UKC

Mantis (E1 5b)

Top roped this on Saturday. Crux is several completely unprotected crux moves with very nasty ground fall potential. UKC voting suggests mid - hard 5b (which I tend to agree with) but mid-easy E1 - even some votes for HVS. How can that be? I'd expect E1 5b to be adequately protected. Unprotected 5b moves with a certain ground fall surely means E2. Or is it that gritstone climbers are expected to land safely from that height? Several accounts talk of bouldering mats but shouldn't it be graded without?

Curious really.

Martin

In reply to Martin Hore:


Grades are given for a lead.

In reply to Martin Hore:

HVS 5a in my 1981 guide. I distinctly remember soloing it on a very hot mid-week day. Then we went for a paddle in the Doxey pool and the rest I leave to your imagination.

In reply to Martin Hore:
E2? As Pedro says it used to be graded as a standard HVS. I've not climbed it (solo) since 1987 so not sure if current grade of E1 is justified or whether this is grade creep?

In reply to Martin Hore:
As others have said, the main reason it's not E2 is that it's a classic HVS grit solo!

It's fairly standard Gritstone grading. Whilst hard moves at bouldering height aren't completely discounted they are treated in pretty relaxed manner when it comes to the overall adjectival grade.

In reply to Martin Hore:

Maybe you were trying it on the left of arete, where it is harder with a worse fall? If you start on the right then it's ok until you get high enough to get gear.

In reply to Martin Hore:
Well, I can't even remember what it looks like, but my logbook from 2006 says 'lead o/s, "Not HVS"', so it sounds like it has already been upgraded once in the last 5-10 years

Generally there are quite a few grit routes of around 8m or less that are spicy for their grades. Think about the slab with Daydreamer etc.

In reply to Martin Hore:

On of the comments is 'HVS with a mat'. Seems to sum it up

In reply to Martin Hore:

Thanks everyone - probably much as I expected.

Dave: I know the grade is for the lead. But I think it's fair to extrapolate from a top rope ascent. You can get a pretty good idea of the technical grade (I've led lots of 5b in my time) and you can see exactly where the only gear will go - it's well past the crux.

Coel: I made the first move on the right, then rocked over and climbed the rest to the break on the left. Perhaps that's not the easiest way.

Maybe I'm not good on grit (It's true, nothing I've successfully led at E2 is on grit - E1 is my tops anywhere nowadays) but to call this HVS seems way out. The following day I led The Thorn at Beeston. Now that's what I call HVS. A couple of very steep 5a moves but with adequate protection close by and fresh air to fall into if you fluff it.

Martin

In reply to Martin Hore:
Preying it will be one day ....

In reply to Martin Hore:

As others have said, this is normal for grit grading. A bit of bouldering with a naff landing doesn't tend to push up the adj grade, even though objectively it's a dangerous form of climbing. I'd much rather take a long fall onto good gear into space than break my ankles from 3m up, but there is nothing objective about this aspect of grading.


I'd say it means generally means E1 on grit, E2 if it's from quite high.

There are much worse examples than Mantis for this type of grading. Try some of the E1s on Stanage with 5c boulder starts: Ice Boat, Nightmare Slab, Phlegethoa. The landings are shocking, so dangerous 5c yet E1...

In reply to Jon Stewart:


Sounds like these should be upgraded.

In reply to Martin Hore:

Quietus and Dangler are E2 so let's not go there with your claim. Plenty of grit HVS,s at 5c with ground fall potential that are much harder.
Seems to me nowadays there is almost an inexorable upgrading of routes. Demon Rib E4 I don't think so it's a steady solo compared to say Downhill racer which is also a solo, but subject to much unnecessary top roping and this is proper E4, but even then I am somewhat confused by nearby routes being graded E5 5c !

In reply to Martin Hore:

As others have said, this was hvs not long ago. It's exciting but steady. I've no objections to e1, but in my opinion it's fairly soft. Definitely not e2.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Phlegethoa is safe but tricky to get the gear in right, the other two are nasty, especially nightmare slab, fluff that Rockover and you're going miles.

In reply to Martin Hore:

And to the OP, think we saw you at beeston, nice to meet you. The moves on mantis don't have enough risk of mega death to get grit E2 and there's only 1 5b move iirc, still E1 though not HVS as it used to get.

In reply to Martin Hore:

Top-roping easy routes is pure bollox hth.

In reply to Fiend:

i was one of the likes


not done it for a long time but it was just a route we would solo when up there and never thought it was worth E2

In reply to LakesWinter:


Good to meet you at Beeston as well. I presume you were the team on Pocket Symphony.

Still not much support for my suggestion (as I expected really).

