Big Wall Ratings. Don'd understand them!

So I am relatively new to climbing in general, and new to big wall climbing all together. I've coming to understand the YDS rating system, and even aid climb ratings, but it seems when big walls are rated they are given a YDS type rating and a Roman Numeral and an aid rating. I don't understand why all three? For instance I believe The Nose is a 5.9, C2, IV. The Nose is obviously more difficult than the 5.9's I've been climbing, so I must be misunderstanding something.
If someone could enlighten me on the subject, it would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Jack

So when you look at The Nose you see "the best balance" of free climbing and aid climbing. 5.9 C2 means that if you can aid C2 then the hardest "free" climbing you'll have to do is 5.9. This best balance varies. You can not know how to aid and free the whole damn thing. Or you can aid most of it and climbing it at an easier "free" grade. The C in C2 means you can aid the route clean, without hammers and stuff. C2 is a grade for the danger/risk of falling. Then the Roman Numeral signifies how long the route should take. Now this varies like crazy depending on a thousand factors. IV means it would take a full day-ish. Many people take days to climb the nose, some climb it in mere hours. Hope this makes sense.

Thanks Matias that helps for sure, so I guess if I'm understanding the ratings as I read them are for either free climbing or aiding, not both at once?

Just for background, I'm an experienced free climber and aspiring big wall climber. The rating system is extreme shorthand for how difficult/committing a climb is. The Nose is a good example. The VI rating means it is traditionally more than a two day climb. Compare it to a grade V, like the Regular Route on Half Dome or many routes on Washington Column, and it is much more committing. South Face of Washington Column, The Prow, and West Face of Leaning Tower are routes designated V and generally climbed in two days.
The YDS rating generally refers to either the required free rating or generally accepted free rating of the commonly made free moves. In general, you should be comfortable leading 5.9 to lead a route like The Nose, marked 5.9 C2 VI. Despite the comments of the previous poster, I would prioritize the free rating rather than the aid rating and say, "If you can lead 5.9, then the route goes at C2."
'C' as opposed to 'A' refers to being able to climb the route clean, with cams, stoppers, and hooks as aid, rather than pitons. Theoretically, you should be able to climb a route labeled 'C' without a hammer, though this often depends on the existence of fixed gear, without which, and without the ability to replace it, the route would be unclimbable.
So going from grade, designating how committing a climb is, to YDS denoting how difficult the mandatory or expected free climbing is, to aid rating describing how difficult or dangerous the aid climbing on a given climb is, the aid section comes last. If you aren't familiar with these ratings, and you don't own pitons, you should, like me, stick to routes marked 'C1' or 'C2'. These routes have relatively easy clean aid on them. Imagine a splitter crack 1/2" wide: you can't fit your fingers in it, but a small cam sinks easily. This is considered C1, and with a handful of appropriately sized cams and a couple aiders one can make quick work of it. If you see a climb marked A3, or similar, it's not for you or me or other aid noobs.

Ha, I had to double check that, The Nose is ('commitment') grade VI, not IV.

JbPhillips wrote:Thanks Matias that helps for sure, so I guess if I'm understanding the ratings as I read them are for either free climbing or aiding, not both at once?

5.9 C2 means the hardest move that absolutely must be freed and cannot be aided is 5.9. So if you intend to climb the route 100% aid with absolutely zero free climbing beyond what is absolutely, positively necessary, then the hardest move you will have to do is 5.9. In the case of the Nose, the 5.9 section they are talking about is a 40' chimney on the backside of the Texas flake about half way up. It's mandatory free because both sides of the chimney are blank and there is no crack for pro, thus no way to aid it without drilling a rivet ladder.

But do not underestimate that "5.9 C2" grade. No one climbs the Nose (or any route with substantial amounts of free climbing) 100% aid, less one mandatory free section. Most people climb the majority of the route free and aid the harder pitches. A more appropriate grade, for simplicity terms, would be about 5.12- C2 for the Nose. That is, if you can climb 5.12a you can free climb all but five pitches of the Nose. It can be done at 5.10 C2, but you are going to be aiding a lot and your chances of topping out are drastically lower than if you can climb .12 or .11.

John Hoffman 1 wrote:Compare it to a grade V, like the Regular Route on Half Dome or

Regular NW face is grade VI. Call it VI- compared to El Cap. Hell, the approach by itself takes most of a full day with 80 lb packs, ha.

Typically;

I - 2 hours or less, single pitch or 2 pitches mostly
II - half day, maybe some 5-pitch moderate
III - most of the day, maybe a 8-pitch moderate or 5-pitch harder route
VI - all day, maybe 15-pitches of moderate or 10 hard pitches
V - 2 or 3 days, typically aid, sometimes a very hard, very long free climb (e.g. Moonlight Buttress Free, Rainbow Country on Original route, El Sendero Luminoso, most routes in the Sierras because of the long approach, ect.). for aid, typically 8 - 12 pitches or so.
VI - 3 days to a week, anything on El Cap, typically at least 15 pitches of an aid climb up to 30 or so. There are no VI free climbs that I am aware of.
VII - extreme alpine big walls, multi-day approaches, usually extremely cold weather and an extremely limited climbing seasons, typically at least 35 pitches of hard aid and free. The only two places I know of that have VII walls established on them are the Trango Towers and Baffin Island. There might be other places, but they are quite limited. Grade VII is really the pink unicorn. If only they weren't so damn cold I would love to try one!!

