Route Ratings

Can't speak for everyone, but:
"reminds me of...."
"harder than..... but easier than......"

Sorry if this is a little off-topic. In my experience, it seems like the multi-starred classics of many areas I've visited have been really stiff for the grade, if not a little sandbagged. Anybody else have this experience?

Is it just me or does the YDS system fall apart at the low end? Was there ever really a time when you could debate whether a route was 5.3 vs. 5.4 the way we go back and forth about a 11.d vs 12.a?

It just seems like in most cases everything below 5.5 or 5.6 is essentially the same difficulty.

Peter Franzen wrote:Is it just me or does the YDS system fall apart at the low end? Was there ever really a time when you could debate whether a route was 5.3 vs. 5.4 the way we go back and forth about a 11.d vs 12.a? It just seems like in most cases everything below 5.5 or 5.6 is essentially the same difficulty.

We missed a bet back in the seventies. One of the early versions of the Joshua Tree guidebook used the NCCS: the National Climbing Classification System. This was an open-ended system that used an "F" for free ratings similarly to the way "A" is used for aid ratings. If I remember correctly it translated like this:

F1 = Sierra Club class 1 (trail walking)
F2 = " " class 2 (off trail)
F3 = scrambling
F4 = class 4 to 5.2
F5 = 5.3 - 5.4
F6 = 5.5 - 5.6
F7 = 5.7
F8 = 5.8
F9 = 5.9
F10 = 5.10a - 5.10b
F11 = 5.10c - 5.10d
F12 = 5.11a - 5.11b
etc, each F-number getting 2 letter grades

This had several good features. It maintained correspondence with the well-established 5.7-5.9 category. It compressed the class 4 to 5.6 range into 3 increments, which seemed about right. The widening of the levels in the letter-grade area seems to better reflect ratings' inherent imprecision and might have avoided the "combination" grading you see these days (e.g. 5.11a/b). It was probably too good of an idea, and thus doomed from the start...

Peter Franzen wrote:Is it just me or does the YDS system fall apart at the low end? Was there ever really a time when you could debate whether a route was 5.3 vs. 5.4 the way we go back and forth about a 11.d vs 12.a? It just seems like in most cases everything below 5.5 or 5.6 is essentially the same difficulty.

I think that there is a difference between 5.7, 5.6, 5.5, 5.4, 5.3 etc...

In fact I have seen the difference over and over again bringing tourists out for rock climbing trips in the New River Gorge. Very frequently it is important to know how your group does on the 5.5 we start them on, then go from there (yes we have climbs down to 5.3).

I think the breakdown you are seeing Peter is because very few people take the time to consider how hard a route is when it is that far below you level. The diffference is only eveident to me because I have to what clients climb that can sometimes not even make it up 5.3 without hanging on the rope to rest.

Nick Stayner wrote:Sorry if this is a little off-topic. In my experience, it seems like the multi-starred classics of many areas I've visited have been really stiff for the grade, if not a little sandbagged. Anybody else have this experience?

I would say: no from within the moderate grade range. The classics I have been on have been tough, sustained, & exposed; but I've found the've been within their grade and totally brilliant pitches where a person's competance to climb within a grade gets pushed.

I'm totally surprised by the crappy approaches to the Tetons that the entire range isn't just a choss pile, but it's definately not.

Part of the deal "back in da day" was also that there was a hesitancy to rate a climb too hard. I think this was a regional pride thing. There wasn't aas much traveling of climbers back in the late-sixties and early seventies and so there was a rivalry between areas. The locals in each arrea would intentionally keep that area's grade down so that a Gunks 5.10 was harder than a Valley 5.10 and of course a Devils Lake 5.9 was way harder than any other area's 5.10. Occasionally the grade 5-10+ would show up and that would now be graded closer to 5.12. It seemed there was more cred given to under-rated 5.10s than there was given to something rated 5.11. That was why Bridwell came out with his rating system. We simply put too many climbs in the 5-10 to 5.10+ category.

It took time and the number of climbers to increase to come to a consensus about routes in order for the system to reflect the accuracy of grades. Soon after that sport climbing arrived and added another variable to the mess.

