Should the YDS have a sustainment rating?

climber patwrote:

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I think the article was more of an effort to modify people's rating of climbs. 

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?

B Ywrote:

This thread is proof that its the off season for rock in North America

Is Mexico not North America to you? Or is the meme already real?

Redacted Redactbergwrote:

Is Mexico not North America to you? Or is the meme already real?

Relax. Put the meme down

John. thats interesting because my orange Ortenberger guide to the tetons  uses the F9 system.

Is it imperfect? Sure. 

Would additional measures potentially improve understanding different routes relative to each other? Sure.

Would it ever make sense to add such a rating system? No. Why? You are replacing one subjective rating that is fairly easy for anyone to opine on with MANY subjective ratings that are difficult to suss out. 

Humans are lazy and imperfect, so while you'd ultimately get more data points out of this, 90% of them would be complete trash. Currently I'd say it's probably more like 10% are trash given the simplicity and availability of others grades (IE - you likely won't grade something 5.11a if most others have graded it 5.10a). There are problems with locality and herding effects, but it's good enough for the use give the diversity of styles of climbing. 

If you really wanted to go after the unicorn system, each style would get its own points (as on endless friction slab, height is irrelevant but crystal and friction type is relevant), but that would be insanely complex and incomprehensible. 

A perfectly accurate rating system would leave us with nothing to argue about over post-climb beer. Leave it alone.

B Ywrote:

Relax. Put the meme down

Being wrong, sucks. I'm sorry.

Hot take, there's no such thing as a "5.11a move," only a 5.11a route. And what does not mean? Harder than 5.10d in someone's subjective opinion, but not hard enough for 5.11b. Any attempt to refine grading more than that becomes ridiculous fast.

Not Not MP Adminwrote:

Being wrong, sucks. I'm sorry.

Being wrong is better than grasping at straws to prove someone wrong for forgetting to say MOST of north america.

Aaron Kwrote:

Hot take, there's no such thing as a "5.11a move," only a 5.11a route. 

Exactly. God forbid we talk about gym "climbing" in this thread, but in routesetting circles, no one ever talks about an "11a move," but rather V2 and V3 moves.

B Ywrote:

Being wrong is better than grasping at straws to prove someone wrong for forgetting to say MOST of north america.

Tomato, potato

Nick Goldsmithwrote:

John. thats interesting because my orange Ortenberger guide to the tetons  uses the F9 system.

True enough, Nick. But amongst the climbers - many from California - it was pretty much the YDS. A few climbers used the F system for a while. I had no problem with it but it never caught on to my knowledge.

Aaron Kwrote:

Hot take, there's no such thing as a "5.11a move," only a 5.11a route. And what does not mean? Harder than 5.10d in someone's subjective opinion, but not hard enough for 5.11b. Any attempt to refine grading more than that becomes ridiculous fast.

Hold up now, everyone knows 5.10d is harder than 5.11a.

I think it's easier to judge ratings when they're somewhat below your limit, and when you're very familiar with the area, since there seems to be huge variety between the YDS in different areas.

Most of us, showing up for the first time in Yosemite with some 5.11 bolted faces under our belts in other places, are shocked and dismayed that Moby Dick Center should be rated .10a.  And Ahab .10b? it's a scandal!  But then you climb there for a few years, you do the benchmark routes a couple of times (Sacherer Crack is the benchmark .10a), you climb every sort of crack and slab and face in the Valley, and then you get why Moby Dick Center is .10a.  And Ahab is a legit .10b.  Because Mental Block is .10c and is just a tiny bit harder than Ahab.  But it's hard to tell those nuances apart until you've climbed a whole bunch of that stuff and your technique is good.

Of course there's sandbags, but that's where word of mouth and the FA list in the guidebook come in.  Was it put up by Chapman and Worrel?  It's gonna be stout!  Was it put up by Rick Accomatzo (sp?), it's going to be runout AND stout.  Tucker? spot-on rating.  Scrubby? overbolted.  These are all nuances it takes time to figure out, but once you do, the Valley ratings make sense.

RandyLeewrote:

Hold up now, everyone knows 5.10d is harder than 5.11a.

Yes, with 9+ harder still.

Ben Zartmanwrote:

I think it's easier to judge ratings when they're somewhat below your limit, and when you're very familiar with the area, since there seems to be huge variety between the YDS in different areas.

Is there huge variation in the grades or the styles...?

