At what point can we just update a retro-graded route?

Routes in a specific area can be way sandbagged relative to the others and they can be sport or trad alike. 

I have a question about grades, I haven't read the whole thread but the question so seems to fit the topic.

What about routes that have had multiple handholds break over the years? For example, there is a local crag that had a 5.10a there. It was put up thirty years ago. Since then maybe 20 holds have snapped off. It's it still a 5.10a even though the FA had all those extra holds to use when climbing? Most locals agree that the 5.10 c is an easier climb now than the 5.10a. or is it just 5.10 forever, regardless of what falls off of it?

It doesn't matter too much, just curious. It's helped me because I imprinted on the route, so now every other 5.10a I've tried has felt a little soft. Granted I've never climbed the gunk's or JT. Just curious about what others may say here.

Ryan Bond wrote: I have a question about grades, I haven't read the whole thread but the question so seems to fit the topic.

What about routes that have had multiple handholds break over the years? For example, there is a local crag that had a 5.10a there. It was put up thirty years ago. Since then maybe 20 holds have snapped off. It's it still a 5.10a even though the FA had all those extra holds to use when climbing? Most locals agree that the 5.10 c is an easier climb now than the 5.10a. or is it just 5.10 forever, regardless of what falls off of it?

It doesn't matter too much, just curious. It's helped me because I imprinted on the route, so now every other 5.10a I've tried has felt a little soft. Granted I've never climbed the gunk's or JT. Just curious about what others may say here.

Yes and no. A lot of times on "moderate" routes, if a hold breaks (or even multiple holds) there are still many ways to complete the climb and keep the grade about the same by using different beta. Usually low grade climbs are more about the overall angle of the rock than the particular holds anyway.

However if there is a particular crux sequence with specific, key holds that were the only holds there and they break off, yes generally people recognize that the grade changes. This is MORE OFTEN true with harder grades because they usually have more specific moves and limited holds so if one breaks it is more of a big deal. But not always. And some places like to preserve history by saying things like "this route was originally 10a but several holds have broken, so send up a strong leader!" instead of re-grading it. But there was a popular climb where I'm from that was 5.8, but a key flake in an otherwise blank section broke off so now that part of the climb is "12c" and almost never gets done because who wants to climb 4 pitches of 5.9 to do 3 moves of near-impossible 12c smearing?

For the rest of yall, I've climbed at the Gunks and don't think it's sandbagged compared to my other favorite places I've been, like Cathedral in NH, JTree, or the winds. But those are all very old areas too. At least the "sandbagging" is consistent. If we re-grade places like JTree or the gunks, i mean that would throw off the barometer for everything else since they're such historical and popular places.

I've climbed at Red Rocks and the Red as well, both known for "softer" grades but honestly the climbing is so different in style it's hard to tell. Despite it's reputation, I think Red Rocks isn't particularly soft, it's just that the way the rock forms results in many nice positive edges, so it is a lot like gym climbing and that's what a lot of people are strongest at since they train on that type of terrain the most. so RR/the red "feels easy." I mean you basically can't practice polished granite smearing at the gym and that's what most old-school moderate climbs are, so they feel harder by comparison. My thoughts anyway. I would prefer to not retro-grade anything and just understand that different areas are going to have different styles and different standards.

Steve Marshall wrote: I've climbed at Red Rocks and the Red as well, both known for "softer" grades but honestly the climbing is so different in style it's hard to tell. Despite it's reputation, I think Red Rocks isn't particularly soft, it's just that the way the rock forms results in many nice positive edges, so it is a lot like gym climbing and that's what a lot of people are strongest at since they train on that type of terrain the most. so RR/the red "feels easy." I mean you basically can't practice polished granite smearing at the gym and that's what most old-school moderate climbs are, so they feel harder by comparison. My thoughts anyway. I would prefer to not retro-grade anything and just understand that different areas are going to have different styles and different standards.