Also, the Lowe's were quietly doing theri own thing in Ogden, Utah and in the Little Cottenwood Canyon and seemingly unintentionally underrating EVERYTHING they did. So, once climbers really began travelling around the country and could compare each area's rating system against own, the country's grades began to stabilize.

Larry DeAngelo mentions the NCCS system which I remember we tried to use at Josh back in the day when the Desert Rats put out the first guide book to that area. I'm not sure that any of the us climbers back then were as comfortable with that system as we were with the YDS and so it just never took off. There was always talk about duplicating the Australian open-ended system, whereby routes that are increasingly difficult get assigned a higher number grade (#1-32 etc) but by the time we began discussing that system I think we were pretty comfortable in the YDS system and never seriously considered anything else.

It does seem as if the YDS system is the most widely recognized rating system in the world and serves as an accurate comparison of routes world-wide. In that alone I think it serves it's purpose well and despite its faults it is still the best grading system used. Maybe climbers will invent some other, more accurate system but I sorta doubt it.

I was just reading about Micah Dash and Jonny Copp's new route on the Shaffat Fortress, the Colorado Route(on Alpinist.com). On the route they encountered a feature they named "the Shaft", a rotten OW that soaked Dash's hands and feet and required a good bit of run out. It took them 3 hrs to climb this single pitch. Which Copp asked/commented, "Can you grade pitches like that?"

Which made me think about the YDS and how subjective it is. It is my belief that the YDS is not an exact science(redundant, I know). It is only a way for climbers to communicate a feeling to other climbers about terrain encountered, not so much personal difficulty encountered. Which would account for people finding trad a bit harder for the grade than sport of the same grade. It is a little harder to stop and grab the right sized piece, make a confident placement and climb above it with out second guessing yourself then to simply clip a bolt and hope some joker put it in well.

Two interesting discussions on the human factor, one psychological and the other physical, in ratings to consider:

One is in the back of Harper & Kelman's Vedawoo guide book (pg 195) in which a bar chart of the number of routes at each rating is presented for Vedawoo. There seems to be a dearth of climbs at 5.10d and a wealth of climbs at 5.11a. The authors draw some conclusions on human nature - or make your own interpretation of these data.

The second is Alan Lester's rating system for Indian Creek which is basically the difficulty as a function of crack size with a few salient tweaks - works great for the Creek. There is a reprint in Blum's Indian Creek Guide.

I love ice ratings.

Bob D'Antonio wrote:Ratings are subjective to many different human interpretations...period. That's the crux of the matter.

Well said.

I find grade debates endlessly entertaining and preplexing, perhaps becasue I'm an engineer type.

Since mosty folks have addressed trad grades in the 5.12 and below range, I'll address high-end sport routes.

There are definately a lot of factors that affect grade variance. Geographics is certainly a part of it. Most folks will probably assert that Yosemite is a "sandbag" area where the grades are stout, but grade variance is not at all linear. It might be true to say that most valley 5.9s are sandbags, but the same is not true for 5.12s. The Valley is such a big place, there is a great deal of variance from crag to crag, or depending on the FA. It is well known among big wall free climbers that all the Huber routes on El Cap are "soft" compared to the Tommy Caldwell routes. And these are grades of routes strictly within the 5.12-5.14 range, with numerous subdivisions that top climbers believe to be relatively consolidated. But you have to wonder if a 5.15 climber is an authority on the difference between 12b and 12d (see Freerider). The free grades on big walls are also clearly affected by the height of the pitch in question.

