouldn't really give the correct impression. Also, you can start by traversing in at 5c and this is how we have described it with the direct start as an option.

Giving it E5 6b would also still be undergrading the tech difficulty of the start, but the approach you've taken in this case seems reasonable. Without separate grades for the start and the crux there's no way you can give a good idea of its difficulty without adding text.

 John Gillott 14 Apr 2015
In reply to john arran:

I always remember the E5 5c grade for Green Death as being with a pile of stones.

 John Gillott 14 Apr 2015
In reply to Chris Craggs:

> I am happy to be corrected but I don't think London Wall has ever appeared in a book at any other grade than E5 6a,

> Chris

5c in I'm sure you can guess.
In reply to john arran:

> It's also an example of how the 'hardest move' idea becomes difficult as soon as several such moves are stacked together, like in the bottom crack. I'd agree that any one movement would be possible at 6a but tech grades more commonly apply to a short sequence and that gets harder fast at that angle and with such poor footholds. It always amazed me how such an important part of the grading system relies on identifying a single hardest move and yet the definition of a move has never been agreed. Still, most of the time it works well enough so I'm not suggesting it needs a radical overhaul, but a few anomalies such as hard starts definitely cause it problems.

Yes, I agree with a lot of that. Conversely I think there are a lot of high cruxes which get inflated grades due to where they are on the route. How many times have we all sagged on a bolt or runner high on a route at the 'supposed crux' only to do the move first time after a quick shake because it wasn't really that hard.

Overall I am losing a bit of faith in the UK tech grade for the inconsistency reasons you have given above. I think it is why many top climbers give hard trad routes a font or sport grade to clarify exactly how hard a route really is.

Alan
 tehmarks 14 Apr 2015
In reply to Alan James - Rockfax:

But surely the solution isn't to use a different grading system, but to remove the inconsistency?
In reply to tehmarks:

> But surely the solution isn't to use a different grading system, but to remove the inconsistency?

I think that is impossible due to the variation in what people expect from a tech grade, and what a route delivers. John's illustration of how the nature and position of a crux move can affect what tech grade a route is given is just one of many variations that can change a tech grade. How long the move is, what comes before it, what comes after it, what type of climbing it is, which crag it is on, what the rock type is, who graded it in the first place, ... all these change massively from area to area.

Even if you could drill down and define what is meant by 'a move', sort out some system for making allowances for the position of a move, and propagate this over the whole country, I still don't think you will have done anything very useful since there are so many specific variations in people and climbing styles.

The good thing about Font and Sport grades is that aren't as ambitious, they are just an attempt to come up with the overall difficulty of the route/problem. There are still big variations but the system is more flexible and less demanding.

Trying to actually crystallise the hardest move on any route is very much in the category 'how long is a piece of string'.

Having said all that, I don't think we should get rid of tech grades (except for boulder problems maybe) but we should learn to lower our expectations of what they actually mean.

Alan
 Chris Craggs Global Crag Moderator 14 Apr 2015
In reply to deepsoup:

> There being a (kinda sorta) 'one route per crag' rule here - is Great North Road the victim of London Wall's success?

> Croton Oil is a great route at HVS 5a, but GNR is undeniably greater in every respect bar the novelty of the abseil descent.



My idea was 10 different crags, 10 different classics, 10 different grades - the the tricky thing was I also wanted routes that had a photo in the book!


Chris
 andybirtwistle 18 May 2015
In reply to Chris Craggs:

You can please all of the people ----------------- springs to mind
 Chris Craggs Global Crag Moderator 19 May 2015
In reply to andybirtwistle:

Well I guess if we please most of the people most of the time that will have to do

Chris

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