Least cruxy route per grade

Inspired by the dumpster fire thread on YDS grades...

There's a standard chart for the hardest possible boulder on a non-sandbagged sport route of each grade (e.g. 12a can't have anything harder than V4, 13a can't have anything harder than V7.) Conversely, for each V-grade, what's the hardest sport route you can think of all where the crux is that V-grade? Some well-known-ish examples (which I've touched but not sent, so I'm on thin footing here): Mercy the Huff is 12b and has nothing harder than V2, Apollo Reed is 13a and has nothing harder than V3. Supposedly Southern Smoke 14c has nothing harder than V6 on it. 

This is an old blog post worth citing here. Considers the relationship between crux boulder grade and overall route grade 

https://peripheralscrutiny.blogspot.com/2011/06/landscape-new-look-at-route-grades.html?m=1

Though since it was written by a Rumney climber, I don't think he quite captures the ultra-enduro end of the spectrum in his route examples.

----

Some other locations/examples:

For the ultra-enduro stuff, the Pipe Dream cave in Maple is another good US example. The Great Feast (13c) doesn't have anything above V4, but it's got a lot of V3-V4 for a long time. That was my first of that grade back when I was an enduro climber with no power.

Somewhat outside the realm of the typical sport climbing examples, but also consider Indian Creek. On some routes you can have the exact same move for 100 feet. Assigning a V grade is pretty hard though. If you climb 100 feet of 0.5 purple camalots that might get 5.13 for the pitch. But what V grade does 10 feet of that (or one move of that) get? No idea.

David Y wrote:

Conversely, for each V-grade, what's the hardest sport route you can think of all where the crux is that V-grade? Some well-known-ish examples (which I've touched but not sent, so I'm on thin footing here): Mercy the Huff is 12b and has nothing harder than V2, Apollo Reed is 13a and has nothing harder than V3. Supposedly Southern Smoke 14c has nothing harder than V6 on it. 

One way this gets tricky is considering how granular to go with the V-rating. Difficulty of crux sequence? Hardest move?  Rating a single move is pretty tricky, and even on short boulder problems the difficulty is cumulative. 

For instance, you might have a route with a 4-move crux sequence that goes at V8. But the individual moves within that crux sequence might be V6. So do you say the this route has a V8 crux boulder, or a V6 crux move? Which is more informative? 

IMO rating based on boulder sequences, rather than individual move, is a lot more useful and is easier to do accurately. 

JCM wrote:

One way this gets tricky is considering how granular to go with the V-rating. Difficulty of crux sequence? Hardest move?  Rating a single move is pretty tricky, and even on short boulder problems the difficulty is cumulative. 

For instance, you might have a route with a 4-move crux sequence that goes at V8. But the individual moves within that crux sequence might be V6. So do you say the this route has a V8 crux boulder, or a V6 crux move? Which is more informative? 

IMO rating based on boulder sequences, rather than individual move, is a lot more useful and is easier to do accurately. 

Good point, I definitely mean hardest boulder sequence rather than hardest individual move. 

David Y wrote:

Inspired by the dumpster fire thread on YDS grades...

There's a standard chart for the hardest possible boulder on a non-sandbagged sport route of each grade (e.g. 12a can't have anything harder than V4, 13a can't have anything harder than V7.) Conversely, for each V-grade, what's the hardest sport route you can think of all where the crux is that V-grade? Some well-known-ish examples (which I've touched but not sent, so I'm on thin footing here): Mercy the Huff is 12b and has nothing harder than V2, Apollo Reed is 13a and has nothing harder than V3. Supposedly Southern Smoke 14c has nothing harder than V6 on it. 

I feel like most routes at crags known for overhanging routes would qualify. You rightly picked RRG, Maple felt that way to me also.

Though (commence bickering about grades) for me Mercy the Huff had a very distinct crux that felt more like V4, and everything else on it felt much easier. 

Lena chita wrote:

Though (commence bickering about grades) for me Mercy the Huff had a very distinct crux that felt more like V4, and everything else on it felt much easier. 

The subjectivity of boulder grades definitely makes this harder, though I hope that there are enough different enduro-routes that it's possible to see a clear pattern. Out of curiosity, which crux feels V4-ish for you on Mercy? For me I thought there were 4 different V2 cruxes (operating with no beta, so it wouldn't surprise me if some of these sections "should" be easier): the start, the diagonal rails halfway up (which felt harder than V2 until I tried using the holds out left), the crack below the upper roof, and then pulling the upper roof.

David Y wrote:

The subjectivity of boulder grades definitely makes this harder, though I hope that there are enough different enduro-routes that it's possible to see a clear pattern. Out of curiosity, which crux feels V4-ish for you on Mercy? For me I thought there were 4 different V2 cruxes (operating with no beta, so it wouldn't surprise me if some of these sections "should" be easier): the start, the diagonal rails halfway up (which felt harder than V2 until I tried using the holds out left), the crack below the upper roof, and then pulling the upper roof.

The diagonal rail halfway up was the hardest for me. It's been over 10 years since I sent it, so I don't recall holds out left that you are referring to, but I had worked on that route, it wasn't an onsight/2nd go, it took me several days, and that was the crux that I was calling V4... I had to figure it out, tried multiple different ways, had beta from multiple people, and was falling on it, not because i was pumped, but because I just had a hard time doing the move. 

Pulling the upper roof was a redpoint crux for me. I have taken falls there a couple of times because i was pumped, but in isolation I would agree with your description of no harder than V2. 

The other two "V2 spots" you are referring to had not registered for me. I'm not even entirely sure if my above-mentioned "redpoint crux" matches what you describe as the "crack below the upper roof", or "pulling the upper roof". I remember it being just one move up there, right above the roof, that I either stuck, or didn't, not a sequence...

For me the bottom line was that, as soon as I figured out the diagonal rail sequence, I knew I could send, because it stood out as hardest, and took me some figuring out.

This doesn’t really fit in the sport category, but some Indian creek splitters are basically just the same move over and over again. Stack 50 V1s on top of one another and you have a 5.13

Apollo Reed has at least one section of V4. The shield is in my book, and the intro to the crux with the sloper and then the crux with the crimp are in the 3/4 range. Pump-O-Rama at Rifle is similar but a bit harder, I would say the middle and high crux could be V4/5. Same with Mercy Seat. Pod gets 5.13b and has just one section of V5.

That said there are probably some 13a hauls at the Red or Maple that max out around V3. I don’t really like climbing pure hauls lol.

I would call the hardest parts of Jesus Wept 5.12d V3, but I’m sure many would say V4. Chainsaw Massacre 5.12a probably has nothing above V2.