UKC

Kimbrough Moore, author of multiple climbing guides and professor of philosophy at San Francisco State University explores the meaning of the climbing grade, and advocates for the adoption of a more malleable - and therefore more specific - alternative, the slash grade.

Read more

Hmm

Not sure if this article is 90 days late or 275 days early.

Proposed slash grade system from easy to hard:

Total piss

Piss easy

Not piss

Actually pissed myself

Three grades:

I can do it. 

I can do it if I try it loads of times. 

I can't do it. 

Climbing is at its best when you fluke one in the last category🙂

What grade does Slash give Knockin' on Heaven's Door (E9 6c)? 

No one from the US should be writing essays on how to measure things (although it's weirdly appropriate that it comes from a Philosophy Professor). Nor should the Brits, we can't even make our mind up. This should be left to the French.

Here's a thought, you want an extra grade because you're short/hungover/ate too many pies? 

Go ahead. Take one. Take two if you like. Nobody cares. It's a one player game.

The French? Do you mean the same people who call a quarter litre of beer "un demi"?

An interesting article and reflecting the reality of current grading.

Once upon a time the late great Andy Nisbett gently admonished (rejected) a new route submission that featured a split grade (I was told to make my mind up on way or the other).

I can't find much to argue with in the article, but it would have be good if rather than saying the same thing lots of different ways, more was said about the sort of context in which they're advocating this could be implemented. For example, on big routes in Yosemite? Perhaps it's because bouldering is just about the moves, but for whatever reason I'd have less objection to seeing slash grades here than elsewhere. 

The only UK context I think slash grades are welcome at present (for me) is certain winter routes, usually easier gullies where a chockstone could be banked out or otherwise. Or routes climbed as ice routes vs mixed routes. E.g. Hell's Lum (II / IV), The Vent (III / IV,7) 

I think for most, grades are used to assess whether a route is within your grasp.  If a route has a grade I can lead comfortably it shouldn’t be a massive struggle.  If there’s a wide variance in the difficulty of two routes with same grade, because of someone’s body type, then it isn’t working for them.

Sociable bouldering grades:

• The whole gang can do it.
• I can do it and the rest of the gang can't.  (These are the best.)
• The rest of the gang can do it but I can't.  (These are the worst.)
• None of us can do it.

I think their point of view is they'd like boulder problem grades to actually reflect reality for, say, someone 5 foot 5. They're a bit meaningless if first you have to find a problem where the given grade actually reflects the reality. And grades are surely there to point people at what they might like to try. 

There are only 2 grades.  Those you can get up and those you can't.

• Yes
• No
• Maybe

Two grades:

• Routes to do
• Routes to have done

There was that climb at Stanage graded 'V Diff to VS, depends if you can do it or not' believe it has settled at Hard Severe.

I think it was 'Marmoset'  

PS I could do it.

John Gresty

From my experience of climbing with shorter people, it doesn't actually matter whether a problem depends on height. Even when it definitely doesn't they make sure to explain, at great length, that it is much, much, harder for them, and point out that I "just reached" whenever I use exactly the same beta as them.

But the grade isn't just a measure of achievement, it's also useful information for choosing climbs. I disagree with his suggestion to make grades less granular, a whole bunch of different systems have sprung up that all seem to be in approximate agreement about how wide a grade should be, and I think it mostly works. Increasing the width of each grade is just reducing useful information.

I don't think there's a broad need for a huge number of climbs to get the kind of slash grade that he proposes. But I do see value in guidebook authors (and indoor walls) being mindful of the fact that the vast majority of grading has historically been done by men and that the increasing number of women in climbing (and others who sit further from the average in various ways for various reasons) might appreciate extra information in scenarios where it's most relevant (e.g. particularly reachy moves where the intermediate options are vastly harder). That doesn't have to mean a massive revolution in grading, just a little more of the kind of comment you already sometimes see in route descriptions for particularly obvious examples.

A bit like me using my weight as an excuse on Oak Tree Walk (VS 4b). 

It really does affect your reach ........... 

Then why single out height? There are countless characteristics that you could argue this about. And that is why we have words and symbols in guides. I think we're agreeing here; use those. 

hmm. as with most thinky essays, i find myself agreeing with some points (or the general thrust), while taking issue with other parts.

one nit to pick: instead of writing ‘the grades weren’t designed with you in mind’, i’d rather propose phrasing it as one being an outlier in the distribution whose experiences shaped the consensus. because there’s nothing inherent (or ‘designed’) about the grade scale that prescribes a certain kind of person’s experience. it’s just incidental that those more strongly represented weigh heavier in the majority view.*

and that can be for multiple reasons, not just morphology. climbing is a skill sport as well, and individual strengths and weaknesses will shape the grade-experience very differently, even between two climbers that share the same morphology. whether your reach allows you to skip the crux or whether your nuclear finger strength, your ability to hold body tension in an awkward position, or whatever else, allows you to idle on a move that others have to rush is largely equivalent in how it shapes the experience of difficulty.

grades, to me, exist in a sort of inbetween state. what they measure esists and might even be an intrinsic part of climbing: the experience of challenge. at the same time, much about them is fraught: too many factors influence this experience, and there can be no conclusive – for all climbers – grade to any climb. there also aren’t any steps in it, even though the scale’s discrete labels indicate so. and in the end, the experience of challenge is very complex. compressing it into a point on a line (or a point in 2d space, as with british trad grades) brings certain benefits, such as rankability and groupability, but it also throws out a whole lot of nuance. forgetting that there’s always more behind the number is a sure fire way to be led astray.

one of the most useful things i’ve taken away from my philosophy degree is to always keep in mind not just what a statement says, but also the predisposition and method it was arrived at by. in that way, a grade is a starting point, not a final dictum. a blunt tool. that doesn’t make it a bad one, and it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do our best to employ it as precisely and honestly as we can. and it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t embrace its inherent fuzzyness. grade measures an important aspect of climbing, and yet can never get there.