For me personally, I didnt think it was too hard to tell the difference between Vedauwoo grades and places like Wild Iris, Sinks Canyon, and Red Rocks: at Vedauwoo my partner and I could regularly climb about 10a/b in a couple of tries, and at those other areas we were climbing into the low to mid 11's with about the same effort, and 10a/b was well within the range of what we could onsight.  You could argue this discrepancy was due to the fact that we would climb in the gym, but overall we spent slightly more total hours per year up at Vedauwoo.  I found the grades at Vedauwoo to roughly correspond to other trad areas, such as Joshua Tree or the South Platte, and at these areas thin hand cracks and finger cracks tended to be graded softer than wide cracks.  This in turn begs the question of whether a standard 5.9 hand crack would feel the same as a standard 5.9 offwidth if equipped with EB's, rudimentary stoppers, hexes, bongs, and chocks.  My gues is that they would feel roughly equivalent.  

K. Le Douche wrote:

... for example, like to see High E at the Gunks (5.6), or Calypso in Eldo(5.6) changed to?  Do you know anyone who climbs at the Gunks or Eldo, and doesn't realize the grades are, to say the least stiff? 

I'm not saying that a route should not be subject to community consensus for a grade.  But if a route like High E has been "5.6" for the past, what 40-60 years, and is now seeing its 3rd or 4th generation of climbers, I don't see the point in changing it.  It's a historical grade, everyone knows it's "sandbagged" according to today's grades.  

Wow - I just learned that High E and Calypso are sandbagged. And everyone knew it but me. 

If you can't send call it sandbagged. If you do send it downrate it. 

Difficulty in climbing is subjective, obviously, but grades exist solely so that we can communicate that difficulty between climbers. If the FA from 40 years ago thought that a 5.9 was a 5.6, then they were wrong. It's as simple as that. We wouldn't call limestone sandstone just because the FA couldn't tell the difference, we no longer call manatees mermaids, and no one should feel obligated to believe a route is easier than it is just because the FA made a mistake.

Of course, one should hear many opinions before changing details in guidebooks (maybe you're just weak and bitter), but there is nothing sacred about the grade of a climb.

You know what we need... A robot that we can send up any route and it grades things perfectly. Than there is no question what the grade is based on the options of people who have / have not climbed it.

ViperScale . wrote: You know what we need... A robot that we can send up any route and it grades things perfectly. Than there is no question what the grade is based on the options of people who have / have not climbed it.

That robots name? Adam ondra.

Ryan Bond wrote:

That robots name? Adam ondra.

Every day a human climbs is different than the day before. They could be tired or have an injury etc that makes a route feel harder or easier that day. You need something that will never get tired and always climbs exactly the same to compare routes.

ViperScale . wrote:

Every day a human climbs is different than the day before. They could be tired or have an injury etc that makes a route feel harder or easier that day. You need something that will never get tired and always climbs exactly the same to compare routes.

Don't reply seriously to that. It was a low effort joke. 

ViperScale . wrote: You know what we need... A robot that we can send up any route and it grades things perfectly. Than there is no question what the grade is based on the options of people who have / have not climbed it.

Or just people who are willing to trust their own experience.  

Kyle Tarry wrote: You "figured out" something that you didn't even climb?

There's so much spray in this post that you need a bathing suit to read it.

We both climbed it, including puzzling out how to safely belay it. Neither of us climbed the crux, however. 

It's quite a fun puzzle to work out, and a fun climb also. It does require extra effort to sort out, but few people bother. The FA is a friend, so we checked it out, and I'm glad we did.

Sorry you weren't able to grasp the meaning of what I wrote. Hope this clears it up.

Best, Helen

A few words from the overlord of 8a -

Wolfgang Güllich's Action Directe in Frankenjura from 1991 is known as the first 9a, even if the proposed XI german grade, at that time, was translated to 8c+/9a. Today many in the UK scene think Ben Moon's Hubble from 1990 also should be upgraded to 9a. It just might be that in a few years, the history books have to be rewritten saying Moon put up the first 9a in the world?

An example where the history books already have been rewritten is Bernabe Fernandez Chilam Balam which originally was claimed to be the first 9b+ in the world. Now it is considered 9a+ or 9b. Based on this list we can see that like a third of the 9a ascents now have been listed as 8c+/9a.

