climbing grades for Uk routes

Hi

Recently used Mountain project for a trip to Colorado - great site and very useful!

So had a look at adding some UK routes ... but there seems no way to grade using the UK system.

Would be much better to add UK grades for UK routes .... and leave US climbers who know their grading system to add US grades (or have a conversion chart available)

thanks

mike

mike shamash wrote:Hi Recently used Mountain project for a trip to Colorado - great site and very useful! So had a look at adding some UK routes ... but there seems no way to grade using the UK system. Would be much better to add UK grades for UK routes .... and leave US climbers who know their grading system to add US grades (or have a conversion chart available) thanks mike

I brought this up here and got a generally positive response to the idea but nothing ever got done about it. In general, I can see why they want some kind of consistency with a YDS grade (or guess) for everything, but an optional "international grade" field would be really useful.

Please don't let it put you off adding routes in the UK - I seem to be the only one to do this for a while and it's a big task! I tend to just guess at the YDS grade (drawing on some experience of climbing in the states and some reference to grade conversion tables) and put the British grade in a comment or the description.

@kennoyce
This does work to some extent, but since YDS and British grades are kind of grading for different things it gets a bit tricky to just refer to the table in that article. For example, I've climbed (or failed to climb) HVS routes that could get anything between 5.6 and 5.10d.

Nice one Nick - thats for bringing this up

I think the MP initiative is great .... lets hope they find a way to use local grades.

Its part of climbing in a new area to get your head round the local grading system - or maybe thats the joy of being british and having a system that does not translate!

I've been climbing off and on for the past 10 yrs in the US. This past January, I moved to the UK (Scotland), so now I'm trying to understand this grading system relative to the US. I agree, having the "local", not just the YDS grading would be helpful.

I'm planning on adding in the climbs I've actually climbs in the UK to MP. In the description of the climb/route, I will add in what the guidebook says is the UK tech and adj grade (for trad) or French grade (for sport). Adding in the UK grade with YDS can hopefully help people understand the UK grading system (or vice versa) better, so that if someone buys a guidebook at least there's some sort of cross-referencing because like Nick said, the grading system isn't just a 1:1 conversion of grades (tables are only a vague guide). And, to be honest, it wasn't until three days after my first weekend out trad climb (climbed ~15-20 pitches) when I was trying to explain the climbs to another American that I actually figured out, more or less, how the UK trad grading system works.