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Topic Date User

to A(id) grade or not to A(id) grade 18-Mar-2005 At 2:07:17 PM LittleMac

Message

On 18/03/2005 M8iswhereitsat wrote:
>http://www.chockstone.org/Forum/Forum.asp?ForumID=1&Action=Display&MessageID=20501&PagePos
>0&Sort=
>
>The above is a cross-link to BA post on the poll thread.
>I posted it here for serious consideration / add to the debate, ... for
>the discussion on the other thread is generally in the more light hearted
>vein?

To be fair I've posted the reponse to that post.

On 18/03/2005 BA wrote:
>Can anybody who takes the "definitions" of American aid grades literally
>answer the following; "If the grade given to a piece of aid climbing is
>dependent on the size of a fall, say 50 feet, can any climbing up to 49
>feet 11 inches from the ground be given that grade?"
>
Of course a route of that nature can be given that grade. The divisions of each grade if read carefully suggest that a given grade is not neccessarily based upon fall potential but also difficulty of placing gear and time required to lead pitch. Therfore if a climb staisfys all the other criteria for that category then it should be given that grade.

>There are lots of people around who feel that if getting off the ground
>is the crux of a climb then the grade is not based on those hardest moves
>but easier moves higher up the climb. For free climbing it is normally
>only a couple of moves but aiding for 35/40/45 feet is a long way and according
>to the definitions it can never be given the grade that most closely reflects
>the quality of gear that you can expect. What a silly concept.

Don't see how the M system is any better in this respect as their is no clear definiton of what each M grade should cocsist of. The A system bases it's whole system of definition around the quality of gear you can expect, so in this regard I feel it addresses the situation better.

>No person has ever convinced me that sub-grades are at all, in anyway,
>sensible - see a previous post I put up about 'F' grades, if you can have
>A4+, why not A1+ or A1-? If the 'A' grades are to be consistent then sub-divions
>of the grades apply equally across the board. A1- could be a rest or a
>single point, A1 could be a couple of bolts as mentioned above by Ewbank,
>A1+ could be 2 nuts in a reasonable crack. If we follow on with this line
>of reasoning (if applied to 'F' grades there are 81 sub-divisions up to
>F9a+) that means we would have to go from M0 to M11 to get a 'correlation'
>with 'A' grades, which is what you would get if the 'A' grades had no sub-divisions.

There is no reason that A1+ cant exist, the plusses in each subdivision simply mean the extreme of each numerical A grade. So A1+ would be the extreme of A1 and so on. Quite simple to grasp I thought. The plusses make grading easier because as with free grades we often say a stiff 19 well with the a grades you can quantify that by saying stiff A3 = A3+.

>Get the Seppos to sort out their grading system before we even consider
>adopting any of it in Oz (and what about 5.13? I was taught at school that
>5.13 came between 5.1 and 5.2 'cause it was DECIMAL).

Nobody is suggesting that we adopt the Yosemite Decimal Sytem (depite the fact that sometimes the A sytem is placed as the sixth class of climbing in that system). The fifth class climbing scale is ridiculous and difficult to understand and at no stage have we suggested that we should adopt this.

>I'm starting to get stroppy now, so I'll stop. And no, I haven't voted.

Sorry your getting stroppy BA but maybe you should of voted if you have such strong views.

Cheers

LittleMac

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Totally respect all that you have done for the climbing community Bill and in no way do my comments attempt to devalue your point of view. I am simply sharing my own.