---

*) even then, upsets happen. such as lynn hill’s first free ascent of the nose, and not for lack of others trying. this may not be a question of breaching a first of the grade, but it is similarly prestigious.

"Grades serve many purposes: they enable climbers to gauge their success, compare abilities, plan climbing days, secure sponsorships, and, of course, boast to friends"

Grades are a language game - which Wittgenstein had a lot to say about. A language game is dependent on having a common standard which we can agree (or disagree on) - for example blue vs green.

I think that there are two interesting things going on here:

1. There are actually multiple language games going on within the idea of a climbing grade. As the author states in the quote above. While we shoehorn them all into a climbing grade, it's not clear to me that they are all relevant to the original language game. Certainly the original historic use of climbing grades which came from trad and alpine climbing was to enable climbers to select appropriate routes. Other games have followed more recently (e.g. securing sponsorships!)
2. So not only is there potentially a problem with the notion of a climbing grade as the subject of a language game (as there are actually multiple competing language games going on), but also the notion of a shared standard seems to be problematic as the author points out. Wittgenstein (again) commented on the gap between private experience and public language; summarised as  "I can know what you feel but not how you feel it". With climbing grades being a language game that is so heavily tied into our bodies, it could be argued that there is no way we can create a common consensus for rightness or wrongness - so grades are fundamentally impossible

And yet, climbing grades work and we do have some notion of consensus. We generally agree on colours, despite edge cases like The Dress (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress). I would argue that in practical terms, we take an anti-realist viewpoint, and think of climbing grades as something that is useful in helping us explain the world and operate in it (the alternate, realist viewpoint would be that there is some form of underlying reality to climbing grades). But again, this takes us back to the question of what climbing grades are useful for - which game are we actually playing? 

I don't think the article author or I did. I just gave reachy moves as an example, as it's probably the most obvious and discussed characteristic with a big impact. Hand size in cracks would be another significant one (which can be debilitating in either direction depending on the crack).

Yeah, I think that is going to be the pragmatic approach in the short term. I'm more in favour of the thrust of his argument than the specific slash grades suggestion, but I do think that more information than what guidebooks typically give at the moment would be a big advance for a lot of people.

The most slash grade route I have ever been on is The Butcher in Pembroke - E2/E3 5c. E2 feels wrong and so does E3. E2.5 anyone? [ducks]

If grades were absolutely perfect, and included variations for morphology etc, it would take most of the joy out of this stupid hobby. One of the best parts of climbing is not knowing wether you're going to piss a climb, get your arse kicked by a climb, or more than likely somewhere in between.

"If you're looking for an analogy, think shoe sizes. Shoe sizes are loosely based on physical measurements, but what matters most is their relationship to each other. The length of a size 9 is less important than the fact that it is bigger than an 8. Similarly, a climbing grade only has meaning inside a holistic system of grading."

It's interesting that he makes this analogy, but doesn't make the obvious (at least to me) observation that whilst the **shoe size** 9 may be larger than an 8, the **foot that it measures** may well not be. There will be plenty of feet that sit right on the boundary and thus probably are size 9 in some shoes and 8 in others, depending on the last. The solution to that problem is not further subdivision of shoe sizes, but going to a shop and trying them on.

Climbing difficulty, like feet, does not proceed in discrete steps that can be easily categorized so trying to subdivide further solves nothing. Guidebook authors have already solved this problem with route descriptions, I really see no need for anything further.

nah that one's simple. Looking up from the bottom, E3. Once you've done it, E2.

Yes, I know, I just read it. Please don't.

This does remind me of a climb in the Leicestershire quarries that had a grade between VS and E3 depending on your height. Then there was Kinky Boots description which I am sure said that if you were below a certain height then after falling across the dawn you’d now find yourself hanging upside down.

Two points:

1) His use of the term "slash grades" is unforgiveably stupid, given that term's widespread existing use for routes for which a grade consensus is hard to reach only because it's a borderline case rather than for reasons of morphology. He even acknowledges its existing use in the article but ploughs (or should that be 'plows'!) ahead anyway in full awareness of the confusion he's creating. Already in the comments here there are several misinterpretations.

2) A grade attempts to indicate a measure of difficulty for an average-sized climber. Sure, some may find it harder and some easier due to morphology, but the grade itself represents an actual difficulty for a hypothetical 'average' proportioned climber. It may be biased for historical reasons towards male heights but it isn't an average and therefore cannot be correct for nobody. Those grading need to and generally do make a choice as to which method it's being graded for. Notable cases are often explained in text.

Now if a climber has a morphology significantly different from average, they inevitably will find some gades soft and some stiff. Theoretically, a guidebook could be written specifically for a particular morphology, with grades that reflect the true difficulty for that size of person. I wouldn't have a problem with that, as it would more accurately indicate to many people how hard they should expect each route to feel, which ultimately is the primary purpose of a guidebook. My question then would be whether that would reduce or expand the number of grade arguments on here?!

Tldr on that one sorry.

