Grades

We want to work with the rock climbing community to get a comprehensive and intuitive coverage of grades in the system. This is a long term initiative and at times will involve fundamental changes to the way grades work on the site. We welcome feedback on grades, but for this to be useful to the community as a whole it has to go onto our issues list. We don't promise to fix things straight away, but we will link the discussion into this article so that the whole community can constructively contribute.

This article covers the following topics:

1. Grade conversions
2. Grade bands
3. How are grades asigned to routes?
4. How are grades asigned to ascents?
5. Grade parsing

1. Grade conversions

thecrag.com can automatically convert grades to a different system according to the table below. If you can suggest a better translation please log an issue in issues list.

Note the coloured grade bands which are used throughout the site as a quick way to guage the difficulty of a route or area.

Band	Ewbanks	YDS	Class	NCCS Scale	French	British Adj.	British Tech.	UIAA	South African	Old South African	Saxon	Aid	Aid	Aid	V-Scale	Alpine Ice	Water Ice	Mixed Rock/Ice
	Free	Free	Free	Free	Free	Free	Free	Free	Free	Free	Free	Aid	Aid	Aid	Boulder	Ice	Ice	Mixed
Beginner Intermediate Experienced Expert Elite	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39	5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 5.9 5.10a 5.10b 5.10c 5.10d 5.11a 5.11b 5.11c 5.11d 5.12a 5.12b 5.12c 5.12d 5.13a 5.13b 5.13c 5.13d 5.14a 5.14b 5.14c 5.14d 5.15a 5.15b 5.15c 5.15d	Class 1 Class 2 Class 3 Class 4 Class 5	F4 F5 F6 F7 F8 F9 F10 F11 F12 F13 F14 F15 F16	1a 1a+ 1b 1b+ 1c 1c+ 2a 2a+ 2b 2b+ 2c 2c+ 3a 3a+ 3b 3b+ 3c 3c+ 4a 4a+ 4b 4b+ 4c 4c+ 5a 5a+ 5b 5b+ 5c 5c+ 6a 6a+ 6b 6b+ 6c 6c+ 7a 7a+ 7b 7b+ 7c 7c+ 8a 8a+ 8b 8b+ 8c 8c+ 9a 9a+ 9b 9b+ 9c	MD D HD MVD VD HVD MS S HS MVS VS HVS E1 E2 E3 E4 E5 E6 E7 E8 E9 E10	4a 4b 4c 5a 5b 5c 6a 6b 6c 7a 7b 7c	1- 1 1+ 2- 2 2+ 3- 3 3+ 4- 4 4+ 5- 5 5+ 6- 6 6+ 7- 7 7+ 8- 8 8+ 9- 9 9+ 10- 10 10+ 11- 11 11+ 12- 12 12+	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40	A1 A2 A3 B1 B2 B3 C1 C2 C3 D1 D2 D3 E1 E2 E3 F1 F2 F3 G1 G2 G3 H1 H2 H3 I1 I2 I3 J1 J2	I II III IV V VI VIIa VIIb VIIc VIIIa VIIIb VIIIc IXa IXb IXc Xa Xb Xc XIa	M0 M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6 M7 M8 M9 M10 M11 M12	A0 A0+ A1 A1+ A2 A2+ A3 A3+ A4 A4+ A5 A5+ A6	C0 C0+ C1 C1+ C2 C2+ C3 C3+ C4 C4+ C5 C5+ C6	V0- V0 V0+ V1 V2 V3 V4 V5 V6 V7 V8 V9 V10 V11 V12 V13 V14 V15 V16	AI1- AI1 AI1+ AI2- AI2 AI2+ AI3- AI3 AI3+ AI4- AI4 AI4+ AI5- AI5 AI5+ AI6- AI6 AI6+ AI7- AI7 AI7+ AI8- AI8 AI8+	WI1- WI1 WI1+ WI2- WI2 WI2+ WI3- WI3 WI3+ WI4- WI4 WI4+ WI5- WI5 WI5+ WI6- WI6 WI6+ WI7- WI7 WI7+ WI8- WI8 WI8+	M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6 M7 M8 M9 M10 M11 M12

 

Internally grade conversions work by converting each grade to a fine-grained internal number range between 0-500.