I've always thought, and this is supported by other commentators, that effectively the UK trad grading system has a 5 point scale of risk underlying it. Take HVS for example. The range of technical grade normally associated with HVS is from 4b (Sunset Slab) where you risk a fatal accident if you fluff it, to 5c (several examples above) where you should be able to fall multiple times with abandon with no significant risk of injury. HVS 5a is the standard for adequately protected routes. Likewise E1 5b, VS 4c etc. This breaks down around E3 6a but I think most people acknowledge that the UK system is not really fit for purpose outside the S - E3 range.

So if Mantis involved a risk of "mega death" I would expect to see E3 5b - two notches away from standard. The grade I'm suggesting (E2 5b - one notch away from standard) suggests a risk of injury greater than the average which you would expect on a standard E1 5b. I think that's about right. Though I appreciated it's not the norm for gritstone grading of similar routes, I think it is reflected elsewhere in the UK.

I appreciate this analysis doesn't take account of how sustained the route is which the UK system normally incorporates into the Adjectival grade. (I would argue it would be better incorporated in the Numerical grade which was what was originally intended - my 1976 Cloggy guide says "the numerical grades refer to the difficulty of top-roping the climb and so the strenuousness of the climb is an important factor".)

My own feeling was that there were two or three 5b moves on Mantis before the break and first gear but I may not have gone the easiest way.

As for Fiend's comment "top roping easy routes is pure bollox", I'm impressed your standard is so far above mine. I thought Mantis was bloody hard, top-roped or not.

Martin

In reply to Martin Hore:


I'd agree that it's more than one tricky move but I think E1 is about right for something where jumping off probably won't result in significant injury. Certainly it felt a bit full-on for HVS.

Anyway, I increasingly feel it's not worth risking my ankles doing this kind of thing without a pad. Call it a long service award.

In reply to Dave Garnett:

Perhaps the grading system is a bit broken wrt to modern protection now making many falls higher up a lot safer than falls from a few metres or so up. Personally I'd rather take a safe fall higher up than an unpadded, unprotected fall lower down especially on to a bad landing. I would have thought most would agree and perhaps the grading system needs to reflect that, as its supposed to reflect a consensus of difficulty.

Either that or just accept using a mat isn't cheating, which should mostly compensate grade wise in any case.

Personally I don't really care so much about the ethics of whether a mat is ok or not. If I'm climbing somewhere where it makes a lot of sense on many of the routes (like Northumberland or to some extent grit) then I'll take one along.

In reply to Martin Hore:

I think this highlights a bit of difficulty we have in applying a very versatile trad grading system to what are really barely routes (probably high ball boulders in other countries) in many cases on grit. The trad grade obviously takes into account sustained climbing, seriousness and technical difficulty but in the case of very short routes you simply don't have the sustained climbing factor - so even though routes can be technical, or somewhat serious, when you try to do an overall comparison with, say, a 100m mountain E2 5B with multiple 5B moves its sometimes hard to rank an 8m route as being the same proposition (or grade) as the 100m route.

In reply to GrahamD:
That is even more the case in Northumberland generally being worse protected and shorter than grit. That said some short grit routes can be pumpy as hell, but you don't have a bunch of objective dangers you do on many bigger crags.

In reply to Fiend:

>*Roping up any* routes is pure bollox hth.


Fixed it for ya...

If you can't OS solo it barefooted and nekkid, best leave it until ya get better.

In reply to Martin Hore:
Happy to admit I've failed to do Mantis several times. The Arête is too precarious and the landing too rough for my liking. It might be HVS or one of those bouldery E1's but you'd be kidding yourself at E2.
I was on a similar route at Lord's Seat the other week, albeit very different in style. I was surprised to get Steppin' Out first go and, nice as it as was to do a guide book E point, I knew deep down that it was just a big boulder problem and, had I had a mat with me was probably only. worth VS...

In reply to GrahamD:

Apart from the qualification you get when you actually see said 5 metres of adhered sand!

In reply to CurlyStevo:


I agree with just about all that. As regards the grading system, I think hard bold starts getting rather low grades is definitely the result of bygone times (when these routes were put up) when you'd sometimes be lucky to get any gear at all on a pitch, hence a short route with the hard bit low down was considered fairly safe by comparison. And when a route IS reassessed in the modern era, one upgrade is thought more than enough thankyou. Not a bold route nowadays, but take Goliath for example which Whillians never regarded as anything much, but nowadays with cams it's his hardest route!

In reply to Martin Hore:
I thought the crux of the Thorn felt bloody hard! I was seconding which sometimes gives you more chance to worry about things, but still I came quite close to falling off. I've seconded some 5bs recently which I'm sure were easier.

But grades eh?! Love 'em, but don't take them too seriously.