UKC

E Grade Talk: Jens Larssen and James Pearson

The E - grade confusion continues.

Jens Larssen of 8a.nu in a discussion at 8a.nu says that, "The E-grading system is just a joke in the upper scale." as he still has difficulty reconciling that the E reflects both physical difficulty - the difficulty of the moves and how sustained a route is - and the boldness, or risk of danger of a route. He continues:

"According to the E-tables an E8 can be between 7b+ and 8b+ and even so Alex (Honnold) puts the E8 6c End of The Affair as an 7b. E8 6c have been registered as both 8b and 7b+ in the data base." See discussion associated with the news item, "Why so few 8b+ trad sends" at 8a.nu

At his blog, James Pearson asks Alex Honnold what grade does he think, End Of The Affair is? "E6," Honnold replies. Pearson continues,

"I asked Alex to assume, from a historical perspective, that End Of The Affair is E8 (the grade it has been for the last 22 years) and then asked him what grade The Promise would be in relation to this? His answer was without hesitation – E10.

The crux of James' discussion is that he believes that some believe that E10 and the English tech grade of 7a is the limit of difficulty and that our grading system is not being treated as open-ended, and that because of this there has been "backwards condensing” of grades. As regards the E-grade system he says that:

"I don't think it is broken, but I do think it is being misused and if it is to regain any usefulness there need to be some fundamental refines, starting with the insanity that is the ever widening English tech grade!"

Read James' full discussion at: jamespearsonclimbing.blogspot.com

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Comments

snoop6060
17 Nov, 2008
Agreed.
DrGav
17 Nov, 2008
I really like the fact that ukc news pulls out the latest discussions even on route gradings. I clicked through to james' blog which was very well articulated. It is great that these hard grit routes are being climbed by others and therefore the grades being more widely discussed, and i think it's a move forward that i can read about it in a ukc news article instead of having to plough through forums and blogs. Unless you're saying this highend grade stuff is not relevant? I find it interesting actually, i like to read more about our top end climbers and what they are doing and thinking.
snoop6060
17 Nov, 2008
Its irrelevant to me, but maybe not others, so fair enough. However, why just regurgitate peoples' blogs over and over again? If you like the blogs, them subscribe to the feed and read it.
Monk
17 Nov, 2008
If you like to know what's going on in the world why don't you read the primary sources instead of the newspapers? It's the same here. Mick is being a journalist and reading the primary sources so that when an item of interest or importance comes up he can digest it and share it with a wider audience. I certainly don't have time to scan loads of blogs and I appreciate this article and the fact it brought an interesting blog post to my attention.
AJM
17 Nov, 2008
I think the really interesting thing is that Kevin reckoned: "If I had to order the routes I have done so far in respect to difficulty, this is what it would look like: • New Statesman, E9 5.13c/d R • The Promise, E8 5.13c/d R • Parthian Shot, E8 5.13b/c R " So if End of the Affair being E8 leads one of the American team to believe that by that benchmark The Promise is E10, does that mean that they now believe New Statesman is E10 or E11? Has anyone asked them? AJM
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