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Your grading system is f#@ked 22-Sep-2004 At 4:59:13 PM Archangel in Oz

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Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. What a can of worms! I thought I was getting it now I am confused again. It seems like my original assertion may have been closer to the truth than is comfortable. It does rather seem like as a body of climbers there is a degree of confusion.

I get the impression that you Australians would like to earn more “Ewbank Points” (cf E points in the UK) for a dangerous route but that is not how the system is set up. In the England the thought of stepping up a grade to climb a bold route helps with the mental preparation for doing it (or stops some altogether). And being used to this it is hard for me to think of our sport climbing chums in Aus having it easy. Not that I am obsessed by grades or anything…..

As to blokee slagging off the French system. The French system is the probably the best system in the world for what it is intended for. That is why it has been adopted across Europe even the Germans use it nowadays (for comparison at least). In reality it is almost identical to the Ewbank system i.e. the harder the route the higher the grade. It is just that in France any objective danger is removed by the use of bolts. Although not directly applicable they have an alpine system for climbing non bolted multipitchers.

The English system is bonkers, antiquated and utter nonsense to the unfamiliar but works well for trad routes in the UK. (Just to reiterate I am not suggesting you adopt it).

Now then who was talking about sledging the English cricket team…..maybe we should take up Aussie rules so we can beat you at that as well (Sorry couldn’t resist).

So then the Ewbank system only grades the overall difficulty of a route in its entirety and does not take into account objective danger. Nor should it be used to describe the difficulty of a move. Just so I know.