The idea behind the commitment grade is to tell you how, well, how committing the route is--that is, how likely shit is to hit the fan if things go tits up. Breaking a leg off a whipper on a grade V route in the Sierras with a 6-hour approach is a much bigger ordeal than breaking one on some 4-pitch moderate grade II route that's right around the corner. Likewise, breaking one on a grade VII wall in the middle of flipping nowhere could be serious enough to result in your death or permanent loss of a leg because it would take forever to summon help out there.

JbPhillips wrote:Thanks Matias that helps for sure, so I guess if I'm understanding the ratings as I read them are for either free climbing or aiding, not both at once?

Another way to understand it is to know that the combined grades change based upon what you do. To stay with the Nose, it's rated 5.8 C2 or 5.9 C1 or 5.13+ (according to ST Guide). So as you climb harder free climbing the easier the aid climbing expectations until you reach freeclimb status where no aid would be needed. Think of the bigwall grade not as a static rating in combination but a ratio of the expected type of climbing you'll encounter.

BenL wrote:re: "there are no VI free climbs that I am aware of" there are countless grade VI free climbs on el cap.... nose, salathe, zodiac, dawn wall, ....

Those routes are considered grade VI when climbed via free and aid. When climbed all free by a competent party at the free grade, the time to climb it is no longer grade VI.

kevin deweese wrote:When climbed all free by a competent party at the free grade, the time to climb it is no longer grade VI.

I'd be ok calling most of the free routes on El Cap grade VI. With the exception of Freerider and Tommy Caldwell's speed records it seems that most pro climbers spend plenty of days on the actual free ascent of a route (not including working the route ahead of time) to qualify as a grade VI.

BenL wrote:re: "there are no VI free climbs that I am aware of" there are countless grade VI free climbs on el cap.... nose, salathe, zodiac, dawn wall, ....

True, I forgot those go free. I more or less meant there are not grade any grade VI free climbs that are normally done free and are not normally considered to be an aid climb.

20 kN wrote: I more or less meant there are not grade any grade VI free climbs that are normally done free and are not normally considered to be an aid climb.

This might be one (66 pitches):

coldmountainkit.com/knowled…

@gavin thanks for the reply, yes El Cap is all grade VI! I don't know how I mixed up my Roman Numerals. Regarding RNWF, I had to go back and check, and was surprised to see it's considered grade VI, since most parties do it in two days now.
The thing is, we see the ratings in a book and try seem fixed, but really it's just shorthand for how to describe a route to future climbers. Some routes that were A5 when they went up are C3 now. And as far as I understand, the aid rating is not based on hardest mandatory moves, but on the style and difficulty of the first ascent party. I'm trying to think of examples, but ST often lists "cruxes can/cannot be pulled through on gear" this indicates more of an expected difficulty level free rather than a mandatory one. Many routes could be climbed entirely on aid. Ultimately, it's a much less scientific system than it appears.

John Hoffman 1 wrote:The thing is, we see the ratings in a book and try seem fixed, but really it's just shorthand for how to describe a route to future climbers. Some routes that were A5 when they went up are C3 now. And as far as I understand, the aid rating is not based on hardest mandatory moves, but on the style and difficulty of the first ascent party.

Incorrect. The aid rating, just like a free rating, is based upon the hardest* mandatory move that a climber chooses to make. I stress "chooses" because Every climb will have a different rating based upon whether you're choosing to free it, choosing to clean aid it, or choosing to nail it.
The FA party grades the route based upon their experience. The second ascent party regrades the route based upon their experience. The 100th ascent party regrades the route based upon their experience. We accept this because the difficulty of aid routes changes over time as nailing placements get blown out, gear becomes fixed, heads become deadheads, fixed gear becomes unfixed, new gear is invented, mutant kids from gyms learn how to hold onto smaller and smaller bits of rock, etc.

If anything, a route's rating might be considered locked, not into the experience of the FA party, but into the experience of the last party to create consensus before the most recent guidebook is published. Though with online forums and websites, the constant campfire allow us to continue adjusting the communities understanding of a route's grade even after it;s been published to paper.

• "hardest" can get a bit grey with aid because the danger rating is as important as the technical difficultly rating. Some climbers will say "I was hanging on just a few millimeters of a beak tip! It was def A3!" forgetting that you would need a string of bodyweight placements to be considered A3 or higher. Beak tips right after a bolt? Not A3 no matter how technical it is to place and get on the piece. Call it A2 and reach up to the next C1/A1 placement.

John Hoffman 1 wrote:I'm trying to think of examples, but ST often lists "cruxes can/cannot be pulled through on gear" this indicates more of an expected difficulty level free rather than a mandatory one. Many routes could be climbed entirely on aid. Ultimately, it's a much less scientific system than it appears.

Also incorrect. Your example of "cruxes can/cannot be pulled through on gear" is exactly about a mandatory free difficulty precisely because one cannot french free through a difficult section and if not able to climb at that mandatory level, you will need to bail.

Additionally, this type of phrase will only show up on climbs that are generally seen as free climbs, which is why the highest level of aid climbing one would be expected to do on those routes would be A0/C1 (pulling on a bolt or piece respectively).

For aid routes (like we're talking about) it all goes back to the split rating based upon the expected free vs aid chosen to be used. Even that is grey area because many aid climbs will have a mandatory free section of 5.6-5.9 or so that could conceivably be aided through with nailing and hooks and whatnot but most people in their right mind aren't going to do that for that level of free climbing and so the aid rating of a "mandatory" free climbing section is left off.

"A3 you fall a long ways, A4 you fall and get hurt and A5 you fall and die"

Everything below A3 is "easy" perhaps?! This dude explains it!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=boQHYBhlOcs