If you would like programatic access to the grades and grade conversions through the API then you should get in contact with us. The programatic version of this table is available through the following API call:

  http://www.thecrag.com/api/config/grade/system

 

2. Grade bands

For use on thecrag.com we have divided climb difficulty ratings into 5 segments - Beginner, Intermediate, Experienced, Expert and Elite. These definitions are somewhat arbitrary, but they are based on many years of climbing experience and there are also some statistical reasons for breaking climbing into these segments.

There are two common area difficulty graphs used throughout the site, the grade band and dual grade band.

The grade band chart shows the relative number of climbs at the particular difficuly bands. This is shown at each area and should give you a quick summary of the area's relative difficulty.

The dual grade band shows also what grades people are climbing at an area, based on the number of ascents at each grade. This is interesting, because some areas may have a lot of hard climbs, but the easier climbs are climbed more often (eg Arapiles) and other areas have a lot of easier climbs, but people go there for the hard climbs (eg Grampians).

The table below fives a brief description of each band.

Beginner	The level of difficulty for your first couple of days of climbing (seconding or top roping). Many people may achieve these grades on their first day of climbing. There are still some very scary and/or dangerous climbs at this level (eg Bard).
Intermediate	Typical grades for people with less than a years climbing. Note that most people cannot climb this level on their first couple of days of climbing. Statistically speaking, most outdoor climbing is done in this band. A lot of experienced climbers end up backing off to this level as they enjoy their climbing into old age.
Experienced	People can achieve these levels if they have been climbing fairly regularily for a couple of years. These grades are where the social climbers start becoming rare.
Expert	You really need to be training in a focused way to climb at this level. Not so many people reach this level.
Elite	You climb for a living, are sponsored and have a full time trainer and massuer looking after you. This is the best of the best. If you are normal, you would not have a hope of even dogging up one of these climbs.

3. How are grades asigned to routes?

Routes have a registered grade and a list of independent user and publisher grade contributions (a publisher contribution is a citation from a publication). The user and publisher grade contributions are displayed on the route page. The official grade of the route is given by the registered grade.

3.1 Registered grade

The registered grade is the official grade of the route, and is used through out the website and publications.

A registered grade may have multiple components, for example:

• A free climbing grade (5.12a) and an aid grade (A3), combined would read 5.12a A3.
• British technical (4a) and adjectival (MS), combined would read MS 4a.

A route may have official grades from several different grading systems (eg in Thailand many routes have an official French and Australian grade). For example:

  http://www.thecrag.com/route/17710201

 

The above route, "Knights In White Satin" has a registered grade of 7b+ French and 26 Australian Ewbanks. Because the Thailand is assigned the French context the French grade will be shown on the site. (Question: Do we want to show the Australian grade to Australian users?)

Once a route has a registered grade it can only be changed by an Editor and is not affected by subsequent user contributions.

3.2 Grade contributions

Anybody may make a grade contribution. A climb may have several grade contributions from users and publishers.

When you add a new route, the grade you enter becomes your grade contribution (unless you are citing a publication, in which case in becomes a publisher contribution). For new routes your grade contribution also becomes the registered grade.

You may add your user grade contribution to an existing route using the update route details process. If the route already has a registered grade then this will not be effected (otherwise your contribution is used to start the registered grade).

3.3 Grade ranges

Behind the scenes everything is a grade range with a minum grade and maximum grade. Mostly people will use just one grade, but on occasions it is useful to use a grade range for a particular route (eg you may input 5.10a-b, which will be interpreted by the sytem as a grade range and displayed as 5.10a to 5.10b.

Grade ranges are absolutely necessary for grade conversions. Very few grade conversions match exactly there is usually overlap. For example 5.8 in the Yosemite Decimal System maps to both 15 and 16 in the Australian Ewbanks system.

