Devil's Lake rating system

I climbed a few of the low-to-moderate cracks at DL back in the early 90s, and according to the Swartling book, my best was an "F8". I heard that the rating scale in that book is about 1 level lower than average when compared to the 5.X scale. Can anyone verify this? I need to dig out my guide to see which routes we hit, but I moved to Colorado in '93, and haven't seen it since!

Am planning to hit a few routes in the South Platte, and I was just making sure I was clear on what a 5.6-5.9 felt like. Though no longer in my prime, I would like to have a comparison. Thanks to anyone who can shed some light.

The actual translation of ratings from the 1st edition of the current guidebook to the 2nd edition was something like this:

F3 -> 5.0
F4 -> 5.2/5.3
F5 -> 5.4
F6 -> 5.5/5.6
F7 -> 5.7/5.8
F8 -> 5.8
F9A -> 5.9/5.10a
F9B -> 5.9/5.10c
F9C -> 5.10a/5.10c
F10A-> 5.10d/5.11b
F10B-> 5.11a/5.11d
F10C-> 5.12
F11 -> 5.12d

The South Platte is really quite different rock, so there won't be any straightforward comparison. How do you compare a steep quartzite face to slabby granite?

This is funny as I just had this conversation about the F scale on a glacier in AK, and no one ever heard of it. Any more history out there Doug? Ill have to do a search as I would like to learn more.

Climbing ratings at Devils Lake and Taylors Falls in Minnesota began with the F scale. Since the end of the scale was supposed to be F10, things started to bunch up once standards rose. That's why the climbs in both areas are pretty stiff for the grade. In fact, Joshua Tree ratings also used the F scale at one time. Leave it To Beaver was rated F12 or something like that. Once the YDS came along, the F scale was forgotten.

The F scale at the Lake goes back to the 60s? It shows up in the early Hoofers guidebooks.

Personally, my first experience with the F scale was in the late 70s in the Tetons.

One of my major motivations for writing the Extremist's Guide was my hatred of the F-system and its stifling effects on progress at DL. Somehow I don't get as worked up about things these days!

As Tommy so aptly put it: "You don't risk your life for this stuff just to be a midwesterner."

Leo, your guidebook was also the last serious attempt to preserve the history of climbing around here - who did what, and when. Thanks so much for putting it together!

+1. your guide is a cornerstone to my collection.

jon jugenheimer wrote:+1. your guide is a cornerstone to my collection.

Still have my original small paperback copy of Extremists guide.
Also my first 'guidebook' was a xerox copy of a poorly xeroxed copy from another poor copy of Hoofers Erol Morris' edited edition about 1974. It was tied together with a rope and 2 paint sticks to 'bind it together. I used that until the first pocket sized Swartling copy came out about..???? late 70's or early 80's I believe. Used the 'F' system with pain and confusion for many years.

Doug Hemken wrote:The translation of ratings from the 1st edition of the current guidebook to the 2nd edition was something like this: F3 -> 5.0 F4 -> 5.2/5.3 F5 -> 5.4 F6 -> 5.5/5.6 F7 -> 5.7/5.8 F8 -> 5.8 F9A -> 5.9/5.10a F9B -> 5.9/5.10c F9C -> 5.10a/5.10c F10A-> 5.10d/5.11b F10B-> 5.11a/5.11d F10C-> 5.12 F11 -> 5.12d The South Platte is really quite different rock, so there won't be any straightforward comparison. How do you compare a steep quartzite face to slabby granite?

Many thanks! Perfecto! Agreed, the rock is completely different, but rock dust on your fingertips smells good anywhere! After so many years away from the sport, I am approaching it again with a full head of steam. Hope to see some of you out at Staunton Rocks SP when it opens in 9 short days. I'll be the goofball top roping the easy stuff, and shouting MOO when I hit the top, in salute to my climbing mentor, Mark Webb, may he RIP.

