Discussion: Grade Change

Grade Change

Probably not too crucial to most but after having quite a few runs up Corner from Hell (16). It feels a little harder than that! A few comments on people's ascents would show that they agree. Does anyone have any concerns of me changing the grade to 17! As I feel it is deceiving for those looking for easy climbs with beginners or first timers to the crag.

Unless there has been a change in the route ie holds snapped off. I say leave it. Maybe start the beginners on a 14?

I get what you're saying but, it's definitely harder than 16!

I've climbed CFH a number of times (and love it) and have to agree with Nathan. I've always thought it stiffer than a 16. My perception is more towards 18.

Nathan, perhaps contacting the FA'er would be a good port of call to discuss this. Without his consent nothing can change.

Yeah I have also climbed it a number of times. This is my local crag 5 mins of my house! That's probably the best way to go about it! Maybe because it used to be a Trad route back in the day, and someone with tiny fingers climbed the crack haha. Thanks Common Sense Bolter

Agree it's not a 16

Can we clarify what's in too? How far can you wander right toward Corner From Heaven (where there are much better holds)?

Sandbag Simon...

It was graded in relationship to the original route CFH. If you change this grade you will have to re look at the rest of them. But, yes more like an 18 for sure. ( and I still hesitate on the hard move after doing it at 50 times.)

As the concensus seems to be more for a grade change, I will be changing the grade to 17. Anyone disagree and thinks it should be higher? Any idea on what grade Corner From Heaven should be in relation to a change the grade change of corner from hell@matttranter ?

To gain a consensus on thecrag for grade change you can give a personal grade when you tick the route. If enough people tick it with a higher grade then the system automatically changes the grade.

I thought this was the case too Monty, but one of thecrag.com developers said this applied only to the star rating. I would love to see their internal grading system published alongside each climb as I reckon they'd have the closest to non-subjective grading you could get through the magic of Big Data....

If Matt Minus’ grade opinions are not part of the algorithm I think that is a great thing

I have a simple and elegant grading system, thankyou very much Stare!

Anything I can do = 20.5 Anything else = V12

Really? Wow - I didn't know that. Seems weird that they allow you to change the grade on your tick then?

Matt Minus tells me Jaws is at least 29

I think that's to let you ruthlessly downgrade your mates routes more than anything :p

Changing the tick grade doesn't add a personal contribution,

Adding a personal contribution allows people to see that several people have an issue with the grade and adjust it accordingly if there's some kind of consensus.

It's covered in several places on the github, but https://github.com/theCrag/website/issues/689 is the main one I found, though https://github.com/theCrag/website/issues/2525 is more recent

Well more than enough people seem to agree that its harder than 16 on both this forum and logged ascents. You are definitely right Matt Minus that would make the grades much less subjective!

I count you only in personal grades, and about 1 in 3 in logged ascents. Hardly a consensus

hi all, Yes this is not automatic ... yet

And yes we plan to do something here but still not too sure what exactly. All feedback please add to this one:

https://github.com/theCrag/website/issues/689

I'm cautiously leaning more towards a new tool which will help show which routes are over or under graded but leave the actual change to be done manually as I suspect it will get it wrong a bit until we iron it all out.

The data is also a little vague as you can set your tick grade to anything but the system doesn't know why, eg you could have gone off route, or a hold has broken, or it's just your opinion of what it should be. So we kinda need to know why, eg an opinion will add to the grade votes, off route wouldn't be counted at all, and a broken crux hold should really start the grade voting over again. But I'm not sure all the complexity is worth it, and sometimes a good old fashioned discussion like this one is better then throwing some tech at it.

The issue with that is the fact that everybody jumps the fence at the lowest point - no one will want to downgrade their first route at a grade, but odds are that it's actually a softy. You could use the internal climber ranking system to provide a weighting against a grade to give a more accurate picture perhaps, and then require no manual input from users whatsoever. You also don't have to even regrade a route, which would get contentious - just some kind of sliding scale that says "most users find this relatively soft to relatively difficult"

Brendan, a good, balanced answer. I think you will get it right, eventually.

Ah the beauty of it all... and don’t forget all the classic ‘soft’ 1 move wonders, which are soft if you boulder/climb well above the grade of said classic but for those moving into the grade the stopper move is just as often ridiculously hard and often much harder than the cruxes of an enduro ‘grade standard’. There should always be room for a bit of to and fro banter and even the odd heated exchange for anyone who really cares enough. Let’s not automate everything (cos everyone who’s bothered to try them knows my grades are always soft!)

I think the system where you give a grade contribution on a particular route and the original grade may change with consensus (without having to change the original FA grade), is an excellent concept. And the grade of routes may change with time regardless of holds disappearing etc, because human beings are getting softer. It's evolution (I think?)...