We are planning a future enhancement where we represent each grade to a probability bell curve because this represents more accurately what a grade is. For example a route usually takes on the grade of the first assentionist, which is subjective. The first assentionist is feeling really strong that day, and they think the route is a 5.10a, when in actual fact most climbers would have though it is a 5.10b. All climbers have come across routes that are easier or harder then the grade suggests. Over time grades which are way off may be corrected, but ultimately if you got a 100 climbers to independently grade a route, you will not get exactly the same answer from each climber (leaving aside arguments about differences between short and tall climbers). This suggests that route grades are probablistic.

3.4 Aid eliminates

A route may orinally be a 5.10b A4, then later somebody may climb it as a 5.11a A0, then later as a 5.12c. In this scenario the route should have the cleanest grade as its registered grade, but may have all the other grades listed as grade contributions.

3.5 Special rating systems

Although not part of the registered grade you can include some additional rating systems in your grade contributions. These include:

• Stars
• Protection rating

If you add a *, ** or *** to the end of your grade contribution the system will recognise this a star rating. See how stars work.

You may also use the YDS protection rating in your grade contribution. The system will assign the worst case protection rating to the route and display that alongside the registered grade if it is a R or X protection rating. For example if you made a grade contribution of "5.10d X" then the route will be displayed as 5.10d X.

4. How are grades asigned to ascents?

This area needs a complete rethink because the system is a little restrictive. If you want to contribute to a community discussion see the following issue in our issues list:

• Complexity of grades respective logging of ascents

Currently when you log an ascent the asent will automatically take the route's registered grade as the ascent grade. If there are multiple registered grades (eg British Adjectival and Technical or Free and Aid) then the system will ask you to choose one of these to be associated with the ascent.

A logged ascent has a single grade independent of the route's grade. This has the following implications:

• You may update your ascent to any grade you want, such as a different grading system or different grade to the route.
• If it is an aid climb you have to choose whether you log the Aid component or the Free component (currently you cannot have both).
• Similarily if it is a British climb have to choose whether you log the Adjectival or Technical grade.

To adjust your ascent's grade after you have logged the ascent follow the following procedure:

• Log your ascent with the grade from the route.
• Go to your Account page ('My Account' tab) and click on Logbook tab.
• In the ascent you just logged click on the name link under the 'Ascent Label' column.
• Click 'edit' ascent.
• Click 'Update Ascent Grade' button at bottom of screen.
• Select the grading system you want to use for your ascent.
• Select the grade.
• And yes you are done, easy eh - not (we will have to make this simpler at some point, but mostly you will not need this procedure).

5. Grade parsing

Our aim is for you to contribute grades as you see them in guidebooks and for the system to be smart enough to work out what you mean.

5.1 Grade contexts

What does it mean if you type in the grade '5c'? If you were in Britian you would think it was the Experienced British grade 5c, but if you were in France you would think it was the Intermediate French grade 5c. Interpretation of grades is dependent on where you are, this is what we term grade context.

Grade context is a way of the system working out how to interpret potentially conficting grades written in plain text. The system defines a small set of contexts as possible which can eliminate all conflicts. Currently the system defines the following contexts:

• US: United States
• AU: Australian
• UK: United Kingdom
• FR: French
• UIAA: Countries primarily using UIAA grades
• SA: South African
• SX: Saxon

Each country is assigned a context. Hopefully we have got it close to right (see section 5.3). You may change the context when you add or update a route.

5.2 Examples

The best way to explain how the system converts the plain text you enter into grades is to look at some examples.