If this has not been mentioned above - https://darth-grader.net/

Darth Grader calculates a route grade based on the addition of several route and boulder sections separated by rests. It can help you define the grade of the last route you climbed. The route breakdown must be done from the ground to the anchor. To be as accurate as possible, you must not forget any movement. You can also try out our other calculators for breaking down boulders into single or multiple moves sections, as well as for calculating an overall grade for a multi-pitch: the [Multi-Pitch Darth Grade]. Same algorithm is used for all calculators.

Michael Bwrote:

What? Then a climb that's all 5.7 with one 5.12a move is graded, what, 5.10b? So a dude who climbs 5.11b can jump on it and think he can flash it, then hurt himself? I've never heard of the YDS described this way.

I've been toying with this idea in my head for an alternate grading scale that uses multiple dimensions instead of a single number. The single number is a failure, full stop. Look at any route with a lot of comments, I see this one often at Mission Gorge: "This feels like 5.(grade minus 1) if you know how to jam (fists/offwidth/basic hands)". Why should experience change the grade of a route? Besides, what does 5.9 tell you? That a climb is similar in difficulty to Open Book? How many climbers have climbed Open Book? That it's harder than 5.8? Sure. A 5.9 in Joshua Tree is harder than a 5.8 in Joshua Tree. Is it harder or easier than a 5.9 in Yosemite? You have to try a few routes or rely on hearsay to find the level you want to work at on your first weekend trip. 

I've been thinking a multi-point scale that can't be summarized verbally. You wouldn't be able to say "The climb is L1", but the entire grade could be visually shown. Say, 5 points, forming a circle. The rounder the circle, the more "ideal" the boulder. Now instead of looking at a problem and thinking "but is this a slabby V2 or...", you can look at the circle and go "oh, this looks like my style" and the roundness indicates high quality - "oh this isn't just one hard move, I could actually learn stuff on this" or "oh, this is just one hard move. I could break into the grade on this". Points could be things like: Height dependence (low range: tall people disadvantages, high range: short people disadvantaged beyond what is normally expected). Power (low range: easy ladder climbing, high range: very dynamic), Technique (low range: easy ladder climbing, high range: delicate friction climbing), Continuity (low range: extreme difference between crux and rest of climb, high range: difficulty never eases)

Right now one problem is obvious: some qualities I want to define a problem by are "good in the center", like height dependence. Some are "good at the extreme", like how some people prefer a climb with mostly sustained difficulty.

I'd be curious to hear thoughts on this as I need to pick a capstone project this week (compsci) and I thought a browser extension to allow users to rate routes on MP would be a good idea. Each route would show the circle grade as an average of everyone's ratings or something.

30 second terrible mockup.

100% of all this is irrelevant if you know how to bail, and if you drill into your head that your safety is your responsibility alone.  Sentiments like this that seek to both dilute and complicate climbing are not doing any favors for climbers or climbing.  

On grading:  Even in a gym, routes and boulder problems will feel harder or easier based on myriad factors including but not limited to:

Flexibility, fear, height, hand and fist size, route-reading ability, confidence or lack thereof, wingspan, ape index, endurance, etc.  The same applies to outdoor routes, and add into that the era in which the FA occurred.  That's why assertions like the ones you make, as well as suggestions on how to "fix" things are nonsensical and futile.

Read the pamphlets on every piece of gear you buy new.  ROCK CLIMBING IS INHERENTLY DANGEROUS.  Act accordingly.

IMO it's a question of what you use the grades for.

If it's for grade chasing (no negative connotation) then you sort of need to arrive at a single consensus number, unless you want to define yourself as a hyper specialist (e.g. "I climb 5.14b- granite slab but 5.3+ if I have to use my biceps"), which probably takes some of the fun out of the game. Most people I know who grade-chase tend to pick something that's matches their strengths for their first of a grade, so it's the number that matters. 

The other most common use case for grades is to answer the question of "where on the fun/hard/safe spectrum does this fall for me". For the casual climber the extra info could be important -- saying "the 5.6 parts are run out, the hardest moves are a well-protected 5.10d sequence" or "it feels 5.8 if you climb at least 5.10 but not for the new 5.8 leader." If I've done a lot of 5.11s, I know I can hop on anything 5.10b or easier without thinking too much about it, but I might want to know a bit more before committing to a "5.11a" remote alpine route. But since this climber doesn't care about the number so much, it doesn't need to be part of the grade. In this case, the grade can be read as "if you've climbed enough routes at least 2-4 letter grades harder than this, you'll probably be fine."

Therefore, the extra info doesn't need to be part of the grade. The grade-chasers just need a single number to keep the game from getting too complicated, and the rest of us can just read beta.