We just need the gyms to start grading harder so people are prepped for the real world.

Hey Brendan,

Thx for your clear & concise reply here.

On the rare occasion, I have gone directly into "edit" on a route to change a grade, and that change seems to remain.

I occasionally edit the grades on routes at local crags that I climb at frequently, where I feel like I've got a pretty good sense of grades. Some of our local routes are written up in different guidebooks which differ by two or three grades. I think its perfectly reasonable to change a grade on a route as long as it seems to match the consensus. The first ascentionist is probably usually the least qualified person to give an objective assessment of the grade of their route, since their experience will always have been different to anyone who comes along afterwards and has some sense of what to expect.

Just an historical observation re grades & grading: there are eras, or mindsets, which of course change. Go back to the "old school" grading of the late 60's, when it was Qld climbers vs NSW climbers and those grades can be pretty rough. [a good example, for those who know KP, is Offal (grade 6) and Spider Monkey (grade 8).] The plethora of new climbers coming out of the gyms, would seem to usher in a new era of grading?

Personally I agree with Scott: the FA's grade is at best just another opinion. Most FA'ers might have a better idea because they climb lots, but not because of the FA itself. All my fa grades are pretty random

And Mark yeah there is lots of that sentiment. As part of this system we would be running some solid stats and put some numbers on lots of things, like how hard or soft a whole crag (or gym) is, how sandbaggy a particular climber might be, and just how much grade shifts are over time, etc

A few years ago Mike Law suggested that we should adopt the French grading system for sport routes in Australia, and keep the Ewbank system for trad routes. I think his argument was that modern sport climbs and old school trad climbs are fundamentally different kinds of experiences, which each require a different set of skills. In practice this means that a climber who can crush a grade 20 sport route might be risking death by getting on a grade 20 crack if they don't have the understanding of what 20 really means in old school Ewbank grades.

I'm not sure I agree with him, but I kind of see his point. There's no comparing the grades of old trad routes in a place like Arapiles, Frog or the Wolgan to modern sport routes, especially at the lower end of the scale. My preferred solution would be to lower the grades of all the modern routes to match Ewbank's old routes (he invented the scale after all), but that probably wouldn't go down well.

Hey Scott,

I like that idea, it definitely has merit: alerting the person new to the climbing game, that these experiences are significantly different.

We currently have a grade "4" trad route, f.ex. (GH Mtns), that is about "12" on the current sport climbing scale.

On the rare occasion, this "gap" between sport & trad, leads to tragedy.

Which route are you referring to, Mark? Caves Route or Prometheus I? Because i definitely don't think Caves Routes is grade 12, it's just a little airy at one point. I haven't done Prometheus though.

Grades are very subjective and even can be down to style of route, ie slab vs steep..both might be 18 but one persons desperate might be any persons cruise. Also FA definitely get it wrong, when we put up routes normally a couple of people repeat it right away we all blurt out a grade we think it is and it always varies TBH....its just a number and really means little...if you think its something different when you tick it here put in different grade and let consensus decide.

Trad vs sport grades different issue. Actual difficulty might be the same but requires different skill set so people normally have a different sport vs trad onsight number. Climbs are already marked sport or trad, that should be enough indication for people. Climbing isn't just about what grade you climb or how strong you are, also involves skills like reading a route and working out if you can do it or back off etc...no grading system will ever do that. New climbers need to learn the system, not change it to suit them which will never succeed anyway.

Well put rod... I don’t think it’s remotely true to say ‘current’ sport is grades easier than trad. Indeed there are plenty of us that do just as well on trad as sport. It’s certainly true for plenty of araps routes that the climbing is markedly easier than grade equivalent sport if pink pointed. Of course crack climbs will spit off plenty of gym climbers. Bolts don’t generally change that. Slabs do likewise. Style not difficulty. As for safety do we actually know that trad is less safe? In my little patch of the world almost all the major accidents have been scrambling, rigging sport anchors and TRg. Araps gets more accidents than most but is that due trad or sheer volume of climbers. Many of those accidents involve scrambling/descending issues. Sport climbing by its nature invites novice participants. Might that increase risk of accident? Personally I agree that a trad vs sport differentiation suffices and as per many previous guide book discussions, route descriptions highlighting danger/loose rock/poor pro/sharp edges etc where they exist.

I totally agree with all that rod said. Should be written as introduction on every guide book...

Rob, yes, the original CR, not the variation that came later. Simon suggests 15 in his S.E. Qld guide. Prometheus I is a 4, a nice wander up to Cave 4.

