Solutions / Problems with consensus grading

Nivel Egres wrote:

However, you should care about ratings, it gives you an sense of your progression within the sport.  

As ratings are subjective and often follow local traditions the quoted proposition is far from describing anything existing in the known World.

E.g., there is the 5.11a variation of the P3 of NF, The Rostrum and there is a newly developed route East Wind (Восточный ветер), Russia, Crimea, Bahchisaraj rated Fr 6c which is formally equivalent to 5.11-. Personally I on sighted them both (making the first ascend of the latter). Which one feels harder? Neither. Are they same hard? No freaking chance. Are they graded off? Maybe both (the former feels more like 5.10+, the latter has got its grade from on sight FA, thus any kind of confussion is possible, although at least 3 climbers have already confirmed the grade), although they both are rated to local traditions and ethics. Is there anything in common between those routes? Yes, they are both climbing routes. No, there is nothing in common in between 'em beyond they are both climbing routes. How they could possibly be graded using the same or equivalent scales? Basically they could not. Although there is a tradition to rate climbing routes thus they have been graded more or less to local traditions. So WTF with all those grades? They are useful tool. E.g., to plan your next trip to the known area, to plan your first days in an unknown area, or even to earn some rating points on 8a.nu.

This is not about how good or bad, or adecuate, or whatever else climbing gradings are. This how and what for we use them. Being used wisely they are of a great use and help, being trusted blindly they are just a kind of dangerous shit.

Nivel Egres wrote:

Nothing prevents you from trying a line even if it's rated hard or rated easy. However, you should care about ratings, it gives you an sense of your progression within the sport.  

Couldn't disagree more, if anything they're more likely to hold you back.

This shit is embarrassing and it feels like one more strike of the hammer sinking the nails into the coffin of tradition and history. Olympics here we come! 

Nivel Egres wrote:

 I have also seen a similar sentiment from older/weaker tradsters when talking about boulders (something like "who cares if you flashing v5, I bet you can't keep it together on this 5.7".

Well, you are the one suggesting .11a for the Northcutt Variation...

Nivel Egres wrote:

Once a route/problem sees enough traffic by experienced climbers, they arrive at a consensus rating.

Which is still just a consensus rating. Applying the same ratings to, say, finger size splitter on polished wall and overhanging feature rich limestone face is kinda good joke.

Personally I've been too much lucky to be exposed to very different styles and traditions of rock climbing across different continents. To me ratings are more a kind of safety warnings "Most likely you are not that well trained and prepared, beware of this line!" than a rock climbing routes "hardness" measure unit. Have no idea how it could be humanly possible to reduce our deeply beloved diversity of rock climbing moves and styles to the single grade. Moreover have an idea it is impossible and moreover not needed. We love rock climbing for its virtually infinite vast variety. Grades are more to describe a level of rock climber's experience needed to even think of trying the line then to describe rock climbs "hardness". As usual expirience is not a universal measure - master of limestone most likely will fail on an "easy" granite flared offwith as well as vice versa (not to mention the "prince of plastic" syndrome).

Getting sandbagged is lame, sure. However, it is totally avoidable if you take a minute to learn about the area in which you're climbing. Any guidebook that tells you FA name and year is giving you a huge piece of information about what the route might be like. For example: any 5.10 done by the Uriostes in the late 80s is a much easier undertaking than a 5.10 done by Harrison, van Betten, etc. at the same time and both of which will be drastically different from a Herbst route (of any grade) from the 60s.

Well-written guidebooks are keys to knowing a climbing area well and learning quickly what to expect from each route you approach. MP can and sometimes does offer that information, but you have to know to look for it. Additionally, learning to read the comment section on MP with a discerning eye is a useful skill. There are loads of sandbaggers out there, and perhaps more gumbies who will scare you off of classics because they lack the basic skills to route-find, protect, descend, etc. Learn these things and you'll go far (or high).

Healyje wrote:

Well, you are the one suggesting .11a for the Northcutt Variation...

Are you talking about the Bastille crack? 10d/11a, who cares?