I think the route "Just Do It" at smith rock makes for an interesting case study on grades, at least in the higher end of the spectrum. This route was FFA-d by a European (JB Tribout) who graded it 14c, and so it became the first 14c in the country. Later repeated by and grade-confirmed by several other Euros (Marc LeMenestral, Jaun Paul Finne) and others who failed to repeat it (Rabatou). Then came the young americans, sharma caldwell, david hume, who repeated the route "quickly" and down-graded it to 14b. Hume did the route in something insane like 4 tries. Sonny Trotter did it in 5 tries. Several years ago Francois Legrand and Yuji Hirayama, undoubtedly to of the greatest sport climbers of the 90's, came to attempt the route and were convinced of its 14c status. So why does it seems Americans find the route easy and Euros find it hard? I believe its because high-end Euro sport climbers mostly climb overhanging limestone caves, with relatively large holds, whereas American crags are more vertical with smaller sharper holds. More anecdotal evidence: the once 'great' Joe Brooks, an American from Las Vegas, (home to steep limestone caves with drilled pockets) and author of numerous 5.14 FAs at Mt Charleston & Potasi, came to smith to do the route and failed.

Dave Graham, in one of his "Pro Blogs" discussed grade variation in the 5.14+ range. To summarize, he basically says only the top climbers have any idea what is true and what is false, but most of them are lazy and could care less. Some have ulterior motives for upgrading or downgrading, so its not accurate to assume that all top climbers are incentivized to inflate grades. there is a lot of debate among the elite as to what is French 9a (yds 5.14d). Dave believes "a fundamental interpretation of the German grade 11, gave birth to what we now understand as 9a". He further explains, the ground-breaking route "Action Directe" was given the German grade 11. Apparently this literally meant 'the step above 8c', which might equate to 8c+ (14c), though most climbers today consider it 9a (14d). Dave believes there are essentially two grade systems that affect high end sport climbs. The "old school" system assumes Action Directe to be 8c+, and the new school assumes it to be 9a. What's ironic about this is that only 4 people have redpointed Action Directe, and one of those is dead, so how can such a mysterious route be the new standard? Plus the route is very different in character to most of today's hard climbs. That is, AD is dynoing between monos for 20 feet. Most of the new hard routes in Europe and the US are 150-200 feet-long enduro 'jug' fests. How do those routes compare at all?! You may wonder how this is relevant to the 12c at your crag, but I believe it is. If Action Directe is 8c+, then Just Do It must be no more than 14b, same for Necessary Evil, "14c's" at Rumney, and Rifle. The same folks that spend years projecting these "14c's" sent your local 14a test-piece in 4 tries, and subsequently down-graded it to 13d. This has a ripple-effect as folks who spent years projecting the now-13d downgrade every 13a they've every done to 12c or 12d.

Another problem affecting variance is the rarely considered fact that routes change over time. People are include to belive that a particular route is the gold standard for a certain grade, and then assume the route never changes. Different types of rock change differently, but on limestone, holds generally get polished over time, which may have the affect of initially make a route easier as the rock becomse less sharp, but ultimately makes routes harder as the friction is reduced over time. I imagine eventually some footholds will be polished out of existence. At smith rock, holds are constatly eroding away due to the soft rock. "Churning in the Wake" is the benchmark 13a at smith, but it has lost many many holds over its life. Occasionally a broken hold even makes the route easier, so who know if the thing is getting easier or harder, but its certainly changing while the grade remains the same.

Another factor to consider is how evolving technology (sticky rubber, cams, clean pro, lycra) have affected grades. But i'm sick of typing.

Nick Stayner wrote:Sorry if this is a little off-topic. In my experience, it seems like the multi-starred classics of many areas I've visited have been really stiff for the grade, if not a little sandbagged. Anybody else have this experience?

We went to The Monastery once and found all the ratings to be super-sandbag. Probably b/c Tommy climbs 5.14+ and a 5.9 probably feels like a 5.5 to the guy. Ratings are totally subjective. I have to say that I absolutely love the fact that MP lets people rate routes and lists the collective consensus on a particular rating (probably the best way to guage a rating w/ yds is to take the FA rating and put it up against a collective rating). I wish more people would do it so the averages would be stronger. Also, this would aleviate all those routes that haven't had their ratings change despite key holds breaking off. There should be a trifecta in my opinion (trad-wise). How scary it is, if it eats pro, and the physical exertion. I am sure that people here can come up with at least a half-dozen more criteria that would make yds a little more consistent.

But yeah, ratings man... You say tomato. I say ketchup.