The most known example of a grade change is Era Vella in Margalef. It was repeated and confirmed by some 20 climbers before Jonathan Siegrist said that for him personally, he did know other 8c's that were equally hard. This together with also that many of the repeats could be considered personal best, made some others say it should be down graded.

In one way this shows that there are no such thing as confirmed grades that can be written on stone and the same goes for historical achievements. Grades will always be subjective and in practice it means that most probably we will see the history rewritten when it comes to first of the grade. In the same way, this means that professional climbers' CV's also need to stay updated. 

Yeah, that creatively graded 5.6+ choss pile is likely to be safe.

Had a conversation about this last weekend:  

Why should we change the grades of routes that are 40 or 50 years old to match grades that are 10-30 years old.  Shouldn't we downgrade the routes that were inflated since they were established first?  

Rob D. wrote: Had a conversation about this last weekend:  

Why should we change the grades of routes that are 40 or 50 years old to match grades that are 10-30 years old.  Shouldn't we downgrade the routes that were inflated since they were established first?  

Great question.  To answer, I first want to go over (my opinion of) a simplified version (simplified in that it leaves out the effects of switching tactics in terms of yo-yo vs. redpoint which in terms of crack climbing yo-yo was THE style, then went out of style, and now has come back to some extent) how things have gone so awry.  

Back in the Idealized days, 5.7 was 5.7 was 5.7.  It did not matter if it was slab, offwidth, hand crack, chimney, whatever, it was all 'rock climbing', and it was all graded with the same scale.  Then the protection began to get easier to place, and more importantly the footwear improved drastically, and this drastic improvement did not effect all these climbs to the same degree.  Specifically, offwidths, wide hand, and fist cracks have not changed too much in difficulty with new technology relative to finger, thin hands, and slabs.  Nonetheless, the finger, thin hand, and slab climbs were largely used to inform the difficulty of climbing going forward, most notably sport climbing when it came out.  Thus the '40 to 50 year old climbs' grades would all need to be re-worked before we could use them as any kind of benchmark. i.e. to use the historical climbs as benchmarks one would need to track down their original grade, then approach those climbs with the technology of the day using the tactics of the day.  

Also, over the years people have noticed the inconsistencies at places like Vedauwoo, and guidebooks have slowly upgraded some of the routes which stick out over the years (Rob Kelman with his Vedauwoo guides being one example).  As a result, many of these older climbs are already converted to the new scale, or at least had their grades modified from their originals, and thus the re-working of the '40-50 year old climbs' would be an arduous task.  The only realistic way to do it would be to refer to a few old wide cracks which were consensus graded back before sticky rubber came out, and which never had their grades changed, and adjsut the rest of the climbs to that standard.  

So since some fist and wider cracks are about the only climbs which still remain as more or less historical benchmarks, in my opinion the solution to achieve consistency in grades either involves upgrading the remaining wider cracks and the climbs graded on that scale (as well as the climbs of those who still stubbornly use them as a reference, even partially, most people refer to these people as 'sandbaggers', an accusation which tends to offend these people), or downgrading everything else.  Given the former is likely much easier than the latter, and given the process on that has been ongoing for decades now, it seems intuitive that upgrading the few holdouts is the best option.  In the end though, it is really up to the community to decide. 

Ken Noyce wrote:

What you are neglecting is the fact that many of the older routes were graded the way they were because there was an end to the grading scale at the time.  You had routes that were graded from 5.1 to 5.9 with the origin of the YDS, but since 5.9 was the top of the scale, as time went on you ended up getting harder and harder routes being graded 5.9.  That actually led to rampant grade deflation (i.e. well this route is 5.9 because it is as hard as I can climb, so this easier route is 5.8 and this even easier route is 5.7 even though all three were harder than the original 5.9s).  This is actually what led to the sandbagged areas.  I've climbed some of the original 5.9 routes at taquitz where the YDS was actually invented, and guess what, they aren't actually very sandbagged and are pretty close to what I would expect 5.9 to feel like even after the rampant grade inflation that you claim to have happened.