Context	Text entered	Grade	Comment
US	5.12a	5.12a
US	5.12	5.12	The system has a grade system where grades are expressed as 5.12-, 5.12 and 5.12+.
US	12a	5.12a	The system is able to work out common partial grades.
US	12	5.12	partial grades can be very dependent on the context (in US context this is 5.12, in AU context this is 12).
AU	12	12	Compare to above example
US	5.12a-5.12c	5.12a to 5.12c	This is interpreted as a grade range.
US	5.12a-b	5.12a to 5.12b	Common abbreviated grade ranges
US	5.12a/b	5.12b	The forward slash '/' is interpreted as an or, in which case the system assigns the highest single grade.
US	5.10,5.12d,5.9	5.12d	Commas used to indicate multi-pitch, in which case the system will assign the highest grade.
US	5.9 S	5.9 S	Protection rating is displayed as part of the grade.
US	5.10a X,5.12	5.12 X	Multipitch may include protection rating.
US	5.9**	5.9	The contribution will also be attributed with . Learn more about quality ratings.
FR	5c	5c	The French grade.
UK	5c	5c	The British technical grade.
UK	E2 5c	E2 5c	The British adjectival and technical grade.
UK	D	D	The British adjectival.
UK	Difficult	D	Yup, according to the British adjectival system, difficult is a beginner's route - go figure. I think climbing developed faster than they could keep up.
AU	19	19	Australian Ewbanks grade.
SA	19	19	South African grade (compare to level of difficulty for an Australian Ewbanks grade 19 above)
AU	21 (S)	21	Australian Ewbanks grade with a sport route indicator. This is in for historical reasons (common for Australian guidebooks to use this notation), but because of it's potential confusion with the protection rating S we don't want it to be used anymore. For sport routes just tick the sport route indicator. Note the sport indicator must have brackets.
AU	21 M2	21 M2	Australian Ewbanks grade with an Australian aid grade.
AU	M2	M2	Australian aid grade (we should probably colorize this).
US	Class 2	Class 2
US	Class IV	Class 4
US	F6	F6	NCCS Scale.
UIAA	11-	11-	UIAA grade.
SA	D3	D3	Old South African grade.
SX	VIIa	VIIa	Saxon grade.
US	5.6A1+	5.6 A1+	Free plus Aid grade.
US	5.6C1+	5.6 C1+	Free plus hammerless Aid grade.
US	A1+	A1+	Straight Aid grade.
US	V4	V4	Vermin V-Scale for bouldering.
US	B5.6	B5.6	The little more obscure Expanded Gill B-Scale for bouldering.
US	B2-	B2-	And another B-Scale.
US	S4-	S4-	Bouldering Smith Rocks S-Scale.
US	P10	P10	Bouldering Phoenix P-Scale.
US	C+	C+	Bouldering Joshua Tree Scale.
AU	V0+	V0+	But really the bouldering V-Scale is accepted everywhere, so just use that.
US	AI5-	AI5-	Alpine Ice.
US	WI5-	WI5-	Water Ice.
US	M3	M3	Mixed rock and ice.
FR	PD	PD	IFAS (International French Adjectival System) - nothing in the conversion table.
US	VI	VI	National Climbing Classification System (NCCS) Alpine Grade (no conversions).
US	VI 5.11c A2+	5.11c A2+ VI	Alpine route with free and aid climbing.
AU	12 # i think	12	You can add comments to your grade contribution by using "#".

If you see a way of writing a grade in a guidebook then test it out and if it does not work then please contact us so we can enhance the system.

5.3 Country context

The following table shows the current system settings for country context. Please raise an issue in our issues list if you think we need to make some adjustments.

