By sweatpants
3 hours ago
EDIT COMMENT
So I've been trying to work on getting some type of grading standard for the park. I think this is especially important with more and more people coming to the park, lots of recent problem development, and formerly random grading. Without neccesarily climbing every problem in 'the dodge' but having a good sense overall here are my thoughts on standards per grade. please feel free to pipe up with your thoughts.
V2: Ashmatica
Scarete
v3: The good times are killing me
Mr. Longarm (maybe on the harder side of the standard)
v4: Get the hell out of dodge
The Godfather
Nameless Arete
v5: Huston's Arete
Left Out
v6: Grounded For Life
All in the Family

These are all climbs I feel are in the middle of the grade. Comments anyone?

By Chris treggE
From: Madtown, WI
3 hours ago
Sweaty, that helps me. All I remember about a route usually (in terms of rating) is how many tries it took me to send (or how many trips out there). So for example Huston Arete is a "T3D1". Or, 3 tries on Day 1. Foothold Massacre is about a "T6D1". And so on.

So by your scale anything harder than All in the Family for me will be V6+. Hah.

By Brian Runnells
17 minutes ago
My memory is a bit skewed but I vote for All in The Family being in the V5 range and Good Times... at V2

Perhaps this discussion would be better in the forums or something so as to not clutter up the information page about the dodge??

ok so i copy and pasted previous discussion. good idea Narc-meister

Here are my thoughts.

Narc my friend. On your 8a card you have all in the fam as 7A/v6 and good times as 6b+/v4+. Perhaps you've just not updated it? Cause i noticed some of your other grades are different on there from what i think you would actually rate the problems. I know how that can be cause I have done some serious changing and downgrading of most things I've gotten on at the Dodge. sometimes after the fact.

Perhaps chris you are right that all in the family is on the softer side of 6. i do think its in the 6 range perhaps just 6-. Chris i know you have a hard time with this one because you did it very easy and fast. Do you think perhaps 'foothold massacre' or 'internet predator' should be standard 6? I was thinking each where on the slightly harder side of the grade.? Looks like we still need a standard for V7 and I think so far it would have to be 'sandstone violence' for the standard at v8.

Yo Sweaty,

Good luck with the standardized rating gig... Like I have said before, the grades I gave a lot of the problems were without confirmation, but I like to think I was within a # give or take... Aside from obvious calls to arms... JJ

Hey sweat. So I did your Internet Predator tonight. I just needed to be a bit more fresh on it. Every other time I'd been on it, it was the end of a session. Anyway, it was around a T12D3 on my rating scale.

My issue with rating bouldering problems is I have little basis with which to judge. I have never lived near bouldering areas until this past year. Never been anywhere really that's a bouldering destination-- except spent a day ropeless at JT in April and have spent a fair amount of time at Kraft Boulders near Vegas but not for several years (V4 was my limit then). So if you tell me something is V6, I believe you. But I don't have a whole lot of reference, except that it is either harder or much harder than a standard V4 or V5 for me. Foothold Massacre seemed similar in difficulty to All in the Family to me. AITF was more physical though. About the same # of tries for me to send. I think your schema for a standard for the grade at GD seems good. Is it fair to say that most of us in the upper midwest get our sense of ratings from the gym? And if so, is that accurate? Sounds like you have been to Horse Pens, and maybe a few other places for reference anyway. So if you say so, then it is so, in my book. I mean, Runnells says V5 and you (me?) say V6 for AITF. That's cool, doesn't matter either way to me-- it's still an amazing line. Like JJ said, plus or minus a #. Maybe that's as good as it gets.

Can't wait to get on your Grounded for Life. Ran out of daylight tonight. Wednesday after work if it's decent out-- you're headed out right? Might be headed out also Monday and/or Tuesday night too.

Sweatpants,
I think your doing a good thing by getting ratings consistent, but I feel with bouldering, grades are just too individual. Everyone of course climbs differently, and we all have our strengths (and weaknesses), but that's why getting consistency is difficult. You are a bigger guy and look very strong, I am smaller and light(with short reach), other guys are whatever. My point being is we do need to have people get out and try everything and get more feedback, Boulderbash Sept 6th and 7th, will be a good time to get people on problems and discuss difficulty. I have been to many other bouldering areas and some are sandbagged and some are super soft, so it's always hard for me to judge what a V-whatever is. Wisconsin is known for sandbagging (Devils Lake, etc), and when I post a grade it's usually based on other problems I've done of similar grade. I think that Wisconsin's higher standard is great. Anyway, I'm rambling. Keep up the good work on finding new rock and establishing good lines(your killing it dude!). The grades will figure themselves out.
p.s. you should check out the Central Sandstone sometime. Lots to develop, you would love it.

Chris congrats on Internet Predator! toe makes a world of difference. Odd how that small switch makes such a difference.

thanks yall for the feedback. I totally agree that ratings and standards are tough to find, but not just for bouldering, i think its universal in climbing. and seemingly a constant topic of debate.
I think this forum is a good start for figuring it all out and also just putting a suggested rating in when you give a climb stars and tick it here on the site. but yeah i guess just keeping an open dialogue should help for sure. word up yall. keep sendin hard!

remo i just looked at the sandstone area that u mentioned. looks great. how long do u think it would take me to get tehre if it takes me about 3 and a half to get to both the dodge and devils lake?

Sweaty,
Yeah man, it's about 1 to 1.5 hours north of Madison, so for you it's a bit of a haul, but worth it.