My personal opinion is that we should go back and grade the sandbagged routes according to modern interpretation of the grading scale.  Why does it matter if grades have inflated or not, the purpose of a grade is to give you an idea on if you can climb the route or not, and if we leave the original grades in place, this purpose is negated.  I also think that the history is pretty cool, so the history should be preserved, but that can be done in a route description by simply stating "this route was originally graded 5.8 when it was put up back in 1973".  As climbing has become a much more mainstream and global sport it becomes much easier to standardize grading throughout the world, and personally, I think that is a good thing.  

Agreed that 5.9, and particularly 5.9+, is a heavily sandbagged grade when considering "old school" routes.  For routes say older than 30 years, a 5.9+ rating can translate from 5.9 to pushing 5.11- for the reasons you listed.  However, that really only occurred for that one era where they struggled with what was then a closed scale.  People weren't sand bagging 5.6's and 5.7's because the community shunned a 5.10 rating.  Outside of the 5.9 grade, and including 5.9's established after 5.11 was the leading edge grade I'd say my logic holds pretty true.

I think we are both arguing for the same thing which is a true standardized grade scale.  I think we just disagree on the best way to get there.  I think you are saying that as long as grades stay standardized why does it matter if they shift relatively.  My argument is the best way to keep standardized is to avoid any shift at all.  My argument is that we have these baseline climbs, the mega-super-uber classics that everyone climbs because they are at international destinations of climbing.  We should use those as the measuring sticks but for them to be measuring sticks they need to remain at the same grade.  Everything should adjust to them.  My counter to your point is that if we are constantly shifting the scale, how do we ensure that inflation is the same rate across the board?  How do we know if a route has been adjusted for the most recent grade inflation?  How often do you update for grade inflation?  Not impossible to solve problems but to me suggests that the much simpler method for grade standardization is an unchanging measure stick.  If we would all agree that today's interpretation is it, we'll reset to today and never change from today, I'd be fully on board with a global shift to today's grading scale.  

However, I disagree that climbing becoming a more mainstream and global sport makes it easier to standardize.  Outdoor climbers now almost exclusively start climbing in gyms.  This means their reference points for judging if a climb is soft or sandbagged are based on primarily gym grades which are well known to have huge variability and are themselves subject to the potential inexperience and bias of the setters.  They are also based on gym climbing which builds limited technique for skills like footwork or crack climbing.  There are plenty of climbers that can get 5.10s at their gym, but struggle on 5.7's at places like J-tree and the S. Platte.  Are they really in a position to be judging if a climb is sandbagged or not?  But grades are group consensus and everyone's vote counts the same.  Yes people travel much more globally now but 1) that is typically at the upper scales of 5.12 or harder and 2) the spread of information does nothing to filter the quality of the information being spread.

It's a tough nut to crack for sure but as said the number is irrelevant, the information conveyed by the number is the important part.

JNE wrote:  

Back in the Idealized days, 5.7 was 5.7 was 5.7.  It did not matter if it was slab, offwidth, hand crack, chimney, whatever, it was all 'rock climbing', and it was all graded with the same scale.  Then the protection began to get easier to place, and more importantly the footwear improved drastically, and this drastic improvement did not effect all these climbs to the same degree.  Specifically, offwidths, wide hand, and fist cracks have not changed too much in difficulty with new technology relative to finger, thin hands, and slabs.  Nonetheless, the finger, thin hand, and slab climbs were largely used to inform the difficulty of climbing going forward, most notably sport climbing when it came out.  Thus the '40 to 50 year old climbs' grades would all need to be re-worked before we could use them as any kind of benchmark. i.e. to use the historical climbs as benchmarks one would need to track down their original grade, then approach those climbs with the technology of the day using the tactics of the day.  

Also, over the years people have noticed the inconsistencies at places like Vedauwoo, and guidebooks have slowly upgraded some of the routes which stick out over the years (Rob Kelman with his Vedauwoo guides being one example).  As a result, many of these older climbs are already converted to the new scale, or at least had their grades modified from their originals, and thus the re-working of the '40-50 year old climbs' would be an arduous task.  The only realistic way to do it would be to refer to a few old wide cracks which were consensus graded back before sticky rubber came out, and which never had their grades changed, and adjsut the rest of the climbs to that standard.  