I always got a chuckle out of John Gill's original bouldering or "B" rating system.

B1 = you can do the route after a few tries but you can almost always repeat it thereafter.

B2 = you can do the route just two or three times.

B3 = you can do a route once. If you repeat it again it gets down rated to B2.

B4 = well, there is NO B4!!

Right now I'm still trying to make sense out of the Mixed climbing rating system (M1-15). I sort of just drew up my own conclusions and then put that into my latest ice climbing guide, mainly to get a reaction out of people. It didn't work. no one really cares.........

I would say that for me, the biggest discrepancies come from 1) the rock type you are used to(learned)climbing on. and 2)the type of climbing you are best at.

I learned to climb in Gunnison and the Boulder area. I feel comfortable on most igneous and metamorphic rocks, and hard non-friable sandstone(Eldo - arkosic sandstone). But get me on some Garden of the Gods, or Utah sandstone, where I can feel the little sand grains slowly shifting under my feet, and I am terrified of even some 5.7 moves! Cracks and tiny face holds are also ok in my repertoire, but laybacks????....again, 5.7 scares me to death. In light of these personal preferences, I have a hard time judging ratings where a 5.9+ jam crack in granite seems easier to me than a 5.7 layback in Utah.

Of course, some people have so much time, and commit so much time to climbing that they are adept at most rock types and styles, I envy those people!

I like to compare route ratings to temperature. In the 'old days' it was hot, cold, warm, nice, a bit chilly, etc....a subjective matter that can depend upon your body, mentality, where you live, where you grew up and so forth. With the advent of the thermometer, we were finally able to objectively measure exactly what the temperature was. However this did not end any subjectivity. Just because we know it is 60 degress outside does not mean we will we have reached a consensus to whether it is hot, cold or chilly outside. Instead we can only plan for ourselves how we react to this objective measurement.
Right now in climbing we are in the 'old days'. A hypothetical route thermometer has not been invented yet. Possibly it could include data such as angle of the climb, distance between holds, size of holds, and other objective data. If it tries to organize this data it usually goes back to being subjective as soon as any human tries to order or place importance on any of the elements. Even if this 'route thermometer' were to come into existence, it could only help you prepare for the climb. An objective 100 degree angle for a route may still be hard or easy for different people who think they can climb similar grades.

A great discussion! Lately, I have been pondering the difference between a rating given a sport climb verses the same rating given a traditionally protected climb. Due to my lack of time at the moment I am not going to defend my statements, but hopefully here in the near future, I can come back with more.

Grade inflation is prevailent among the installation of new sport routes. However, even slightly older sport routes do not accurately represent their grades. The Beast vrs. The Rainbow Wall. If you just looked at the number of assents on both routes, you could conclude that the beast is much easier.

Overhanging sport routes ie gym type, straight forward climbing tends to be the most affected by grade inflation. When I was spending a lot of time at rifle, I watched numerous individuals learn down and seige routes with large numbers attached to them. That is, of course, what you do there. It is not the number that makes it hard, it is the style. Overhanging climbing is easier than technical or strange climbing which requires experience and skill.
A Johnny Dawes 13C is an entire level harder than a 13C in Rifle, because routes of his style go almost entirely unrepeated. Everyone I know has climbed hard in Rifle or the Red or whereever sportwise. That style is simply easier. I would argue that something like the Nose or the Dihedral Wall is probably 5.14 for real, because of the number of ascents to date.

In summary, grades are inconsistent from style to style with the easiest climbing getting the biggest numbers. The British have part of the answer with E grades. Let's throw out the s/vs r/x in favor of E grades and give the sport routes less credit due to the increase in safety as well as start downgrading due to ease of movement. (The only thing you need to know is the backstep.)

Strength = It's nice to have an idea of the difficulty of a route you are about to try.

Pitfall = Humans are imperfect and non-uniformly standardized measuring devices.