Ok, I have only gone that way once and it was in the dark at midnight. I don't remember it being too hard but a little sketchy when you can't see very well

CR: apart from a bypassable 14/15 move under the chimney I can't see how this route can be harder than grade 4.

Caves Route is an example of what I would call "Low risk/ High consequence". Although I would grade it a bit higher than 4, I agree that it's not a particularly difficult climb. HOWEVER, a fall, while not likely, is possible for any number of reasons: foot or handhold breaks off, vegetation balance hold uproots, loose grit, idiot above throws rock onto your head or wrist, sole of shoe comes unstuck, insect/snake/spider bite, loss of balance, temporary drop in blood pressure, etc. The person who falls as a result of any of these causes doesn't know when he/she leaves home that morning that he/she is going to fall that day on a climb that has a grading of 4 and is widely known (beyond the climbing community) as a "tourist route". But, given the height and "airiness", that fall could be fatal. Grade 4 is roughly the difficulty equivalent of walking up a flight of steps. But you don't risk your life every time you walk up a flight of steps because the Consequence factor is different. I was acutely aware of this Consequence factor on Caves Route, for which reason I would have found the occasional ring bolt very comforting.

On a route which is now as much in the "public domain" as Caves Route, getting the consent of the first ascendent to put a few bolts in for public safety, while it would remain the courteous thing to do if possible, should hardly be necessary. It would not detract from the enjoyment or quality of the climb for those who don't believe they need to use them. But, given how much traffic it gets, could one day conceivably save a life.

Shots fired.

After seeing people trying to downclimb Trojan, I think caves is probably THE safest outing on Tibro. And not to mention that bushwalkers are now going up Prom1 regularly, so soon you'll be drilling bolts there too...

Arapiles has a plethera of quality routes in the single digits. A grade 4 can totally involve real climbing movement - its not a staircase.

This thread is about grades. Why must people always revert to the bolt wars....?

Sorry Rob, I wasn't intending to fire a shot in the "bolt war". That was just a personal comment about my feeling of exposure to the consequence of a slip on CR. All I really wanted to bring to the discussion is that the difficulty grading of a climb (or route) doesn't address the consequence of a fall on that climb (or route). But it is a valid consideration of any route, just as is the already discussed difference between whether a route is sport or trad.

Sport vs trad should make zero difference to the grade. It's implicit that for onsight trad you have to be able to hang around to find placements.

For the absolute grade, I thought Ewbank states that if you need your hands it's grade 1 minimum? So not a staircase. We are shit at this in NZ...

Hey John & all,

How can trad vs sport ever be the same grade?

If you've got to hang around & place gear, vs just clip n go.

I've talked to some of Australia's leading climbers over the years, & pretty much all of them said that there were about 2 grades between their best trad vs their best sport.

The grade just reflects how hard the route is. It does not reflect how the route is climbed. If you climbed with no hands it would be even harder than trad or sport, but we don't change the routes grade.

Sport and trad are lines conceived in different ways. Sport following a line of bolts and not necessarily looking for features or LLR..

Trad is a compromise, looking for protection and features on the rock, but protection is pivotal. It is not a coincidence that the hardest graded routes are sport, but this I think because of technical difficulty, witch is the aim of the discipline.

Ewbank is pretty clear about the criteria of his grade system, which is an excellent one. We are just making lots of confusion about technical difficulty and the other factors such rock quality, exposure and pro.

In my view, this website is offering a powerful tool to add a personal grade contribution to a route and everyone is free to do so. This tool will allow a grade change if there is consensus and this is great.

I don't think is appropriate for one person to change the main grade of the route.

There are plenty of routes that are climbable as either sport or trad with no real difference in grade... though sometimes I might add a grade for the trad version 'just because' and to piss off the sport climbers... It wasn't always 'clip&go' for sport, once upon a time you also fiddle around with bolt plates etc which can often take more time than a quick wire..? For the best it would be an even greater difference, 34 sport vs what? only a few have climbed 31 trad.. In general climbers its often an even larger gap ie projects 27 sport, freaks out on 21 trad...

Hmm yeah Change is prob the hardest but there would prob be hard bold trad that Adam might find harder, sometimes the mental difficulty can be worse than the technical one... many sport climbers totally suck at any sort of bold climbing, let alone on trad...

Grades should not be changed without good reason..

nathancondon : I definitely agree with the grade change of this particular climb (I even think it could be worth revisiting Corner From Heaven) - I definitely found myself sweating a bit more than I have on any other route of that grade. On a general note, grading is so subjective that I think it does make sense to discuss them in a thoughtful way like you have. There are plenty of examples of climbs shifting a grade or two over time. For me climbing is as much about community as it is about an individual's grading.