Can placing gear be a factor in grading?

My personal mentality with assessing the grade on a gear route was that the movement should feel as hard as an equivalently graded sport climb - without factoring in the stamina required to place gear. In other words, if the climb was somehow fully bolted, what would you grade it? Then that would be the grade. No one told me this explicitly, I just developed this view from climbing various trad routes and assessing the difficulty compared to similarly graded sport routes, style differences aside.

The topic question came to me after reading about Connor Herson sending Empath on gear and suggesting a grade of “14c on bolts and 14d on gear”. Also Magic Line getting an upgrade based on the difficulty of placing gear. And more locally to me, the North Conway guidebook suggests that Shagg It 12d, is “13a placing gear”.

So, should trad climbs be graded based on the total effort required to redpoint the climb, while taking gear into account? And I’m talking dialed redpoint attempt - gear beta sorted, placing the minimum number of pieces to be safe, most efficient stances etc. Just like how sport climbs are graded based on the most efficient beta. Part of me feels like we should take the higher grade to represent our achievement, and another part feels the achievement is reflected implicitly in the fact that it’s a trad climb and it’s obviously harder than climbing the same grade on bolts. Thoughts?

No! Yes!  

I believe you may be overlooking that some climbs become much harder when gear is placed due to that gear taking up a much needed hold. On harder climbs there are often few pockets/cracks, and if gear is placed in them, they can no longer be used as holds. If there is one obvious pocket in 35’ and you use that pocket for a cam, then it seems somewhat reasonable that the grade would go up as theoretically any trad ascent of that route would use that same pocket for gear rather than as a hold. 

Franky Lapitinowrote:

My personal mentality with assessing the grade on a gear route was that the movement should feel as hard as an equivalently graded sport climb - without factoring in the stamina required to place gear. 

So, should trad climbs be graded based on the total effort required to redpoint the climb, while taking gear into account? 

"Should" they be graded that way, and "are" they graded that way, are two separate things.

For the "should" question, I don't much care. You could argue either way.

For the "are" question: in practice it seems like the difficulty of placing gear is generally included in crack climbing grades. At the elite end, the climbs OP mentions are examples of this. Personal experience at chuffer grades suggests similar. For instance, the harder Indian Creek cracks only feel their grade when lead placing gear. On TR they often feel much easier when you can sprint and not have to pause to place. Especially true on the thinner sizes where the feet are bad.  This applies in my experience to other areas also.

So perhaps the "are" informs the "should". If in practice most routes are graded a certain way, for consistency you should probably go along with that standard practice. Regardless of whatever your hypothetical theory of grading might say.

JCMwrote:

"Should" they be graded that way, and "are" they graded that way, are two separate things.

For the "should" question, I don't much care. You could argue either way.

For the "are" question: in practice it seems like the difficulty of placing gear is generally included in crack climbing grades. At the elite end, the climbs OP mentions are examples of this. Personal experience at chuffer grades suggests similar. For instance, the harder Indian Creek cracks only feel their grade when lead placing gear. On TR they often feel much easier when you can sprint and not have to pause to place. Especially true on the thinner sizes where the feet are bad.  This applies in my experience to other areas also.

So perhaps the "are" informs the "should". If in practice most routes are graded a certain way, for consistency you should probably go along with that standard practice. Regardless of whatever your hypothetical theory of grading might say.

There are a couple different things going on there. First is that absolutely, hanging out in strenuous positions to place gear is harder. This is why Velcro racks and super rehearsed gear placements are a thing in high-end trad. This also why there was a brief period of time when there were a bunch of hard routes in the creek getting R ratings. But the scene all agreed that it's not really runout if you just can't hang on long enough to place that perfect yellow alien (From Switzerland With Love was a prime example of this).

The other thing is that sometimes, to reach the gear placements that are there, you have to use harder beta, even if the actual clipping stances aren't any more strenuous. The fact that you have to be able to see your placement to really trust it, means you can't just layback or otherwise put yourself in an easier body position. Fingers In A Light socket feels like mid 5.10 if you just lay it back, but scoring good enough jams to place gear was hard enough that I struggled to leave the ground. One dude took a hard enough fall on it to rip a finger off. That ain't 5.10 to me.

I think the mental aspect could figure in, although I'm not sure to what extent. I've never climbed 5.13, so I have no idea if it actually feels easier 2 feet above a bolt vs 20 feet above a nest of questionable stoppers. Certainly, Elvis legs and excessive sweating will make the moves harder.

Franky Lapitinowrote:

My personal mentality with assessing the grade on a gear route was that the movement should feel as hard as an equivalently graded sport climb - without factoring in the stamina required to place gear. In other words, if the climb was somehow fully bolted, what would you grade it? Then that would be the grade. No one told me this explicitly, I just developed this view from climbing various trad routes and assessing the difficulty compared to similarly graded sport routes, style differences aside.

The topic question came to me after reading about Connor Herson sending Empath on gear and suggesting a grade of “14c on bolts and 14d on gear”. Also Magic Line getting an upgrade based on the difficulty of placing gear. And more locally to me, the North Conway guidebook suggests that Shagg It 12d, is “13a placing gear”.

