Downgrading routes when you don't send?

Ken Noyce is 110% correct, this has been true for a long time.

Maybe Joe should try some other routes. Routes not graded for the hardest move, off the top of my head:

• Spry Look 12b/c, Rumbling Bald, no move on the route harder than 11+
• Apollo Reed, NRG, hardest moves are V4/5

This is true of any PE-style route in the hard 5.12 and up range.

Or just go read that famous preripheral scrutiny blog post. Using "grade by the hardest move" logic, Southern Smoke (14c) is actually only 13a. There are numerous hard routes at Rifle that would lose an entire number grade if only graded by the hardest move.

Healyje wrote: Actually, I've experienced plenty of overhanging sandstone lines and roofs and my opinion still holds.

If this opinion still holds all that means is you haven't been on a truly continuous power endurance 5.12 route. A continuous series of 5.11 moves with no good rest  is not 5.11, anywhere. A truly continuous series of 5.12a (V4) moves with no good rest is a truly brutal thing and certainly merits 12d/13a - I have been on numerous 12+ routes with no move harder than V4 (11d/12a). They are tremendously fun, and no climber who finds their limit at 5.11 will ever climb them clean from top to bottom.

These aren't opinions, they're just facts. 

Below 5.12+ they're also largely exceptions to how the vast majority of routes have been graded except in a few select areas.

rule of thumb- 11a = one 11 move. 11d= at least 4 or more 11 moves, so on and so forth. its pretty simple to follow the rule of thumb and grade accordingly unless you are a gym setter or a crusty old "trad" climber.

reboot wrote:

(snip)

On that note, I don't usually see people downgrade a route at their limit AFTER a proper lead, because, who wants to trivialize their proudest sends?

Well, that's just the thing man.  If I flash it, it probably WASN'T a 5.12... I don't really climb that hard.

Tony B wrote:

Well, that's just the thing man.  If I flash it, it probably WASN'T a 5.12... I don't really climb that hard.

Lol

Healyje wrote: Actually, I've experienced plenty of overhanging sandstone lines and roofs and my opinion still holds.

its funny that you alude to all of these routes, but never actually name any.  i bet you will rattle off some obscure pile FAs as examples, lolz...

Alexander Blum wrote: 

• Spry Look 12b/c, Rumbling Bald, no move on the route harder than 11+

12b/c is still a bit sandbagged for this route, in my opinion

reboot wrote: It's even sillier to have someone grade it based on TR than lead, when it's supposed to be graded based on lead...

you're supposed to.. that sounds like something that 3rd graders would say on the playground.  so many rules!

so, if two gymnasts perform the same routine and get the same score, can one of them say that they were more scared and that they should get extra points because that made it harder?  can the other one say that they should win because they were less amped and that made it harder?

what if two karate guys fight to a tie, if one of them punches himself in the face 5 times at the end does he win?  he made it harder on himself right?

in the end, the rock doesn't give a shit.  it's just a line of holds, a big blob of cold hard fact.  why add a bunch of random variables to the grading of that fact?  there are already plenty of variables in the first place (height/flexability/reach/etc).

just out of curiosity i notice that you 'ticked' moonlight buttress.  did you lead every pitch clean?  did you toprope some of the pitches?  if so you should delete your tick.

Darren Mabe wrote:

Lol

ha ha, you downrated my first 13.  i will never forgive you for that.  i think dave montgomery did too.   :)

slim wrote:

its funny that you alude to all of these routes, but never actually name any.  i bet you will rattle off some obscure pile FAs as examples, lolz...

Here are a few well known ones:

El Matador of DT, 5.10d: not a move harder than 5.9+
Enduro corner of Astroman, 5.11c: not a move harder than 10+
Moonlight Buttress, 5.12 whatever: besides the move off of rocker block (which is not what the climb is rated for), not a move harder than 11+.

i was talking to healyj on that one:
question about moonlight - it looks like you didn't lead all of the pitches, or even the crux pitch for that matter.  how can you claim a tick for that, as well as downgrade the orignial grade?  by your own standards that's BS right?  can't wait to see your explanation for this one...

oh wait, elite climbers play by a different set of rules (as you said yourself in another post...)

slim wrote: just out of curiosity i notice that you 'ticked' moonlight buttress.  did you lead every pitch clean?  did you toprope some of the pitches?  if so you should delete your tick.

So we are talking about ticking instead of grading? Regardless, if the best you can come up w/ is a generally accepted approach to sending a multi-pitch (swing lead, and also graded by the hardest pitch on lead, not leading every pitch on a single push) vs single pitch, then I'm sitting comfy. FWIW, I lead the hard pitches that played into my weakness, and so did my partner.

slim wrote: i was talking to healyj on that one:
question about moonlight - it looks like you didn't lead all of the pitches, or even the crux pitch for that matter.  how can you claim a tick for that, as well as downgrade the orignial grade?  by your own standards that's BS right?  can't wait to see your explanation for this one...

oh wait, elite climbers play by a different set of rules (as you said yourself in another post...)

Dude, now you are just getting personal...I was supporting your position against healyj.

The tick function can be used however one wants and I was perfected honest in what I did, and I also did not explicitly grade MB.

what?  you just called it 12-whatever (i think it was originally graded 13a).  i don't mean to get personal, it is just sad when you find out that your heros didn't really send routes based on their definition of sending :(

(I am totally just busting your chops....  boring days at work)

slim wrote: what?  you just called it 12-whatever (i think it was originally graded 13a).

As in, that's the current census grade (somewhere in the 5.12 range). It was graded 5.13a at FA because it has gotten easier from widening of the crack.

Brian Abram wrote:

12b/c is still a bit sandbagged for this route, in my opinion

Agreed

slim wrote:  did you lead every pitch clean?  did you toprope some of the pitches?  if so you should delete your tick.

You mean "follow" right?
See, I thought we came from a sport where someone pretty much HAD to follow a route, and 'the leader must not fall' as well, so to some of us, following a route first try is more legit measure of capability and difficulty than a redpoint/headpoint.

But if not, does a pinkpoint matter?  'Cause I certainly recall that debate.

MTruelove wrote: Seems to be a reoccurring theme here. Why? People take and or fall/flail yet they down grade the route. Doesn't make sense.

Oh hell no. If I fell/hung, and I can't clearly blame it on my lack of rest/preparation, then the grade needs to go *up*. ;)