Grades have always been arbitrary indications of potential difficulties relative to another route built on a consensus. Anyone who gets too deep into "that's never an X grade route" (apart from obviously horrendous and dangerous sandbags and for the purpose of trolling UKC) is missing the point. Apart from TPS, that's never an E1 in a million years...

I largely agree with the sentiment but...

The slash grade already gets used to mean "between to grades" e.g. 6c+/7a.

You want something that actually suggests a different grade for different morphologies which has to go into a description e.g. https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/windy_clough-1389/take_me_to_a_dou... 

The thing is though it's graded for the on sight. Standing at the bottom and starting the crux you think it's E3 but it gradually dawns on you after the crux that maybe it's E2 - so it's a classic E2.5 in my book

It's not that unusual to find wording such as "6b for the short", or "a grade easier for the tall" in guidebooks, so do we not already do what is proposed where it really matters?

Otherwise are we going to start adding complex multi-dimensional charts for each climb, where a grade can be computed using a combination of lengths of ones legs, arm, torso, finger size, weight and whatever else you may decide is relevant?

If In reply to UKC Articles:

When I started work on the Culm guide, the instruction from our editor (the late John Wilson) was "No slash grades."  I stuck to that. If I couldn't get a consensus, we decided to round upwards, so E2/3 became E3 etc. The reasoning behind this was that it would be safer for an E3 leader to find the route relatively easy than for an E2 leader to get into trouble on it. 

One of the problems with grading is that (as others have said) there are really only 4 or 5 grades for any climber - easy, fairly steady, a bit of a struggle, I might just get up it on a really good day if I keep trying and no chance. How can an E9 leader tell the difference between Severe and VD, or for that matter Diff and HVS?

Yes, I guess that did confuse the issue. They must've envisaged using a / in the grade title (e.g. V5 / V7) but perhaps should've called it Multiple Grades. They'd also have to explain in a guidebook what the 2nd grade is for if not saying in the description. Unless they were thinking use a symbol of a small woman...

For borderline routes, that's a good rule. However, that's not what the article was about.

Or a tall man, or someone with big fingers, or someone with small fingers, or someone with rubbish leg flexibility, etc.

Ha. Maybe there needs to be something like Darth Graderhttps://darth-grader.net/ -   but where you input all your data like ape index, degrees of flexibility in various directions, girth and length of fingers for a personalised grade....

Talking grades is an integral part of climbing

BTW I was not in the slightest bit serious about the morpho Darth Grade thing ...

The established onsight grade is the nominal average experience having tried to climb it with nothing more than guidebook beta. What it looks like from the bottom is usually fairly irrelevant, unless the starting belay is tricky and/or exceptionally exposed (slash pun intended).

I quite enjoyed the article, albeit I knew it would get the usual jokes here (a bit tiresome as you head towards a hundred repeats) and it does suffer a bit in translation from the US.

I love the UK trad grade system as it was perfectly designed for our predominant trad onsight lead game. The birth of the E grade was a shot of adrenaline for newer generations. We then went and messed it up with that machismo of ever wider tech grades above UK 6a. Not so many want to talk about the problems tied up with that extra reach. I'd love to see major reforms of UK trad tech grades to reduce the current unreasonably high level of intangibles. Hopefully this would attract more of our most talented climbers closer to the leading edge trad onsight game. It's already happening to an extent, with sport and boulder grades added to hard trad lists, but I'd rather see subdivisions of UK tech from 6b (minus standard and plus) to keep things tidier.

The huge growth in numbers of women bouldering and sport climbing hard in the UK is a very welcome change already.

I've climbed onsight at my best on a consistent basis in the US as I could trust YDS plus film rating grades (later on backed by Mountain Project votes on less popular routes). The looking up grade (presight?) might well be intimidating but I nearly always found such routes were spot on and that gave a greater experience and memory. The opposite (something that looked from below to be easier than the grade) always indicated a fight or something unexpected and beating that inevitability was often also memorable.

This - it certainly wouldn't be as much fun if you knew that every route at grade X would lead to a similar experience.

I suppose, with creeping  grade inflation over time, each climb subject to it goes through a err slash phase

I appreciate your approach overall. Some thoughts below...

I'm fine with talking about distribution (as long as "outlier" refers to anyone who doesn't have an average male body), but would stand by the phrasing. If a system isn't designed to account for outliers, it will typically ignore them. This is the issue that I'm interested in. 

I like that your mind went here. I didn't cover it here, but I think there are important differences between skills that can be developed and unchangeable features of a person's body. 

Heck yea.

I love Wittgenstein. When you say there are multiple language games, what do you mean exactly? Are you referring to the different purposes/uses of grades, such as gauging success, comparing abilities, planing climbing days, securing sponsorships, boasting to friends, sense of self-worth, and safety?

I agree. Short climbers have to read the text whereas taller climbers can look at the grade. It's often more complicated than this because short climbers have to read between the lines. If a climb says "span" it's probably hard for someone who is 5ft. There's all these little word-clues that short climbers must decipher. 

There’s probably an ideal point between ‘similar’ and ‘completely random’ though? My 5’1 partner can climb E2 but get shut down by a mountain severe with a single jug that’s out of reach (and inevitably above a completely smooth polished chimney). 

In my experience text doesn't materially help because what guidebook authors think is short (i.e. short for a man) is still a lot taller than me (as a short woman). Sure I can avoid anything that refers to height or span or whatever, but these hints are given for a minority of climbs that have holds or clips that I can't reach.

