Climber mag and grade debates

[mike9jr]

Three big cheers to 'Climber'.

The new September issue has an excellent peice by Adam Wainwright about Headpointing versus Trad on sight and the huge media driven disparity between the given, or perceived value of the ascents, and how Top roping and on sight surely now needs a different, or at least an added grading system?

Long overdue in my opinion!!

Also a very good interview with two of the best Trad climbers around, Macaffie and Geldard. Headpointing, bouldering, climbing walls and their obsession with huge upside down bouldering roofs (why?) and its relavance to actual, real outdoor trad hard routes all get a mention, as does the mind set required and the brilliant head game that climbing is....

Good reading, as usual...

Mike R

[Tim Palmer]

not that i have any great experience of trad (being one of those sport climbing, bouldering and roof obsessed individuals underfire here) but don't onsights of hard routes get the respect they deserve?  I don't think anyone would dream of saying it wasn't the best form of ascent and recent hard onsights by Mc Haffie et al have got alot of column inches, and rightly so. Of course there are unsung heros of onsight climbing but isn't that true of all styles of climbing.

On the subject of training on very overhanging boards and rock, I personally find it very useful when using the right size of handhold (i.e. those you can't hang comfortably with your feet off) and forces you to use core muscle to keep your feet on and really get the most out of footholds.  i think, that core strength is applicable across the board, apart from maybe on very slabby slabs.   

[mike9jr]

On sight unsung heros, for those in the know yes, but not in the mainstream press, and certainly not in the headlines often enough.

Each to their own, and there is, in climbing, something for everyone to enjoy thankfully, but the numbers game seems to be taking over in the media these days, and the grading system needs to be overhauled to reflect the stlye of ascent, as said in Wainwrights artice.

Jack Geldard talks about the relavence (or lack of) of inverted roofs at walls, to 'real hard rock routes', outside in the real world. Again, each to their own and good fun at times.

Mike

[George Ridge]

but the numbers game seems to be taking over in the media these days, and the grading system needs to be overhauled to reflect the stlye of ascent

sport grade for headpointed routes(with R or X to show danger, if required - as per the article). E grades only when route is eventually climbed onsight

[Tim Palmer]

There is a number of problems if you start using the sport grade system, firstly it gives you no indication of the level of danger whereas at least the current E system does to a certain extent (i.e. by bumping up the E grade) unless you could give a number of r's or x's but i think that would cause just as many arguements.

Secondly it doesn't give a good overal impression of the route i.e. it only highlights the physical difficulty of the route.  Plus does it not rather belittle the fantastic acheivements of some headpoint climbers to say effectively "what you have done is no more of an acheivement than a sport route of the same grade" where it is clearly not the case.

Finally it would not solve the problem of onsight vs headpoint because when a route was onsighted what would u then do?  would you convert the f grade to an E grade?  Just imagine how many arguements that would cause.

Surely all that is required is a certain degree of honesty and mutual respect to say "well i have worked this to death and found a sneaky sequence" and therefore maybe give it a solid grade rather than a sandbag worked grade.

I still think there are technical aspects of steep boards were are applicable to "real rock routes" esp. if you don't have the time or opportinuity to get alot of mileage on real rock.

[Michael_Lee]

  Plus does it not rather belittle the fantastic acheivements of some headpoint climbers to say effectively "what you have done is no more of an acheivement than a sport route of the same grade" where it is clearly not the case.

Don't agree here, headpointing is a way of climbing something potentially dangerous, safely. just as bolts are in sport climbing. Don't get me wrong some headpoints are still bold, the danger is still there, but you should be able to deal with it. Onsighting, the danger level would still be the same, but you don't what's ahead, therefore: E-grade.

I think sport grades with a danger grade works well for DWS, why not the same for headpointed trad lines?   When it comes to being onsighted, whose going to argue with the onsightist about a retro E-grade? Since noone else has onsighted it, critics don't have a leg to stand on.

The only problem I see with this system is guidebooks going out of date quickly, but maybe that wont be too bad a situation as online route info grows.

[Tim Palmer]

Don't agree here, headpointing is a way of climbing something potentially dangerous, safely.

i know this is semantics but headpointing doesn't made something safe, it makes it less dangerous, just because you can top rope something doesn't mean you can lead it, especially when the climbing is thin.  I have seen lots of people bottle things at the roaches having climbed them on a toprope very smoothly, usually calling for a rope and on one occassion falling off breaking their leg.  I don't think viewing headpointing and redpointing as almost the same thing is a realistic or safe thing to do.

As for the DWS comment, the fact still stands the risk of serious injury or death is far less than on a serious trad lead, so a sport grade is more valid (plus most DWS start life as sport climbs and as such tend to be steep and very predictable as to whether you can do them repeatedly).