So since some fist and wider cracks are about the only climbs which still remain as more or less historical benchmarks, in my opinion the solution to achieve consistency in grades either involves upgrading the remaining wider cracks and the climbs graded on that scale (as well as the climbs of those who still stubbornly use them as a reference, even partially, most people refer to these people as 'sandbaggers', an accusation which tends to offend these people), or downgrading everything else.  Given the former is likely much easier than the latter, and given the process on that has been ongoing for decades now, it seems intuitive that upgrading the few holdouts is the best option.  In the end though, it is really up to the community to decide. 

I'd completely disagree with your comment that technology has not impacted wide cracks nearly as much as other climbing.  I can comfortably walk #6's (or #5's or #4's) for days never giving up a bit of a top rope on a climb that was un-protectable with hexes. I can use my TC Pros to not only heel-toe but also smear those tiny nubbins on the edge of the crack that EB's would not even pretend to stick to.  I can worm drive my way up without dying of heat exhaustion because I had to wear jeans and a rugby jersey instead modern tech fabrics.  I can fine tune my training based on Pamela Shanti-Pack's offwidth workout routine instead of just lifting the same weight routine I did in highschool football. 

I'd argue that back then people were more rounded than today because they had to be.  Everything followed cracks because that was the only way to protect climbs and cracks vary so you'll quickly run into the full gamut of sizes.  Also there was only so much developed climbing to choose from and information was limited so you might not even know a climb had a section of style you wanted to avoid.  I think the shortfall today is people are more specialized at certain climbing disciplines than they realize so when they unknowingly step out of their discipline a climb feels hard due to their lack of training/experience in that new discipline, not a sandbag rating.

However, agree it may be easier to upgrade a smaller amount of old school climbs than down grade everything else.  But those old school climbs have had so many more people to establish their consensus grade that I'd argue the difficulty of using old school routes as the base is more than offset in their inherent increase in benchmark rating.

Mike Slavens wrote:

I'd completely disagree with your comment that technology has not impacted wide cracks nearly as much as other climbing.  

We will have to agree to disagree.  FWIW I base my comments on the relative difficulty of offwidths in tight approach shoes compared to tight fitting contemporary board-lasted or similarly stiff shoes, as well as from comparing tight hand cracks wearing slippers vs clunky board lasted shoes and tight approach shoes.  The footwear effects the thin cracks incomparably more than it does the wide cracks, especially considering 95% of edging situations on wide cracks can be solved by other means such as heel/toe jams, which in 95% of situations don't change the grade that much, if at all.  In comparison, on thin cracks each pound you can't get onto your feet is an added pound on your arms/jams, and there is a world of difference in the weight you can get on your feet in those cracks if you are even wearing contemporary slippers compared to contemporary clunky toed high tops, let alone slippers vs. EB's.  In comparison, on OW's the footwear effects how much weight you can load anywhere from a tiny bit to not at all, with most of the time being not at all.  So much so that the only reason I don't wear approach shoes on OW's is the bulky sole means I can't shove them nearly as deep into most leavitation wide cracks, and this would not be the case with a tight fitting EB.  In practice, in my experience, there is no comparison because it is plainly obvious that the tight hand and thinner cracks get comparably much easier with contemporary footwear.

Also, you wrote that you were unsure of a good way to see if a new climb has an inflated grade.  If you buy my argument above, the easiest way to do this is to go do an old-school graded OW (they are nearly unanimously graded in this way, so just about any OW 512 or under, which never experience an update to it's grade, should do the trick) and compare the relative difficulty.  Lacking any OW's, a wide hands or fist crack will typically work just as well, considering your hands are roughly dimensionally equivalent to the FA's hands in the relevant ways, or considering you do your best to account for the difference. 

Well....offwidth is also extremely technique dependent, which very few folks practice. So, for the vast majority of us offwidths feel way harder than they really are.  But I like the theory.  Anyway, The Umph Slot is 5.8 in my old Boulder Canyon guide (10+ on this site), and that means that everything needs to be downgraded 2 to 3 full number grades :-)