Right? Text only helps if it's clear who the author is referring to. For example, some guides have a symbol for reachy. Does this mean it's easier if you're tall? That the grade is wrong if you're short? What even is tall and short? 

To whom would "slash grades" apply? A normal sized man and woman from the region described by the guide book? What about a woman who is much shorter than average? What about a short man, who happens to be the height of an average woman? How many of these grades do you propose per route, and along how many axes do you wish to plot them?

I suppose if you wish to gather the data to produce such a guide, nobody will stop you!

entirely fair! my issue was that i read ‘designed’ as an expression of intention, and consensus grading as an aggregate of subjective experiences of challenge did not arrive at its bias with such an intention to exclude (there are no crimp cabals convening in dank cellars trying to devise grades that stump the tall and the short*, **), but as a byproduct of the demographic makeup of the climbing community.

as many pointed out, i’m not certain that the system is as unaccomodating as you imply. yes, the grade number by itself does not offer this, but accompanying text or a guidebook’s symbol catalogue frequently do add further qualifiers such as ‘[other grade] if you’re taller/shorter/other factor’ or that a crack’s dimensions are particularly tough or accomodating to certain limb dimensions. i would tend towards the stance that grade numbers are not the tool to offer that nuance, but i think that we are fundamentally in agreement here. after all, your proposal of embracing multiple and more qualified grades also expands beyond the single grade number.

yes, for sure! for the question of which climbs are attainable, things you can train for are of course essential. i would still hold that the line between the two is neither a hard one nor simple to draw. you can train your mobility, but factors like hip turnout come with a hard limit imposed by the angle of the neck of the femur and a couple other unchangeables in the makeup of the hip joint***. you can train strength in pretty much every part of your body, but its effect and its ceiling may be subject to a host of limits such as age, muscle fibre type ratios, an accumulation of battle scars collected along the way…

for the question of which level of challenge we report with honesty after an ascent, though, and thereby our contribution to a consensus grade, these factors are all present and influential. and without a way to fully discount their influence, too. we may have an understanding of our more particular superpowers that allows us to disclaim when we notice we made heavy use of them, but their influence in less obvious cases is much harder to tease out.

---

* i include the tall being stumped from the experience of how many boulder problems asked me (186 cm, so just under 1 standard deviation above the population mean for my country & age cohort) to fit in a ridiculously cramped box, not to mention the sit starts that imply my elbows can fit into the same space my hip inhabits, and both of them are halfway underground.

** ‘crimp cabal convention’ goes on the list of future boulder problem names!

*** https://iadms.org/media/3597/iadms-resource-paper-turnout-anatomy.pdf

This entire argument only works if you have decided grades are trophies so you want people to either post their V4 or V8 'trophy' otherwise it's "not fair".

The only good irrefutable point this makes is about grades applying to your average male.

If everyone just accepts **grades are an average indicator of difficulty**, then you don't need slash grades.

What we do need and what will probably happen naturally and gradually as more women climb, log and develop routes, is for the average of grades to be adjusted to include the changing population climbing (e.g. more women).

How does that work for climbs/problems for which the grade you have to be capable of varies greatly with climber height? If a problem is either V4 or V8 depending on holds used, giving it V6 is going to be wrong for everybody.

Indeed it’s HS for some morphologies 

Indeed. King Kong .... otherwise it's E1 up that slab according to any historical logbook votes and the vast majority of modern guidebook editor feedback.

I don't see why. As I've said above, I think it's equally applicable to the other main purpose of grades, letting people know when they're choosing routes what kind of experience they can expect.

Ha. Yeah, don't believe the stories of the crimp cabal! 

Bill Ramsey has an article coming out here... next week? He argues along your lines, that grades aren't as unaccommodating as I say. I agree that there are bandaids that get put on our grading system - things like symbols or accompanying text. I think this fits with my argument however. The grades are biased toward an average male body, so if you want to convey the useful information for folks, you have to look elsewhere. I'm suggesting expanding who we make grades of so that symbols and obtuse descriptions aren't necessary. In other words, I want grades to work well for a wider section of climbers. 

Agreed. Neither hard nor simple. I still think it's useful. An offhands crack might be significantly easier for a smaller hand that can get a solid jam. And this is true irrespective of crack climbing ability. 

Well said. 

I think that every climb is different. For some, a single grade works. Others might have a range of 3-4 grades. It depends. So it's going to be a balance between accuracy and usability. At some point it's just overthinking and unworkable. 

Yeah - how about my personal 'problems'. I'm 59 this year and only started climbing in the last few years. I'm weak (can't hang on a lattice 20mm edge) but tall (6'1" with a +2 ape), poor endurance and hypermobile. Oh and I have a bad back with multiple fused vertebrae so not too much risk please. I can get up a few easy 6a's (Edgehog E3 5c) but can't get up hard HVS (Storm crux). 

I want a grading system graded for my strength, height, mobility and endurance so that I can onsight stuff safely Will slash grades help?

Tim

Curiously, what you're suggesting is very much what we all do, albeit subconsciously, when deciding which routes to try. For the type of route that plays to our strengths - in my case pumpy, technical and bold - we're far more willing to try routes a grade or two harder. Whereas for bouldery, fingery routes I would expect to have a much harder time on the same grade route, so I'd temper my expectations accordingly and probably lower the grade of bouldery routes I try. In both cases the perceived grade (a.k.a. the personal grade) would be the same, though it would likely differ from other people's personal grades for the same routes.

