Interpretation of The Yosemite Decimal System

Tom Hanson wrote:1st 5.6 325 BC by Fred Becky

Somehow that doesn't really surprise me.

I'd have to say I'm in camp #1. Number grade to indicate the most difficult level of gymnastic movement, letter grade to indicate how sustained the route is.

The whole idea of tacking on a 50' extension to a route (where the climbing isn't any more difficult that what's been encountered already, just more of it, therefore requiring a greater level of endurance perhaps), then bumping the number grade up, doesn't really sit well with me.

There is a limit to the gymnastic difficulty one could reasonably expect to encounter on rock, but an unlimited level of endurance needed to complete a route. Route beta already tells us the necessary information when it indicates the length of the pitch.

5.12d with 80' of climbing would be slightly easier than 5.12d with 100' of climbing. Neither one should be called 5.13a, unless 5.13 moves were encountered on the route.

Now, as a not-yet 5.12 climber, I couldn't describe the finer distinctions between a hard 5.12 move, and an easy 5.13 move... But I can tell you that 100' of 5.10c/d is more physically challenging than 50' of 5.10c/d.

Why climbers on the "cutting edge" of difficulty fail to remember this is easy to discover while looking in from the outside: Sponsors and Ego, they've both got to be stroked.

Tom Hanson wrote:I am very familiar with how the fifth class ratings are employed here in The U.S.A, however, I am opposed to the bastardization of the grade scale. For example, I don�t think that a 150� pitch that is mostly 5.12 moves should receive a grade that is higher than its single hardest gymnastic move warrants.

If this were the case there would be some pretty massive downgrades across the US.

To bolt or not to be 14a (Smith Rock), hardest move is rumored to be V4 (So I've heard, never been on it), new grade 12d. Hell for this route to maintain it's 14a rating it would have to have a V10 crux.

Goliath (enchanted tower)13a, hardest move V3+, new grade 11+

Indian Creek, most everything is now going to be 5.10, or easier. Just about everything here is based off of the endurance grade. Just think 160' of #1 camelot, is now 5.8 or 5.9 instead of the current ~5.11

Devils Tower, most climbs will get the downgrade here as well.

Personally I think the best way to describe hard climbs is the route grade, followed by the hardest move as a bouldering grade. i.e.

5.13a, V4 crux (endurance route, sustained with little opportunity to rest)

5.13a, V7 crux (short & bouldery, not sustained, If longer then rests abound)

I completely agree with disturbingthepeace. Without a doubt climbing ratings do (and should) take the endurance factor into account. This whole obsession with the single hardest move is a bouldering product. Nothing wrong with bouldering, its just a different ballgame.

If I could lead climbs rated as hard as I can boulder then I would be a way better climnber!

Stymingersfink wrote: 5.12d with 80' of climbing would be slightly easier than 5.12d with 100' of climbing.

Actually, this is not true in many cases. This planet is full of routes that have 10-20 feet of hard climbing, preceded, or followed (or both) by lots of easy climbing. Sometimes REALLY easy climbing. The length of a route often has no correlation to how sustained it is.

Stymingersfink wrote: Why climbers on the "cutting edge" of difficulty fail to remember this is easy to discover while looking in from the outside: Sponsors and Ego, they've both got to be stroked.

I'd like to hear more about your theory and rationale on this subject. I'm not clear on what the "cutting edge" climbers 'fail to rememeber'.

Monomaniac wrote:
"If this were how things worked, then it seems it would be possible for a 12c or 12d to be harder than a 13a or 13b (or an 11c harder than a 12b, etc). Agree?"

I see your point, and yes I agree, a 12d could very well be more difficult to redpoint than a 13a. If route X had extremely sustained .12 climbing with hardly a move of .11, and then route Y had only one move of 13, with the remainder of the route at .9, then the .12 could be much harder to redpoint than the .13

This is sillyness. A 100' route of continous 5.11 moves without a rest would clock in at .13d, a prime example would be Living in Fear at Rifle. If you want to call it 5.11d thats fine but it would be the biggest sandbag of all time.

You can't seperate out the pump factor from the grading of a climb, to do so would negate the usefullness of the grading scale to begin with. You would also have to completely revamp the grading scale as a route with a V5 crux would have to be graded harder than one with a V3 crux right? Trust me there is a BIG difference between a route that has three V3 cruxes seperated by good rests and one that starts with 80 feet of 5.11 climbing and ends with a V5 move. In your scale both would be rated 5.12d right?