As for knowing the grade impeding your climbing, that very much depends on your personality: if you are the kind of person that likes to find out what next level of difficulty is like, then it'll help. If you like to progress "by the book", then it might stunt your growth.

reboot wrote:

Are you talking about the Bastille crack? 10d/11a, who cares?

Well, you're the one claiming you have it all figured out and the old tradsters can't quite figure out reality. Reality is we considered it a .10- leading it without cams and fancy shoes and if you and other 'modern' climbers think it's an .11 of any kind then you're already screwed on ratings.

My Personal Opinion:

If you are the FA I pretty much ignore what your suggested grade is and go with the MP consensus grade. Grades for a specific line "tend" to get easier after the FA grades a line because of new beta. 

Next, I don't care who you are if you haven't sent a route your grade opinion means absolutely nothing. There are two guys up here, and if you are from the Front Range you know who I'm talking about. These two self-proclaimed sandbaggers love to down rate climbs and spray about it. I've climbed with one of them pretty extensively and the other I've run into plenty of times in the Front Range so I'm aware of both of their abilities, or lack of. Both of them are notorious sandbaggers and both of these guys haven't sent most of the routes they are putting grade suggestions on MP. You can get a feel for the grade if you've been on it, but until you've sent it you aren't qualified to give a suggestion. Getting thru the crux of a route does not give the whole story to the grade of a route. Long endurance routes feel easy going bolt to bolt, but putting it together constitutes the grade the same way a slightly pumpy route with a medium difficulty crux at the top may feel easy between the two parts until you try to put the entire route together. 

My favorite comments are from the guys up here that love to down rate routes on MP, but turnaround on the same day and log their 8a scorecard with the higher grade. Those clowns should be publically humiliated and exposed for the hypocrites that they are.

Good luck ever trying to get a consensus grade across the World. The Eldo/Rifle sandbaggers would probably quit the sport if they couldn't puff up their chest every day by constantly comparing these two areas to places like Clear Creek and Boulder Canyon, with their default comments of, "If this 5.12b was in Eldo/Rifle it would only be rated 5.11a."

climbing friend,

carry the weight of the sandbag without anger, to achieve true crushing strength. 

perhaps the rifle/eldo gradings are more realistic to original system of YDS and you very much like run home and cry to mommy, myah?

Healyje wrote:

How about fuck all the guidebooks and ratings and just learn to develop your own eye for what you can or might be able to do? 

It's an entirely different experience not playing-it-safe and by-the-book and instead just eyeballing a rock and jumping on whatever really catches your eye and imagination.

Because it's not about having fun, it's about training and completing route pyramids. Or something. 

Healyje wrote:

Reality is we considered it a .10- leading it without cams and fancy shoes and if you and other 'modern' climbers think it's an .11 of any kind then you're already screwed on ratings.

But pitons? That's all fair game.

I really don't care if you think a consensus 10d is 10-. If you can make a 14d into a 14- or even a 13d to a 13-, then maybe you are on to something.

Good grief, you may as well hire someone to climb the route for you and leave ropes up so you can top rope the entire route (but only if he thinks you can climb it, of course).

Your goals aren't just different; they're pathetic. 

If you think it's a waste of time to test your judgement, mettle and acumen then you might be a bit frustrated with a thing called life. 

Taketaketaketaketake ....take wrote:

Because it's not about having fun, it's about training and completing route pyramids. Or something. 

Route pyramids is a tool. Not the goal.

Most times it is better to discover 5.8 one cannot send, work it, and send it then climb yet one more 5.13b s/he needs to complete the pyramid to be "ready" for the first 5.13c project.

FWIW I found Eldo ratings to be pretty solid and fair, but I'll admit I didn't get a ton of experience out there.  In general, comparing ratings from one place to another is pointless, because different rocks dictate different styles of climbing that may or may not feel "sandbagged" based on one's level of experience.  Do you really envision a world where one could perfectly calibrate a 5.10 splitter in the Creek to a 5.10 in Eldo, the Gunks, or even Rifle?  It's a pointless exercise. 

 I do think that we should make a concerted effort to keep ratings more or less in line within an area, which means fighting "ratings creep" on area classics.  If everyone comes to a particular crag and has to do "that one route" and rates it based on what they are used to, you can quickly see how this will create problems when they inevitably look for a backup to their conga line trade route.