Ultimately, we'll likely have an AI app that will be able to fairly accurately predict how hard we'll find each route based on feedback we've given it about routes we've already done, and in many ways this will be the equivalent of a personal grading system. Until then, I suspect we'll need to keep on making the kind of heuristic adjustments we already do in adusting our expectations in respect of given grades depending on our own limitations, strengths and weaknesses.

I dont get this....probably being stupid. But ain't it all relative. I mean I like technical slabs and am absolutely useless when it comes to overhanging routes, even when juggy and thuggish. I am an avg height bloke, but with two previous tendon tears, and a dodgy ankle. I look at grades for what they mean to me. It isnt an absolute I care about, though I like to improve against myself. It is an index that guides what I choose to do, but it's not an absolute, and the variety and failure is the spice of life.

Because it doesn’t stop at height does it. 
it’s just way easier for most people to spot very different beta for height differences. 
Few people other than decent climbing coaches and people who have very very good technique can spot the more subtle differences between (not only height)morphology, strength and weaknesses etc. 

I’m actually against grades entirely (though accept we need something for safety reasons with trad)
Boulders with going from V4-V8 are very rare. 
The usual solution is to write V4 Morpho/use a reachy symbol. 
 

Otherwise it doesn’t end - why do people get their own personal grade for height but not for flexibility, finger/hand size, headgame, fitness, springiness, route reading ability, balance etc etc. 
Some of those you might argue can be improved but not for everyone and way less than you might think. 

Because it only matters if you think grades are trophies.

If slash grades are in for height, why not for the myriad other factors that influence how hard you find something.

Trad and boulder may be a different argument. 
we already have “reachy” symbols in rockfax for trad. So no need for a slash unless you want your trophy. 
There’s no safety issue if you get on a boulder that’s harder than you expected (not talking highballs)

Forgive me if my thinking is unclear. While I was taught by some very good philosophers, I can't claim to have been a particularly able pupil.

The whole idea of a language game is it puts the word into the context of its use, and says that a word has meaning only in the context of its use. Wittgenstein uses the example "Water!" which could be an order, a request, an answer or even a warning depending on context.

I think we play the same sorts of games with climbing grades. We use them for different purposes and as such we are playing different games. All the reasons you list are different language games. "V4" has one meaning when I am playing a "planning a day's climbing" language game. It has another meaning when boasting in the pub at the end of the day "V4!", because I am playing a different language game 

What makes it interesting, and more complex is that we are trying to find a consensus and a community standard for grades (i.e. the private language argument). I wonder whether the way that we build consensus, and what sorts of things are important vary depending on what sort of climbing game we are playing. 

In some respects, grades are an acknowledged social construct. Implicitly, we are ranking all climbs from easiest to hardest - again even this is problematic in that we have to have some form of  consensus on what "easiest" and "hardest" mean - and that too will depend on the climbing game we are playing. Once we have this list, we draw arbitrary lines across the list, delineating VS from HVS and E1 etc. 

I think that this breaks down in some cases - most notably bouldering (where physiology becomes important), and winter climbing, where the grade can depend on how banked out a route is. In these cases consensus can potentially break down because we are playing different language games.

 

Une demie? As a beer is une bière (f). The French can be very particular about their language.

I've checked and "un demi" seems acceptable.

I would never want to knowingly  misgender a glass of beer.

I think the word demi is referring to the capacity of the glass rather than what's inside it.

I've been laughed at in Germany for ordering "eine bier" (female) rather than ein bier (male). Because presumably beer being male makes perfect sense.

It's not only acceptable, it's correct! Un (not une) demi when ordering beer (in France) will get you 25cl. Origin possibly some medieval measure called un demiard.

Incidentally, une pinte is 50cl. In Belgium I think un demi is 50cl, and it's still "un" because it's un demi-litre. 

it’s ‘das bier’ (neutral), not ‘der bier’ (masculine) – the respective forms of the indefinite article (ein/eine [a/an], instead of the definite article der/die/das [the]) just align. because just assigning gender to nouns wouldn’t be confusing enough.

but oof, i get that might earn a good-natured giggle, but more than that? i’m usually on the opposite side of reactions to such mishaps – they’re a good reminder of how many mistakes don’t impede the ability to get the point across. so many of my compatriots would rather say they don’t speak english at all out of fear of not having an easy enough time with it.

I thought neutral would be einen but it's so long since I tried to learn it. Goodness knows why nouns would have genders!

I think it's neuter.......     

I've read in the Fell and Rock guides to the Lakes crags the comment "Much harder for the short of reach" and similar. That isn't really helpful. If it's 5a for the 'normal' climber, then it might be 5b or 5c for the short or even shorter. Maybe not slash grades, but grades for long, medium or short. That may seem to be a bit of a pain for guidebook writers, but there are probably only a few climbs that come into that category.

How is that not helpful?

Surely it's sufficient info so that someone of short stature 1) knows that it'll potentially be harder for them and 2) they can mitigate the risk of failure (and possibly awkward retreat) by climbing it with a tall mate.

Or resort to combined tactics, like Bill and Chris on Eagle Front.......

My grades:

I climb it, with little or no profanity.

I climb it with lots of profanity.

I barely climb it, with profanity that would make a sailor blush.

I fall off, there is a lot of profanity, and after a few tries, I climb it.  

I fall off and can't climb it.  No amount of profanity gets me up the route.  