Country	Context
Afghanistan	US
Aland Islands	US
Albania	US
Algeria	US
American Samoa	US
Andorra	US
Angola	US
Anguilla	US
Antarctica	US
Antigua and Barbuda	US
Argentina	US
Armenia	US
Aruba	US
Ascension Island	US
Australia	AU
Austria	UIAA
Azerbaijan	UIAA
Bahamas	US
Bahrain	US
Bangladesh	US
Barbados	US
Belarus	UIAA
Belgium	UIAA
Belize	UIAA
Benin	US
Bermuda	US
Bhutan	US
Bolivia	US
Bosnia and Herzegovina	US
Botswana	US
Bouvet Island	US
Brazil	US
British Indian Ocean Territory	UK
British Virgin Islands	UK
Brunei Darussalam	US
Bulgaria	US
Burkina Faso	US
Burma	US
Burundi	US
Cambodia	US
Cameroon	US
Canada	US
Cape Verde	US
Cayman Islands	US
Central African Republic	US
Chad	US
Chile	US
China	US
Christmas Island	US
Cocos (Keeling) Islands	US
Colombia	US
Comoros	US
Congo Democratic Republic	US
Congo Republic	US
Cook Islands	US
Costa Rica	US
Cote d'Ivoire	US
Croatia	US
Cuba	US
Cyprus	US
Czech Republic	US
Denmark	UIAA
Djibouti	US
Dominica	US
Dominican Republic	US
East Timor	US
Ecuador	US
Egypt	US
El Salvador	US
Equatorial Guinea	US
Eritrea	US
Estonia	US
Ethiopia	US
Falkland Islands	US
Faroe Islands	US
Fiji	US
Finland	UIAA
France	FR
French Guiana	FR
French Polynesia	FR
French Southern Territories	FR
Gabon	US
Gambia	US
Georgia	US
Germany	SX
Ghana	US
Gibraltar	US
Greece	US
Greenland	US
Grenada	US
Guadeloupe	US
Guam	US
Guatemala	US
Guernsey	US
Guinea	US
Guinea-Bissaau	US
Guyana	US
Haiti	US
Heard and McDonald Islands	US
Honduras	US
Hong Kong	US
Hungary	US
Iceland	US
India	US
Indonesia	US
Iran	US
Iraq	US
Ireland	US
Isle of Man	US
Israel	US
Italy	US
Jamaica	US
Japan	US
Jersey	US
Jordan	US
Kashmir	US
Kazakhstan	US
Kenya	US
Kiribati	US
Kosova	US
Kuwait	US
Kyrgyzstan	US
Laos	US
Latvia	US
Lebanon	US
Lesotho	US
Liberia	US
Libya	US
Lichtenstein	US
Lithuania	US
Luxembourg	US
Macau	US
Macedonia	US
Madagascar	US
Malagasy Republic	US
Malawi	US
Malaysia	US
Maldives	US
Mali	US
Malta	US
Marshall Islands	US
Martinique	US
Mauritania	US
Mauritius	US
Mayotte	US
Mexico	US
Micronesia	US
Midway Islands	US
Moldova	US
Monaco	US
Mongolia	US
Montserrat	US
Morocco	US
Mozambique	US
Myanmar	US
Namibia	US
Nauru	US
Nepal	US
Netherlands	US
Netherlands Antilles	US
New Caledonia	US
New Zealand	US
Nicaragua	US
Niger	US
Nigeria	US
Niue	US
Norfolk Island	US
North Korea	US
Northern Cyprus	US
Northern Marina Islands	US
Norway	UIAA
Oman	US
Pakistan	US
Palau	US
Palestine	US
Panama	US
Papua New Guinea	US
Paraguay	US
Peru	US
Philippines	US
Pitcairn Island	US
Poland	US
Portugal	US
Puerto Rico	US
Qatar	US
Reunion	US
Romania	US
Russia	US
Rwanda	US
Saint Helena	US
Saint Kitts and Nevis	US
Saint Lucia	US
Saint Pierre and Miquelon	US
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	US
Samoa	US
San Marino	US
Sao Tome and Principe	US
Saudi Arabia	US
Senegal	US
Serbia and Montenegro	US
Seychelles	US
Sierra Leone	US
Singapore	US
Slovakia	US
Slovenia	US
Solomon Islands	US
Somalia	US
South Africa	US
South Georgia	US
South Korea	US
Spain	FR
Sri Lanka	US
Sudan	US
Suriname	US
Svalbard	US
Swaziland	US
Sweden	US
Switzerland	US
Syria	US
Taiwan	US
Tajikistan	US
Tanzania	US
Thailand	US
Tibet	US
Togo	US
Tokelau	US
Tonga	US
Trinidad and Tobago	US
Tunisia	US
Turkey	US
Turkmenistan	US
Turks and Caicos Islands	US
Tuvalu	US
Uganda	US
Ukraine	US
United Arab Emirates	US
United Kingdom	UK
England	UK
Wales	UK
Scotland	UK
Northern Ireland	UK
United States of America	US
United States Minor Outlying Islands	US
Uruguay	US
Uzbekistan	US
Vanuatu	US
Vatican City	US
Venezuela	US
Vietnam	US
Virgin Islands	US
Wallis and Futuna	US
Western Sahara	US
Yemen	US
Zambia	US
Zimbabwe	US