Ive always wondered why they didnt enable countries to do it for the scale their country uses

I remember before 8a.nu when people at the U.S. crags referred to routes with their YDS ratings. Now, it's more likely to hear people talking about this 7b or that 7c+.

Maybe this is the French response to our whole "freedom fries" garbage.

Sorry for the thread drift, I just had to get that off my chest. As for Gov'ner Dodge bouldering, it looks like you guys are doing some really cool stuff, whatever the grades.

Good luck with creating a standardized grading criteria, it is a good idea. I've always felt that the grades of problems/routes should be consistent within an area, regardless of who put them up and when. So here are a couple of my opinions/how grades came about since at least Huston's Arete (I didn't name it...) and Sandstone Violence are being tossed around as "standards" for the grade. So when Steve and I did Huston's at the end of the day in a handful of tries each, it was originally called V8 (perhaps to try and get people to do it), we looked at each other and said not V8, and figured V4 would be solid for the grade and V5 would be consistent within the area, thus I believe Steve submitted it as 4/5.
Sandstone V, it was originally called V12, a few people had worked on and figured 8/9 was closer to correct, and I ended up doing it in a handful of tries on my second day on it, thus I called it the lower grade, V8. I've done 8's faster and I've done 8's slower (I've also done 5's slower), so I don't know. I also know Steve has done harder problems much faster. But I guess that is how we settled on 8, but this could be wrong, I guess time will tell, though at the time 8 seemd fair.
Good luck with the project, like I said earlier I think consistency within an area is the most important thing, so goon on ya for finding some standards.

jason thanks for the support and the info. its fun to hear some old history on problems. I definately think that you guys ended up finding the right grades for both those climbs although im waiting for warmer temps to get back on sandstone violence. v8 seems fair for sure. and i also agree with the 4/5 rating on hustons. speaking of steve we have to get him back over there some time. i should drop him a line. anyways thanks

If you are trying to establish a new set of criteria for grading, I think you should adopt a new system unique to wisconsin:

VC- choss
VI- ignore
VW- worth doing
VF- fun
VS- super fun
VLame- not really fun, only climbed for the purpose of spraying about it's previous vermin scale grade

great to see that people are still trying to get psyched on wisco climbing!

I'm not sure if that was encouraging, sarcastic or rude. I'm confused. haha

Has anyone checked out the wall above the lonely boulders?

What do you guys think as far as potential for routes? The rock looks pretty solid closest to Quall Wall.

-Zachary

i saw it... then quickly dismissed it because it was to highball to be a boulder problem. :-) I think if you wanted to rock out on a top rope and clean it more power to you. you could prolly do that all over the park. Deutchlander wall is beutiful and rad if you wanted to put some work into that unfortunately you'll always be toproping it since you can't drill. but i suppose if you're used to 'the lake' that prolly isnt a problem for most people. lol.

Yeah the rock there looks good but agree with Sweaty. If you drive around that park in the fall or spring, you will see walls and outcroppings similar to this in a number of locations. The potential is great. The key in my mind is trying to find the large boulders that have fallen off of said walls.

word

I wonder what would be the best manner to petition this, and get some bolts in there... any ideas?

Alright, I'll chime in on this. I've been lurking for a while here, not really wanting to comment. I've got a couple of comments about the ratings that I'll keep to myself but overall it looks really good. More people need to repeat the harder problems before we can consider them a standard, for sure. I really wish I would have stepped up to the plate and finished SV in 06/07 but after the block came off and hit me, I lost a little bit of motivation. Oh well. Soon.

As for the new bolts, good luck. I don't mean to be pessimistic about it but I've been debating both sides since I moved back in 2005 and started looking at new lines. There are definitely a few different ideas about how to go about this.

The first thing to realize is that the park doesn't want to see any bolts. That's the bottom line. I've been stopped once as I drove in asking if I had any bolts in the car with me and another time the rangers came up to group B to make sure we were just bouldering and not drilling any holes. They do not like bolts. At all.

My stance is that I don't think any more bolts should go in. I've told this to a couple of people and I'm going to stick to that. I would love to see more go in and see sport climbing developed at Dodge but I just don't see it happening without pissing off the park. I'd rather be able to climb what's there than not climb there at all. I know that it's sort of a passive "don't rock the boat" ethic, but oh well. I like my climbing to be legal. That's just me though. I can't speak for everyone.

On that note, I'm excited to try some of these new problems this fall! I'm also psyched to get you guys up to the lake and get some sessions going on some of the real area testpieces!! The Keymaker still needs a second ascent!!!

hey homie! psyched to see you at the park at some point. i can imagine that block tearing off would make anyone a little skidish to something. I think you'll be psyched when u get up there to get on the new stuff for sure. let me know if u want to go sometime.

Also as the discussion started i agree with Steve that we need more people on the problems for sure! goes without saying. i think the boulder bash will help with some of that, as well as the fall weather. I think we've done some solid work to set up a great season though, that is for sure.

On the standard side I suppose the obvious new change is the first V7 in the park which would presumably be the standard for the grade 'Illusions of Paradise'.

werd

Made a few PDF's from the info on the site. How do I post an attachment?

-Gary

Here they are. Basically a compilation of mountainproject posts. Could be helpful

Barrel Ridge
DIB & Boat Landing
Lonely Boulders & Box Canyon

Backbone/Plan B