Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

More grading debate - oz Ice/Mixed 18-Mar-2005 At 7:26:25 AM maxots

Message

While we are arguing the merits of every different type of aid grade, with the problem being that we have and established system and the rest of the world has a different system, my thoughts turned to the ice/mixed lines we have in Oz. With the advent of the internet and the online Buller and Bogong guides, I can only imagine the number of winter climbers in Oz increasing. As of yet we have no established grading system for australian winter climbs.

The buller guide has "no grades other than rare throwaway comments like 'hard' or 'easy'" while neils bongong guide uses a 1 = easy - 11 = hard system. Blue lake as far as I know has no winter grades for mixed climbs on the summer rock routes or the rare bit of ice. Certainly ice routes are too short and form too rarely to warrant bothering grading them, but mixed routes remain fairly consistent year to year.

This seems a prime time for the winter climbing community to try and give things established grades or we might end up with another crazy unrelated grading system, so cast your votes > what should we adopt.