Nivel Egres wrote:

At the time, a handful of people were climbing at that level and obviously the rating on something like that was uncertain. These days, with thousands of people flashing 13s, why should someone care about it being 10d or 11a. Honestly, nobody gives a shit about X area having the hardest 5.10 in the whole wide world

Thousands of people flashing .13s in clip joints and I should give a shit? 

This is where the validity of the old tradster thing kind of shines...

I mean, what minute fraction of those thousands of flashers would even get on a .12 trad line like this?

Nivel Egres wrote:

But that's not really true. Once a route/problem sees enough traffic by experienced climbers, they arrive at a consensus rating. Despite of all the stories about sandbags and vanity ratings, I have yet to try a well-traveled problem where I felt the rating was wildly off. Plus/minus a grade? Sure. But I've yet to jump on a v7 to discover that it felt like a v3 and if I found a v3 feeling very hard I usually know that I am missing something (or it's an off-width in Wyoming).

I think most "our 5.9s are tougher than your 5.12s" people are barely climbing those 5.9s and have never tried the 5.12s. I have also seen a similar sentiment from older/weaker tradsters when talking about boulders (something like "who cares if you flashing v5, I bet you can't keep it together on this 5.7". The girls/guys that I've seen climb hard seem to care about ratings. 

I've been on a number of 5.8/5.9 trad routes in New England that definitely feel just as physically hard as a lot of 5.10/5.11 sport climbs I've done. The chimney pitch on Recompense at Cathedral and the roof on Modern Times at the Gunks are two that come to mind. HP 40 has a bunch of v3s that could be v5s anywhere else. Maybe not a v3 to v7 or a 5.9 to 5.12 discrepancy, but definitely more than a grade.

I think that a lot of places, like HP40 or the Gunks, have a reputation for hard grades that visiting climbers know when they go there. Nobody gets on a 5.8 at the Gunks and expects it to feel like their 5.8 sport warmup. Consensus grades reinforce this, so long as the consensus is that it's a sandbagged area. Gunks climbs will get consensus graded until they're in line with other Gunks climbs, but not until they're inline with grades at somewhere like Farley or Rumney.

climbing friend,

you cannot climb the 5.10 in rifle. it is terrible unless for at least 12 and above, no shirt and neck meat clenched tight for all to see

sandbagged area

Are we having a problems with definitions, here?

Sandbagging is a deception. There are legit examples of this, but they are EXCEEDINGLY RARE! Some routes are sandbagged to keep people at bay. Some routes are sandbagged because some guide book writing grifter who didn't put up the routes in an area is being fed bunk info on purpose. It's very, very rare.

What nearly everyone is complaining about is a legitimate disagreement on a route's difficulty, or to be more on point, what the standard actually IS. The standard is Taquitz. If you want another measure I have a Yosemite book from 1985 which lists several routes as the standard (most of which have since been inflated by two grades). 

It's no secret why grades are dropping like stones, not only in climbing but everywhere else in life, and why this is particularly happening at crags which happen to be near metro areas like the Bay Area or Phoenix or Vegas: the frail human ego! It manifests itself in several ways:

• You become the master of your own little world and suddenly you know everything. 

• You want to think you're progressing and don't want to struggle on a lower difficulty climb.

• When there is a disagreement between route difficulty then surely the harder grade is at fault, not the softer one. After all, that steals my thunder to think the 5.11 I just sent and got that ego high from would have been considered several grades easier on the scale in 1985.

• Instead of adjusting your scale to what it was you complain that traditionally rated routes are deceptive and moreover the people who use that scale are assholes.

• Foolish people thinking that newbies may get stuck on a long route if they're used to easy grades, so they weaken the standard. This ends up having the opposite of the intended effect as climbers adjust to the weak ratings and then get even more seriously screwed on a route which hasn't been downgraded. 

The result of this will be: more and forever more grade inflation! The eventual result of that will be no standard at all. Instead everyone uses their own unit of measure like a cubit in a leper colony.

The only people stemming the tide are the old-school traditional assholes.