Question for Euros re Grading

In a couple Spanish sport climbing guides, the author uses the UIAA grades up to grade V+, and then the French scale from grade 6a up. This struck me as curious, since the French scale is capable of going quite a bit lower, and the UIAA scale can also go quite a bit higher (all the way up to XII+ or 15d, in fact).

Anyone have insight into why this might be? is there a tradition of using UIAA grades for lower grades, and French grades only for harder grades? Or another reason?

It used to be like that in some guidebooks in Chamonix too, I felt that it was because UIAA is more alpine oriented whereas French grades is more geared toward sport climbing, aka "hard" rock climbing. I always more or less took it as it all being French grades anyway, just with roman numerals at 5 and below.

That's the Spanish way. It makes sense as in when easy routes you start with III up to V+ as per UIAA and from there onwards the French grading system is applied since climbs become more difficult and the sporting grading is applied in order to reflect the nuances of a sport route being graded: a, a+, b, b+, c, c+

On some topos over here I will occasionally see grades like 4a, 4b, 4c, 5a, 5b, 5c. Not often, though  

By the way, watch out for the V+ grade. Could be 5.8-ish… but could be 5.10b-ish, depending on who put it up and when, multi pitch or sport. 

Daniel Joder wrote:

By the way, watch out for the V+ grade. Could be 5.8-ish… but could be 5.10b-ish, depending on who put it up and when, multi pitch or sport. 

I'd like to second that. 

At the high end, for example, about 6b/c you generally know what you're getting into. 

At the lower end, anything "Grade V" or so...the range it really wide. 

And that's kind of a problem, because it's us folks who primarily climb down here in that range that need the most guidance!

If you go to Spain or France and climb a V+ if could be really chill....or it could be really hard.

Hi,

here in Europe it's a complicate matter.

First of all, normally for old routes (before 70's) the UIAA grade are completely out of scale. VI was considered the highest possible grade, so Messner, for example, graded everything VI, from 5c to 7a.

Most of the guide books still mantain the original difficult grade.

Similar is for the French grades, but normally it's a local variation. For example in Slovenia a 5b could be a harder than a 6a in Verona area o Arco.

Basicaly you have to be familiar the the alpnism history :)