And I found my DL Guidebook! Time to update, and maybe break out some old pictures and show you some distinct fashion errors.

anybody know where i can get a copy of the;
"Hoofers Erol Morris' edited edition about 1974"

That and one more guide will close out my collection to all printed guided to the Lake I believe, unless someone knows more...

jon jugenheimer wrote:anybody know where i can get a copy of the; "Hoofers Erol Morris' edited edition about 1974" That and one more guide will close out my collection to all printed guided to the Lake I believe, unless someone knows more...

A copy of the Erol Morris guide in one's collection is cool for all sorts of reasons.

Doug Hemken wrote:Leo, your guidebook was also the last serious attempt to preserve the history of climbing around here - who did what, and when. Thanks so much for putting it together!

Thanks- it was a labor of love that tried to capture the spirit of the time and of my DLFA brothers and sisters.

Paul Getzke wrote:Climbing ratings at Devils Lake and Taylors Falls in Minnesota began with the F scale. Since the end of the scale was supposed to be F10, things started to bunch up once standards rose. That's why the climbs in both areas are pretty stiff for the grade. In fact, Joshua Tree ratings also used the F scale at one time. Leave it To Beaver was rated F12 or something like that. Once the YDS came along, the F scale was forgotten.

This is mostly not true. The so-called F-scale came from Leigh Ortenburger's National Climbing Classification System (NCSS), introduced to the climbing world in 1963 (Copy of original article in Summit Magazine at supertopo.com/climbing/thre…). The decimal system (later, and quite incorrectly called the Yosemite Decimal System), was introduced about seven years earlier at Tahquitz Rock by Don Wilson, Royal Robbins, and Chuck Wilts. Mark Powell was responsible for the original spread to Yosemite and beyond. John Gill picked it up in the Tetons and brought it to Devil's Lake in the late 50's or early sixties. When I climbed at Devil's Lake in the early to mid-sixties, the decimal system was all we used.

However, I think it is fair to say that the grades at Devil's Lake were already very sandbagged. This is mostly because Gill was climbing two to three full grades harder than the rest of the U.S. and interpreted the decimal grades in the light of his highly skewed sense of difficulty. But of course the fact that few hard routes were led onsight (if at all) figured into the process.

I had left before any of the guidebooks mentioned came into being, but the choice of adopting the NCCS system involved a choice to reject the decimal system. One of the properties of the NCCS system was that, unlike the decimal system, it had no built-in arithmetical impediment to extension, so saying that climbs were limited to F10 is misleading---there is no logical limit to grades in the F-system, it is the 5.9 designation and the grudging extension to 5.10 that held all American grading in check.

The NCCS system was a reasonable idea that couldn't overcome the entrenched system. It's strength was a proposed national list of standard climbs for each grade, something we could still benefit from today. The overall I - VI commitment grades and the aid grades A1 - A5 come from the NCCS proposal, but free-climbing grades reverted to the decimal system because the F-system just never caught on.

Interesting! So it must have been Morris and those Hoofers who first published the NCCS at Devils Lake.

I remember first encountering the NCCS in the Tetons in the 70s in Ortenberger's guide. We just translated his ratings into YDS, since that was the system we used back home in KY. I guess as Gill says on the SuperTopo thread, the YDS already had too much steam.

When I first arrived at the Lake in the 90s, I just stopped translating, and thought of F8 as "a Lake 8" - essentially just quit thinking of it as part of the National scale! Ironic that the local attempt to adopt the "National" system resulted in ratings that many of us just accepted as "local"!

rgold wrote: It's strength was a proposed national list of standard climbs for each grade, something we could still benefit from today

The biologists in the crowd will recognize these as "type specimens".

rgold; Great information, this long time DL local thanks you very much! Would you happen to know the Rich Goldstone who rumor has it brought his gymnastic skills to the Gunks to be one of the first climbers to do dymnamic "lunge" moves? Along with gymnastics chalk? And supposedly did the first lead of Upper Diagonal at Devil's Lake? If you do, tell him we'd love to climb with him here at DL anytime!

Leo Hski wrote:One of my major motivations for writing the Extremist's Guide was my hatred of the F-system and its stifling effects on progress at DL.

I find this bit of history interesting. Care to elaborate on the ways that the rating system shaped the ability to progress the sport?