As a shortie, I agree many of the points raised in this article.
There are a few troubles, though. For example, the "personal" grades are often fairly continuous according to climbers' body shape than discrete representable with just two numbers. Onsight grades sometimes differ from redpoint grades. The protectability for trad is a different vector; so if you want to express a British trad grade in a "slash" way, it will become messy.
Good guidebooks alraedy accommodate all the (major) variations in the description, like "various grades have been proposed, ranging from HVS to E3" etc. It may be up to debate whether the introduciton of the slash grade would improve something?

Personally, the best comment so far comes from planetmarshall 😉  

"Runners don't argue about which time is faster; the clock has the answer. Football players don't dispute who won the game, the scoreboard tells all."

Runners will argue which race is tougher and football players will argue which oponent is tougher to play, the scoreboard will not tell all, it depends on tactics, playstyle etc. Same as in climbing. Style of a climb will matter a lot individually.

and on the matter of debates in football, german wikipedia has an article on ‘wembley-tor’ (en: wembley goal), for difficult to decide goals where the ball hits the crossbar’s underside, then the ground on or behind the goal line without hard evidence whether it crossed it completely, and then bouncing back out into the field again.

(all because of such a goal tipped the 1966 world cup final between england and germany 3:2 in england’s favour.)

It’s never felt that hard to me.  I wonder what people would grade it, if they didn’t already have a number in a guidebook?  If done blind.

I like what you say here. I love the later Wittgenstein, but he is rather vague on what a language game is. Ok, agreeing with you analysis, the issue still comes up within the same language game! Two people can talking about grades with the same purpose in mind, but if they have different morphologies, the might still come up with different grades. 

You're one data point, not an average.

One person I watched who didn't have the book and climbed it onsight thought it was top end E1 5a... but that was a sweaty summers day.

A sample size of two is not much to base a consensus grade on. I suspect that if you gather a large enough sample of subjective opinions on the grades of a particular route that they will fall into a normally distributed bell curve and the mean will be regarded as the correct (objective) grade. I have no evidence to offer for this and plucked it out of my arse, however this may suffice for philosophical purposes. Of course grades are social constructs, not objective truths, but I suspect this is how grades are refined over time in practice.

Nah it's definitely HVS

For bouldering I think this is a good idea and already the case. If you are 5ft tall Cabin Boy is not 7A it's more like 7B/+ and if you're 6ft 2 it's not 7A it's more like 6C. 

The idea that all boulder problems can actually be one grade for everyone is laughable. It's simply not true, all you have to do that is go bouldering a few times with different people. 

How does this differ from any other sport? If you have short legs, you have to work much harder to run a distance in the same time than someone with long legs. When a Norwegian team of tall footballers play a team of Japanese short players, should a goad by header count for different points based on the team's average height?

I think the takeaway is to focus less on grades and more on our personal development as climbers. I use grades to determine whether I should try a climb and to monitor my progress, not as a definitive measure to compare myself with anyone. In the end of the day, I like climbing because I can challenge myself and compete with myself, rather than compare myself to others.

Rockfax guides have handy symbols which I think are way more informative than slash grades. Unless one would come up with an intricate system of categorising body types on strength, stamina, height, ape index, flexibility, weight, legs to upper body ratio etc etc. And that would probably be ludicrous 

I remain mystified about why so many people on this thread think that giving more information about how grades can vary for different people is specifically about letting short people boast about higher grades. 

Everyone seems to agree that grades have multiple purposes, including: 

1. Helping you judge whether, or in what manner, a climb is worth trying
2. Measuring your achievement on a personal level
3. Measuring your achievement against other people

I don't understand at all why several people seem to think the first of those isn't a huge part of this idea. Or why the third would be a bigger part of it than the second.

The relative importance of those factors obviously varies immensely between different people, different routes and different situations, but I don't see why giving an extra grade indication for a particular category of person would be seen as all about the third factor when that's not what any grading system has ever been exclusively for. If anything, the fact that the alternative grade probably wouldn't be taken as seriously would very much undermine that third meaning.

For the people I climb with who sometimes get shut down by a sequence that's ultra-hard for them (but maybe isn't even the crux for the majority) at a grade they're normally comfortable on, I don't think they'd be primarily looking for, say, E3s where they can claim a "personal grade" of E5. Those are exactly the routes they're already actively trying to avoid! And the primary benefit of any increase in guidebook info about those routes would be helping them to do that.

I'm not really a big supporter of the specific proposals in the article, as I said upthread. I think making grades broader would be a retrograde step, and the slash grade already has a well-understood meaning so trying to change it would only cause confusion. And given the variety of reasons it could be given, and the degrees of variation in those factors, it would be meaningless without accompanying commentary anyway. 

But I am on board with any general attempt to improve on what guidebooks already do. "Harder for the short" is useful, but finding ways to indicate roughly how much harder depending on what height could be immensely valuable to a lot of people. Which is obviously a lot of work for guidebook writers, and a space consideration, but probably isn't needed on all that many routes. Perhaps a bit more common in bouldering.

You're mystified because you're ignoring the details of what people are saying.
Why the obsession with height and not all the other factors that influence how hard someone finds a climb though?  You could equally argue that we need a slash grade for tall people on bunchy undercuts, sit starts, roof climbs, etc etc.

People just need to accept grades are, and can only ever be, an average indication.  So as someone else put it, the further you deviate from the average, naturally the more you will find something difficult.