So, should trad climbs be graded based on the total effort required to redpoint the climb, while taking gear into account? And I’m talking dialed redpoint attempt - gear beta sorted, placing the minimum number of pieces to be safe, most efficient stances etc. Just like how sport climbs are graded based on the most efficient beta. Part of me feels like we should take the higher grade to represent our achievement, and another part feels the achievement is reflected implicitly in the fact that it’s a trad climb and it’s obviously harder than climbing the same grade on bolts. Thoughts?

Grades are a subjective thing, so the answer is “yes”.

Here in the UK its not just the ammount/soundness of gear but how faffy it is to place that is also one of the multitude of factors that all get blended up together into the weird (it seems for the rest of the planet) adjectival part of the grade. E.g HVS, it has no effect on the second bit, e.g 5a, which is how hard the hardest move is. Seems to work for us for trad grading, which is not to argue it is 'better' than your grading system.

JCMwrote:

For the "are" question: in practice it seems like the difficulty of placing gear is generally included in crack climbing grades. At the elite end, the climbs OP mentions are examples of this. Personal experience at chuffer grades suggests similar. For instance, the harder Indian Creek cracks only feel their grade when lead placing gear. On TR they often feel much easier when you can sprint and not have to pause to place. Especially true on the thinner sizes where the feet are bad.  This applies in my experience to other areas also.

So perhaps the "are" informs the "should". If in practice most routes are graded a certain way, for consistency you should probably go along with that standard practice. Regardless of whatever your hypothetical theory of grading might say.

I'm all for grading consistency, which is why I asked this question rather than just continuing to go with my own theory. I wanted to hear other peoples experiences, and so far, it seems like it can go both ways. Sometimes the route is graded based an a TR ascent, sometimes with the gear factor. Maybe it's just an area based standard. I do understand that placing gear often changes the sequences and which holds you can use and so grading based on a redpoint ascent seems to make the most sense.

i have always just graded routes based on the climbing difficulty.  there is just too much variability thrown in if you try to incorporate the difficulty of placing gear.  the creek is a good example - some brave soul might go 15 feet between pieces on hard climbing, while other wimps (cough cough me cough cough) will probably place 5 pieces in 15 feet on hard climbing.  i just think it is kind of silly for me to say it was 12c for me but only 11c for them because they are more brave...

I vote that we all switch to british trad grading. Much more sensible

John Clarkwrote:

I vote that we all switch to british trad grading. Much more sensible

I wouldn't go that far! But IMO it does work well for trad at the lower end, up in the high Es (I've been told, I've never ventured beyond the low Es) it apparently goes a bit wacky.

Also far more satisfying talk about V Diffs and Severes down the pub than 5.4 and 5.5s.

Would those IC routes be Harder with Hexes™️?

ClimbingOnwrote:

I believe you may be overlooking that some climbs become much harder when gear is placed due to that gear taking up a much needed hold. On harder climbs there are often few pockets/cracks, and if gear is placed in them, they can no longer be used as holds. If there is one obvious pocket in 35’ and you use that pocket for a cam, then it seems somewhat reasonable that the grade would go up as theoretically any trad ascent of that route would use that same pocket for gear rather than as a hold. 

I agree but for what it's worth; you can often get a small nut that fits in the bottom of these pockets very well, leaving the pod/pin scar to use as a hold.

Rasputin NLNwrote:

I agree but for what it's worth; you can often get a small nut that fits in the bottom of these pockets very well, leaving the pod/pin scar to use as a hold.

Granted, in vertical cracks, where the hold is a pin scar. But horizontal cracks (think the eyebrows of Looking glass) or limestone pockets might not be so forgiving. I think this still goes towards the same distinction though: for routes where the beta would be identical, except that you'd have to spend more time at the clipping stances, there's no reason to grade them differently. But if you have to use substantially different beta because of the vagaries of the gear, I think it's fair to grade it differently. Where the line is exactly, I don't know, but I feel like repeated traversing off the line to place gear is pretty clearly in the "grade it differently" camp.

Neil Bwrote:

I wouldn't go that far! But IMO it does work well for trad at the lower end, up in the high Es (I've been told, I've never ventured beyond the low Es) it apparently goes a bit wacky.

Also far more satisfying talk about V Diffs and Severes down the pub than 5.4 and 5.5s.

For most trad climbers and climbs it is a far better system! This is because it is about how hard the climb is, with hard meaning every factor that makes one trad climb harder than another. 

As an american I really like the british trad system. We got something similar with the g, pg, pg13, R and X here but I think the E scale makes more sense, as a 5.10 climber might have serious issues protecting a 5.11 from a free stance although protection options would be more easy for a climber strong at the grade even if the 5.12 is rated pg/g. I would say strenuous gear may impact the safety rating, even if gear is a available, however not the difficulty of the climb itself. If running it out makes it easier, the difficulty is the easier grade, get better or bolder, shelve the ego.