[Dave]

Didn't one of the cook bros drown DWS, that doesn't sound especially safe to me...
Especially since I don't swim 

'Apparently' you can survive a fall from an airplane if you land correctly (not sure I believe it).

[George Ridge]

you're right headpointing is about management of risk - it is potentially dangerous. What is amazing is how well the top headpointers have managed the risk. Giving a route 8c X, for example, is just being honest though - doesn't belittle the ascent, but the person who onsights the route in the future is the one who can say E(whatever number they call it).
"Secondly it doesn't give a good overall impression of the route i.e. it only highlights the physical difficulty of the route"
but what does E7 tell you, or E10? that the E10 is more dangerous ? that the E10 is more physical?  it's the old thing about if E6 means you can die does E7 mean you can die harder? (With a vengeance)?

[Tim Palmer]

i think the combination of the tech grade and the e number usually gives you an indication of the boldness and power required on a route, so a E2 5a is likely to be either more sustained or more necky than an E2 5c for example.  Whereas f7ax gives you no idea of the nature of the climbing or the protection.

yeah i vaguely remember reading something about somebody falling out of a plane and landing in a manure stockpile.  I think it was an air hostess, she broke almost every bone that it is possible to break and needed a bath but survived. 

[George Ridge]

i think the combination of the tech grade and the e number usually gives you an indication of the boldness and power required on a route, so a E2 5a is likely to be either more sustained or more necky than an E2 5c for example.

the trouble is, what exactly does the tech grade tell you? Mark Edwards back in the eighties got it right I think when he started extending the uk tech grade (ididn't he give red rose something like E8 7b?) - because you dont get a tech move in isolation. Hence why Font or V grades used nowadays for bouldering

Whereas f7ax gives you no idea of the nature of the climbing or the protection.to break and needed a bath but survived. 

have to disagree - it means you have to be able to climb 7a in a dangerous situation. So your E2 5a would get perhaps 5 X your E2 5C would get 6a (and whatever thing it was for reasonably safe in the climber article).

Of course we could go down the line of Drummond's symbol/number for every aspect lunacy!

[Tim Palmer]

you dont get a tech move in isolation. Hence why Font or V grades used nowadays for bouldering

But the best and most useful guides i think are those which use a combination of V and tech grade.  So the tech grade gives the technical crux grade and the E number gives the overall impression of the route.   

[George Ridge]

just found this
here's Drummonds system:
There had been one notable attempt to break the deadlock - Ed Drummond in his privately published 1967 guide to Avon Gorge [7] introduced a multi-numerical system that had a numerical grade similar to, but slightly different from, the Crew–Wilson numerical grade, (it went 4a, 4b, 5a, 5b, 6a, 6b as opposed to 4a, 4b, 4c, 5a, 5b, 5c etc) but for the adjectival part, replaced it with four numbers representing:

The number of hard moves.
Protection.
Quality of rock.
Style of climbing.
In that specific order. Within each category, zero equated to “good” and three to “bad”.

It didn’t catch on

from :
http://www.aqvi55.dsl.pipex.com/climb/uk_grades.htm

anyway, we'll have to agree to disagree. Nowt wrong or less impressive saying that Dave McWhatsit has climbed an 8c X on a mountain cliff and then for a break went somewhere sunny climbed a 9a S (S for safe). You can go to 8a.nu and see a lists of folk who onsight 8c for breakfast. Sure they'd piss up an 8c X (if they could be arsed with all the faff  - as Dave Mc has  documented on his blog), well perhaps!?!. Doing an E11 would be different? jeez - fecking grades - load of bollox anyway!

[AC]

Not sure I understand where the problem with our current E grade system is at the moment. It has its flaws, you can't tell exactly how safe or bold a route is going to be but as Tim says you can usually get a good idea with the tech grade that goes with it. If you have an E grade, tech grade and sport grade you get a very good idea of how hard and how safe the route is going to be.

If you're going to headpoint or on-sight the route the deal's the same. You have some idea of how hard it is bvefore you get on it. It's goona be harder to on-sight than to headpoint, we all know that. We don't need two seperate sytems for each style.

If the magazines opt to cover hard head points rather than on-sights that's their choice, having a different grade won't change this. As for the reasoning behind the 'no one knows how hard E9 and above is because it's not been on-sighted' arguement I don't get it. If you have redpointed E10 you will have  usually have climbed numerous E8's and some E9,s. The choicen of grades is based on prevoius experience and how hard other routes feel in comparison.

[Aln]

A lot of this debate seems to reference the article on UKC, "E is for mEdia". Also picked up by the climbing mags. Maybe the article should be re-titled "Stirring up gradE dEbatE is good publicity for E-mEdia"?