Another way to look at it is, any given grade is already a range, difficulty isn't quantised.
So let's say a person's worked boulder grade is 7A, there are hard and easy 7As, even some they may find impossible (due to various reasons). It doesn't mean the average experience of everyone else isn't 7A

I'm absolutely listening to what people are saying, and I'm not saying I'm mystified by all of it. The only part I said I was mystified by is why several of the people commenting recognise that grades have multiple purposes in general but explicitly say they think the slash grade, or related concepts, are only about one of those purposes (measuring achievement). I've seen several people say it but I haven't seen anybody justify it.

More widely, I completely agree with lots of what's been said on the thread. Particularly on why slash grades as a specific proposal to solve the problem aren't that great.

I've specifically stated multiple times that I don't think height is the only factor that might be worth considering. I gave height-based examples a couple of times because I think it's the most common significant factor and the one I see causing issues for my own partners most often, but I've also said that different size hands in cracks would sometimes be relevant too. Other people might have other ideas as well. I'd absolutely include consideration of where being particularly tall is a major disadvantage as well.

A single grade can only ever be that. But a guidebook can choose to give more information. I don't agree with the slash grade format, but I think the thrust of the argument is valid and valuable. Guidebooks already do that to a very limited extent, of course, I'm just saying that more would be better.

Often. Though sometimes your deviation from the average will be beneficial.

Some good points Luke but I think what many are forgetting is the US context. For instance do slash grades, in the UK sense, even exist in the US?

In reply to AymanC

My real concerns are about trad, as morphology doesn't really add a lot of risk in sport or bouldering. In trad most of us want to choose something that will give us a worthwhile onsight experience: be that close to our limits, or an easy day out not to be spoilt by poor information. Trad is also riskier at low grades (if you fall you will often hit something). 'Hard for the short' is an incredibly important label where that adds real risk: something we specifically tried to take into account, especially at nearly all lower grades,  in the BMC Peak gritstone definitives. We also revised grades on about a quarter of the less popular lower grade routes on well travelled crags, to better match benchmark grade standards (that tend to creep a tad faster). All guidebook teams in areas with many lower grad trad routes would massively benefit from experienced lower grade climbers, including some who have reach issues. There are other 'marmite' factors in trad, as well as reach adding risk, that deserve advertising to help assist route choice... thrutching, beefy roofs, delicate slabs, etc

I'm glad to see any debate that will help others enjoy lower grade trad... something that is very much a UK thing.... our logbook trad average is HS ffs (lower grades exists elsewhere but not with proportionally so many climbers having fun).

This crossbar issue reminds me a bit of a dab or rather the rope taking some of the swing in the Action Directe dyno

Seem to remember talking to Alan about this and being informed that slash grades would over-complicate the UKC/Rockfax data system.

They used to be quite common in guidebooks but strangely - no longer so

I've never made it to the US, but I'm sure I've seen grades like 5.10a/b discussed. Mountain Project certainly has a decent number listed like that.

You counter with one data point, again not statistical meaningful. My point was if guidebooks gave a relatively wide ranging grade for something, or no grade at all, what would people choose?

I thought that was a conversion factor from the old 5.10-,  5.10, 5.10+ grades that preceeding the a to d usage. Could be wrong though.

Our guidebooks don't do that for onsight trad and won't be doing that any time soon in my view. 3PS isn't particularly morpho anyhow so it's a daft route to choose to make that point.

I think you often find a normal distribution like this if enough folks are consulted. In practice this is often not the case. I'm speaking primarily from the perspective of the US, where ratings are almost always determined by men. However, even when a diverse group of climbers are consulted, the issue often remains. For example, many climbs have a bimodal distribution in difficulty, especially when reach or hand/finger size are involved. In these cases, the "average" would just be wrong for everyone. 

I wrote the guide to Black Mountain many years ago, and we only gave grade ranges based on colors. So, for example, a blue problem was V3-V5. I read your question as asking how people respond to this... and the answer is mixed. Some people love it for a variety of reasons. Some hate it. Some use it as justification for always taking the higher number in the range. Others use a pen to write their personal grades into the book. I might describe it as controversial. 

Giving a specific grade may well be inaccurate in many cases. Giving only a grade range is guaranteed to be inaccurate in all cases.

Why would it be inaccurate? It may be unspecific but it's highly likely to be correct.

Suppose it might depend on your defintion of accuracy. 

Giving a V3-V5 range means if the problem is V3, V4 or V5 then the estimate is accurate but unspecific. Giving a problem V4 when it's V3 is more specific but inaccurate.

I'd say that correctness may be necessary but isn't sufficient for accuracy. To be accurate as well as simply correct also requires close targeting.

And yes, I'm aware that sometimes the word 'accurate' may be used more loosely simply to mean correct, but in general the above is true.

Touché

Fontainebleau yellow, orange and blue colour circuits are an interesting example of this particular grading accuracy debate. Usually the colour of the circuit could be said to be accurate in that it makes sense to everyone who goes there often, in that they will roughly know what range of difficulty they are getting. However the individual problem grades given by locals will usually seem desperate (and the level of undergrading almost ramdom) to visiting lower grade boulderers, even on fairly recently set circuits (and they become more random with time and polish). It's a classic example of grading by people who are seemingly so good they can't contemplate accurate grading for lesser skilled climbers. They have completely lost touch with what a 'nominal averege' means and spin myths of it being due to using incorrect technique. This is extremely ironic as the area has the greatest amount of really accessible easy and low grade problems of anywhere I know of in the world.

So in that context they are just wrongly graded?