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I am going to invent a robotic rating device that will climb routes and analyze all possible variations to the movement and categorize them according to a continuous range of body sizes and types. It will calculate all possible tensions which may arrise in the body. In this way a particular sequence done by a particular person can be rated 100% accurately according to the tension which has arisen in the body and the difficulty of the moves executed. The problem then becomes how to grade moves on how advanced each individual move is, but this may be measured by the body tension produced and how it compares to other moves acheiving the same end. A more advanced technical move will reduce overall body tension or smooth it out in such a way as to increase efficiency in energy usage. A move may also be considered more advanced if it increases forces on the body in a way such that greater strength and endurance are needed in order to perform said move.

I think it is an interesting scientific problem to try to actually grade a problem 'fairly'. I definitely it is pretty easy for anyone to give an accurate grade range to a route according to height and strength though. I would think that, for example, a 5.11a route is usually universally accepted to be within +/- 3 letter grades accurate. I dont' think I have ever been on a route that was less accurately graded than that. I thought a 5.6 in yosemite felt like a 5.8, but I consider that within +/- 2 letter grades. And it primarily was due to my inexperience with jamming and smearing smooth rock, and my inherent wimpyness with trad gear.

The moral? Be aware of uncertainties and prepare accordingly.

Mark Nelson wrote: I'm totally surprised by the crappy approaches to the Tetons that the entire range isn't just a choss pile, but it's definately not.

It's funny you say that, Mark, in response to my original message. I was mainly thinking about some of the east coast areas I climb at during the school year (TN Wall, everywhere in NC, New River Gorge, etc...). I've found the Tetons, Yosemite, City of Rocks (minus double cracks!), & Bozeman stuff to be soft by comparison.

A truly 'fair'(fair = accurate) rating system would really be a classification system. It would contain information about the types of techniques neccessary or possible and the type of rock the climbing is on.

Climb difficulty is largely a factor of past experience. It is not really possible to compare routes that require totally different styles of moves and are on totally different types of rock.

In this way every crag should(and does, only uses the same numbers) have its own rating system, but that is a little bulky. Thats why they use the same numbers.

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If we are aware of this, then a 5.10 leader on sticky granite with no smooth limestone experience will be less likely to get on a 5.10 on water pollished limestone. And if one does so, one will undoubtedly rejoice: "sandbag!".

I learned to climb on smooth limestone, and when I got in Tucson, I thought everything was totally sandbagged. Then after climbing here for a year+, I went back to Austin and thought everything there was sandbagged. After a few years more of climbing here and having trips to Austin during the summer and winter, I think the ratings are pretty close, just different styles on different rock.

Then I went to Yosemite and got shut down on 5.6(trad)!(I have redpointed up to 11c(sport) and 9+(trad) on Mt Lemmon). Of course after climbing the route at Yosemite on toprope, it was pretty easy(I still would call it 5.7/8). But after some experience in jamming and smearing I will probably accept the 5.6 rating. Either way it is probably typical 5.6 for Yosemite.

Sometimes I like ratings, because its good to have information. I do however sometimes enjoy routes without knowing the rating, and can sometimes climb them better. It just depends on how willing you are to commit to something, and be prepared for the possibility of it being above what you think it is.

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Therefore. I invent the newest and best rating system. It is hexadecimal and floating point 64 bit symbolic coding. It will classify the rock over the angle of gravitational force and frictional factors, physical construction of holds, different possible techniques for sending, and differneces accounted for by height of climber and body proportion.

The only problem is that it will spoil the possibility of onsights because everything you need to know about the route will be included in its 'rating'!

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I remember back when I first learned to climb. It was so nice; I didn't really care too much about ratings. I would look at a route and decide whether or not it looked doable and then get on it. Usually I could fight(hangdog) my way to the top. Granted these were short routes(max 60ft, usually around 40ft); so I didn't have to worry about bailing. And I only got on maybe 1 or 2 routes in the 12 range... with the right body type, I think its usually possible to fight up a short 11 for a novice climber with good strength.

I sometimes become obsessed with ratings, as most climbers probably do at some point, since its what we have to go by. But I miss the days of not really caring.

That's one thing thats nice about this website. If you dissagree with the rating, give it your own, and the consensus will show it. But not only that... a reader can see the range of ratings given, which is much more important than seeing the consensus rating.