Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

to A(id) grade or not to A(id) grade 15-Mar-2005 At 5:11:43 PM mrbumble

Message

As i understand it, new wave grades were basically introduced to open up the hard end of the scale. A3s in the old wave became A2 under new wave, and essentially allowed hard aid climbers to better differentiate (and sandbag) between bloody hard and dangerous, bloody bloody hard and dangerous and sheer lunacy better than they could under the old wave system.

Gear like cam hooks, toucans etc are more for the clean aid movement. Even more crazy gear (like tequila straws and ice tools) on climbs, although almost certainly associated with recent new wave climbs, doesn't necessarily mean that a new wave graded climb will need gear like this. I know of plenty of (old school) routes that use heaps of cam hooks, beaks ,rurps etc.

As for our system, the problem i have is the lack of consistency in where people say the individual grades fall. M4-M6 seems as if it straddles A2 to A4 - which is a very wide gap for 3 grades!