I think that's because language rather than a number is a much better tool to communicate whether a route of a certain grade for the average poses an extra challenge to a climber of a certain physical makeup. A route might have one section that's challenging to someone with less reach and another section that is difficult for someone with less flexibility (bridging, for example). Very easily said as part of a route description. Impossible to express as a grade number. How much reach is short reach? How flexible is high flexibility? How tall means a sit-start poses an extra challenge?

Grades are necessary, however, when we like to compare ourselves to others. So yes, I do think the biggest part of this grade discussion is our tendency to competitively compare ourselves to others. Personal progress would also be very hard to measure with slash grades as I would be forever wondering which grade applies to me. What category of person am I? A much easier way to measure personal progress is when I manage a climb that I couldn't do the year before. I can challenge myself by climbing a route I know doesn't suit my style (even if the grade is in my range) or go for an easy tick by choosing something I am good at. Ultimately, I have to be the judge of my personal progress, more grades would confuse me rather than help. Nothing stops me from feeling extra proud of a route that I know was hard for my body type and maybe less so of a "high" grade I climbed easily if I already knew that it played to my strengths. 

I think the issue here is that there is no such thing as categories of persons, but millions of variables and nuances.

I point I was trying to make, and badly articulated, is that any sport challenges us differently depending on our body shape and DNA make-up. We are stuck with the body we are born with. Acceptance of our own limitations while trying to figure out how far we can push ourselves in our own personal journey is imo a far healthier attitude than trying to prove that the same climb was harder for me than someone else (which is impossible). I am advocating for less not more attention to grading I guess.

Or possibly graded for how they feel for the much better climbers who set the circuits: a subset of boulderers who's grading sensitivity will be low compared to most operating at or just above those grades. The UK seems to be the home of the deliberately wrong grade (sandbags were often climbing jokes).

Thanks. I can't say you've convinced me that alternative grade info would predominantly serve people's egos rather than their route choices, but it is a coherent argument for that view and I appreciate you engaging with the point I was making.

Where I completely agree with you is that an additional grade alone offers almost no useful information. I'd support an expansion of the descriptive approach that guidebooks occasionally already take more than the slash grade proposed by the article.

More complex systems require more energy generally to maintain them, so a more complex grading system seems unlikely to last...too much like going uphill.

Good guidebook does actually provide quite a lot of "slash" information. There are symbols for reachy, jamming (thus hand size dependent) and comments giving different grades for short and tall. Usually, I get what I need from the guidebook i.e. the idea whether I can reasonably attempt the climb. I think we are already doing a lot of what article suggests.

I always wonder what would happen if more elite women climbers were developing new routes rather than focussing on frst female ascents. Surely, sooner or later there would be a route so body type/skill specfic for first ascentonist that no male climber would do it. This would create interesting grading dilema for a professor of philoshophy to tackle

... or more like The Nose free and Meltdown that took a while to be repeated.

It's ok to get spanked in font. Happens to everyone.

I boulder much better than I normally do, when there thank you.

Now I am older I have a harder time having a slash but I never thought to grade it.

I don't think any elite women climbers are 'focusing on first female ascents', they're just climbing hard problems and sometimes they do a problem a woman hasn't done yet and the media jump on the 'FFA'. 

As for climbing a 'route so body type/skill specific for first ascensionist that no male climber would do it' this is completely fanciful, it would have already happened if it was possible.


 

I'm admittedly late to this discussion (I read the response article and then this one). Much of what I probably have to say may have been said and in better ways.

To my mind the crux is the desire to make grades better (more accurate, less arbitrary) than they currently are. I agree with the premise but not the cconclusion. If you're happy for a climb to have 2 grades by proposing this "slash grade" solution, then I feel a better solution is to give greater weight to your "personal grade" opinion. Whether or not it is written in the guidebooks or the annuls of history for all to see needn't matter much so far as you're satisfied with what you did and how hard it felt for you. 2 grades given by someone who is not you won't be enough for everyone, not specific enough to be perfect, in fact arguably not better enough than 1 grade to justify the change.

Personally this discussion came at a time where I'm drifting away from a strong feeling that grades should be accurate and relying on a more simplistic approach. I don't much care how hard other people think something is anymore, only how hard I think it is. Simultaneously it doesn't matter to me if the guidebook grade is different to what I think. I don't need to change others opinions to validate my own.

This is so spot on.

Why on earth people are in favour of 'V3-5' is beyond me. 

'V4' is already a range (as I wrote before).  Start accurate.

On a related note, I always found where indoor circuits are labelled like this, you are much more likely to find the circuit actually ranges from V2-V6.  Whereas if you tell setters 'blues are V4' naturally you'll get a distribution of mostly V4s with a few 3s and 5s.

ps. I've only just realised I've seen the author's instagram before. The only good argument to be had again is about the bias towards male bodies.  His general argument seems to be that he doesn't want grades to be an average, but some kind of 'fair' measure of achievement (trophies).  

That assumes there a defined bullseye for the grade, when in reality there isn’t. Your simplistic analogy doesn’t really work.

The analogy as you phrase it is the accepted definition of Accuracy and Precision when applied to measurement data that can be plotted.
Whether or not that could be applied to data such as in the UKC Logbooks is another matter.
Though, in theory, if you get enough votes you should be able to determine if the current grade is accurate, precise, accurate & precise or a bag of spanners.
I believe that a big grade range, but with an obvious mean, would be 'High accuracy/Low precision'.  

Not far off the original John Gill B-grades (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gill_(climber)#%22B%22_Grading_system)

Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_(climbing)#Other_notable_systems_2