Kevin Stricker wrote:This is sillyness. A 100' route of continous 5.11 moves without a rest would clock in at .13d, a prime example would be Living in Fear at Rifle. If you want to call it 5.11d thats fine but it would be the biggest sandbag of all time. You can't seperate out the pump factor from the grading of a climb, to do so would negate the usefullness of the grading scale to begin with.

Hence all the genetic freak teens on-siting 5.13+.

If your lactic acid ATP pathway (blah blah blah) means you never pump, and you weigh in at 110lb, and can do 1-finger chins, then sure, find all the pump-factor graded climbs and run up them chasing numbers.

So what? Let em chase numbers. It doesn't bother me that 12 year olds are sending way harder than I ever will. They will still get spanked on non enduro-based routes.

Seems to me that many of the people here who prefer grading system #1 (where the route is graded on the hardest move) are jealous of the big numbers being put up today. They are looking for a way to belittle the achievements of someone sending a 5.13 or 5.14 endurance oriented route.

The funny thing is that in general most people who climb the 13's and 14's also boulder quite hard. Those mutant teens onsighting 13+ are also flashing V10 or V11 boulder problems. So they aren't going to flailing on non-enduro based routes.

From "Performance Rock Climbing" and I've seen it posted on this site. One way to improve your endurance is to simply become stronger. If you are only using 40% of muscle capacity instead of 80% muscle capacity you are going to be less pumped from a given move.

recently i saw a video on youtube with a guy climbing a route he called 5.14c. in reality this route was a 25' boulder problem with two bolts to keep him from breaking his ankle, and he started with both of them clipped--yet still he called the route "5.14" instead of V13 or whatever the corresponding boulder problem rating would be.

somewhere along its evolutionary line the YDS seems to have been corrupted, and the fact that rating a climb's difficulty is completely subjective to begin with sure doesn't help. we either need a more concrete method of rating climbs or we simply need to stop caring so much about ratings. unfortunately both of these solutions are easier said than done.

DisturbingThePeace wrote:
“Seems to me that many of the people here who prefer grading system #1 (where the route is graded on the hardest move) are jealous of the big numbers being put up today. They are looking for a way to belittle the achievements of someone sending a 5.13 or 5.14 endurance oriented route.”

Oh contraire. Of course routes that are graded 5.13 or 5.14 are harder that those rated 5.12. You entirely miss the point of the original post.
I just don’t agree that a route where the hardest single move is 5.12 should get rated 5.13 grade because it is more sustained.
I am just suggesting that the rating system leaves a lot to be desired, not the climbers putting up 5.15’s
I think that to accurately rate a route, several factors need to be taken into consideration:

1. The single hardest gymnastic move on a route.
2. The sustained difficulty (or lack thereof) of the hard moves
3. Overall length. i.e: A 500’ sustained 5.12 would be harder
than a 75’ sustained 5.12
4. Protection (psychological) factors.

Then again, and I am only speaking for myself here, but like to climb routes where I have no idea what the grade may be. 5.9 or 5.13 – not a super big deal to me as long as the line has character.

I prefer the four-tier system: 1) easy, 2) hard, 3) butt hard, and 4) not doable at this time.

I agree with Charles; If it has a 12c move on it, then its a 12c. Years ago I climbed many 12's. A 12c move (or climb) does not translate into the same difficulty as three 12a moves in sequence (for instance). A "feel" for the YDS takes years to fully appreciate; the subtitles of the system work when one has many, many climbs under their belt.

Tom Hanson wrote:Oh contraire. Of course routes that are graded 5.13 or 5.14 are harder that those rated 5.12. You entirely miss the point of the original post. I just don�t agree that a route where the hardest single move is 5.12 should get rated 5.13 grade because it is more sustained. I am just suggesting that the rating system leaves a lot to be desired, not the climbers putting up 5.15�s I think that to accurately rate a route, several factors need to be taken into consideration: 1. The single hardest gymnastic move on a route. 2. The sustained difficulty (or lack thereof) of the hard moves 3. Overall length. i.e: A 500� sustained 5.12 would be harder than a 75� sustained 5.12 4. Protection (psychological) factors.

