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Grading Routes Pre-Ascent=NO!
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@Gymbies If you haven't sent, don't grade the route, you have no business telling people what you "think" the grade is if you cant even climb it. Capisce? @The Schmuck-There's only one rule, per this thread. |
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I didn’t read anything past the title but I’ll give this post a 6/10 |
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OK, but what if I'm giving that rating online? I thought the whole point of the internet was for people to spew uninformed feelings. |
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Are you applying this opinion differently depending on whether the climb is already established or not? What's wrong with saying what you think a climb is if you aren't actually claiming a rating? Plenty of climbs begin with walking up to the base, considering how hard a climb looks by sight and giving it a shot. What's wrong with that? Looking at a known 5.10 and saying, "eh, looks 5.9 to me" is definitely a douchey thing tho |
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Why ever not? Downgrading a route you haven’t sent is a douchey thing to do, sure. But anyone with enough experience can grade a route that is in their preferred/familiar style, on the rock they are used to, in the grade range that they have done enough routes in, even if they haven’t sent it. With about as much accuracy as you can have in the first place, while grading a route, ever. E.g. last weekend I got on two routes (no, they aren’t on my tick list yet, lol). They were, in the guidebook, two letter grades apart. Both are the grades I have sent before. The supposedly-harder route went fairly well. I didn’t send it, but I was able to do all the moves easily, took maybe 3 tries to figure out the crux, but once I chose the sequence, I was able to repeat the entire section without a problem. I’m fairly confident that it will get sent. The supposedly-easier route had a stopper crux for me. I tried the crux more than a dozen times. I was not able to do it. I can very confidently say that the second route is harder FOR ME, even though I haven’t sent either. I also have enough experience to know that my experience on these two routes is an outlier. Even if I decided to grade these routes how they felt to me, and enter my opinion in the MP database right now (which I haven’t)… so what? One outlier vote will not change the consensus. And anyone can easily see who the vote was from, and whether they sent the route, so if I really wanted to, I could look at the individual calls, and discount the calls of anyone who TR’ed the route, or hangdogged the route, to arrive at the “purest” of calls. If I were so bothered by it, that is… |
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If I've just spent two or three days hanging on a rope cleaning dirt, moss, lichen, loose rock, pine needles, etc off the route, then bolted the thing, I think I can probably make a pretty reasonable guess as to the grade even if I haven't climbed it. |
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The point you are making is not bad, but... So, let's say my "comfort grade", that is grade I have a lot of experience sending/climbing, is 5.xx +/- Prove me wrong |
amariuswrote: Depends... is your "lot of experience" really 4 different climbing gyms in the same city? Or is it 20+ climbing areas across multiple countries? Sure, you can always send 5.11+ at a variety of gyms in the San Francisco Bay area... that doesn't mean getting shutdown on a 5.10b crack in Yosemite means that 5.10b crack is harder than 5.10b. Especially if its an off-width. |
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If you haven't sent, and only worked out the moves, you still have no idea how hard everything is when it all comes together. If you cant do a move, it means you haven't figured out the beta, and you really have no idea at that point. Stop spraying about routes you haven't sent. The whole "theres no way this is a 5.x, it's gotta be 5.x+++++" is the worst kind of spray. What if youre missing the toe hook, or the knee bar, or the cross, or the gaston, or the one critical hold all together? Just stop, youre not helping anyone, youre just stroking your own ego. Btw, you can add routes with a grade and then delete the rating, and change the grade to an obviously generic grade so you aren't imposing your uninformed opinion on a route you can't climb. |
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The whole getting shut down by a 5.10 crack argument is slightly tired in my opinion. A 5.10 crack is 5.10. There is just a slightly more difficult barrier of entry with crack climbing (less intuitive, harder on the skin, pain tolerance). But once you do those things it’s actually quite simple. A 5.12 crack is the same grade as a 5.12 sport route. It’s just that most climbers are much more comfortable climbing 5.12 sport routes than they are cracks. Also downgrading routes because they don’t live up to X route will lead to a rabbit hole from which few of any have ever emerged. |
Matthew Jaggerswrote: No, they are just perfect in their ability to read rock. Because "experience." Poor schlubs like us needing to figure things out clearly just means that we are not "experienced." Any true climber immediately knows all the optimal beta on every climb, and the best way to climb the route will be exactly like they have it in their heads. |
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Why do you care enough to post something like this? Who hurt you? |
JonasMRwrote: Exactly. I've flashed/onsighted routes where I simply knew I didn't do things correctly and it made things way harder. Did I take the time to go back and dial it in perfectly? No. But I also took into consideration how poorly I climbed and kept that in mind when thinking about the actual difficulty of the route. I dont upgrade routes simply because I sucked that day! And if I get stumped by a route, I simply come back. InstaGratification is real. And lastly, if you send, im all for hearing your opinion, even if it's different than mine. Thats what a concensus is all about. |
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Grading a route you haven't climbed? What kind of slubberdegullion does that??? |
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Reminds me of the people who answer product questions on Amazon by saying they haven't purchased the product. |
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So here are the rules per this thread: 1. Onsight/flash: can’t give a grade because you probably did not use perfect beta (unless it felt soft...then you can downgrade) 2. Attempted/projected with falls/hangs: can’t grade because you don’t know what it feels like to put it together. (Unless you absolutely, positively know that it is soft...then you can downgrade) 3. Redpoint after sieging it down to 5.9: can’t grade it if it felt hard, because it just ain’t your style. Absolutely can downgrade if it felt accurate, because you just ain’t that good. If it felt easy, it is your duty to downgrade. |
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My rule is: If I can send, it's soft. If I can't, it's sandbagged. |
Matthew Jaggerswrote: What's the back story? Does it even matter if someone thinks a route is easier or harder than you think it is? |
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I'm going to agree with Lena and then some. I might actually trust the grade from the hangdogger that actually spent a good deal of time figuring out individual moves and working on the route (while possibly not sending) rather than the 5.X+3 climber that onsighted the thing with little to no challenge. I'm also having a hard time caring either way - if you personally would not rate a climb that you haven't sent, then I think that is totally fine and could make sense if that's how you like to be consistent. Otherwise... whatever, not my business, and I'd take any individual rating with a few grains of salt anyway. |
David Devillewrote: By this logic, every noob on their fist day is immediately qualified to rate any climb they attempt. |
