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General Climbing Discussion

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Australian Grading 25-Aug-2009 At 12:24:10 AM mattjr

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The Ewbank system, used in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, was developed in the mid 1960s by John Ewbank. Ewbank also developed an open ended “M” system for aid climbing. The numerical Ewbank system is open-ended, starting from 1, which you can (at least in theory) walk up, up to 34 (as of 2007). South African and Australian grades differ by 1 or 2 grade points.[10].

The Ewbank system is intended to simply grade the hardest individual move on a climb. The current practice is to make mention of all factors affecting the climber's experience (exposure, difficulty of setting protection or outright lack of protection) in the description of the climb contained in the guide.