I wasn't only referring to you, your post didn't come off as whiny like some others, it was those I was mainly referring to.

However why have a grading system that doesn't accurately reflect the difficulty of the route? Why have a 5.13b that is easier to send than a 5.12d.

I would consider a short bouldery 5.12d with a V6 crux to be of similar difficulty to send as long sustained 5.12d where the hardest moves are only V3. So I believe the current use of the YDS accurately reflects this. Like I mentioned before if you want to account for the hardest move then mention the crux as a V grade.

Huh? It's number 2 - how can a sequence of equally rated moves = a harder move techncially?

IMHO splitting the upper grades (5.10 and up) in four subcategories is way too granular. At the most it should be two subcategories.

Also if you want an attribute which describes the overall generic difficulty of the route then the TDS (Taquitz Decimal System aka YDS) falls woefully short. Granted, PG, R, and X add a protection factor BUT there are 5.4 X-rated routes - does that mean that they're notoriously difficult climbs, or terrifying? Probably not - so that falls descriptively short too.

Here's what we need to do; add an overall difficulty description to the TDS:

Low adjective and low techncial = casual and easy.
Low adjective with high techncial = sport climb/bomber placements, technically hard.
High adjective with low techncial = protection problem, pumpy, scary, sustained but not that hard.
High adjective with high techncial = protection problem, pumpy, scary, sustained and hard.

Adjectives could be Easy (E), Moderate (M), Hard (H).

Example:
Williamsom Rock's Dancing in the Storm would be E-5.10b, while Figures on a Landscape would be H-5.10b. Now we can see that DITS is not as big a proposition as FOAL even though they both have the same techncial grade, FOAL has been given the ultimate accolade in difficulty for a 5.10b. An aspiring 5.10 climber would work his/her way up from E-5.10a to H-5.10d, then to E-5.11a, testing their technical climing ability prior to getting their head in the right place.

Hey Chris, just a thought. I think your system is exactly what we have already. Maybe I'm missing something. But don't you think most climbers would find a H 5.10d feels a lot harder than a E 5.11a? And don't we already do this, describe one 5.10b as easy for the grade and another hard?

I can't climb the harder stuff. Maybe therein lies the rub. It seems to me that perhaps the system breaks down when attempting to rate anything hard. For the moderates, I think the system works just fine. The YDS (yes, I know it was developed in one of my favorite places, Tahquitz, and I love reminding people of that, but it is known universally as the YDS) - I say leave it as it is. I think for most of us it is a good system, albeit as you know one has to have climbed enough to be familiar with it.

Bill, you're right E-5.11a would be less of a proposition than H-5.10d - this is why the system would work well because it puts pure technical difficulty in its right place - which is that it's not a 100% indicator of overall route difficulty.

Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification, Chris.

Chris, I like your idea.

consider maybe that the YDS is non-linear!? just look at a conversion chart comparing YDS with other country's systems.

for example,

i think there is not as big of a jump in difficulty from 11a to 11b as there is from 11c to 11d,

similarly 12c to 12d is a bigger jump than 12d to 13a.

but 11d to 12a is a big jump.

however, 9+ can be sometimes be "harder" than 10a, given the history.

I also agree with George Perkins, in that it is relative to where one's ability and limits are at the time. A "5.12" climber may think there is no difference between 10a and 10d, but a "5.10" climber would think there is a huge difference... And a 5.14 climber would think that the "5.12" climber's projects are mere warm-ups. But would a mortal fathom a difference between 5.14b and 5.14c, other than both seem just as impossible?

a moving target.

Darren Mabe wrote:however, 9+ can be sometimes be "harder" than 10a, given the history.

IMHO, 5.9+ is the most unpredictable grade out there. To understand why you have to be able to put yourself in the mentality of some of the FA-ionists of the 60's:

Imagine 5.10 is the ceiling of the grading scale. Now imagine you just put up a really hard route. Also, consider that you're modest. You don't want to say that the route you just put up is going to be one of the hardest in the world, but you want to let future climbers know that it's pretty difficult also. What grade do you chose? There's really only one option.

The difficulties encountered on routes in the 5.9/5.10 range put up before the expansion of the grading system are going to be significantly different than those put up after the expansion.

That's my $0.02 regarding the YDS.

--Marc