Outdoor Grades vs Indoor Grades

Kento Swrote:

Hey climbers, I can on sight up to 10c indoors and would like to get started on my trad rack depending on which grade I can climb outdoors. Could someone please give me the grade equivalents?

In all seriousness i wouldn’t think about anything over 5.5 or 5.6 outside and that’s somewhere that’s not traditionally sandbagged/stuff for the grade location like Seneca, gunks, index, yose, etc. a 5.6 like high E in the gunks, Geronimo in red rock or bed time for bonzo in RRG is probably going to scare the shiz out of you if all you’ve ever climbed is 10s indoor.

New outdoor climber here. I feel the big difference is in the holds. After finding out there are few if any holds outdoors where you can wrap your fingers around, I wonder why those types of holds constitute 90% of the 10a and below gym routes. Personally, If I was designing gym routes, I would start weening climbers off those holds in the 5.8-5.10 range before making the actual routes technically more challenging so people could come to grips with what you will see in the wild.

https://xender.vip/

I feel like everyone gets that distance running and sprinting are two different sports. But we keep calling slab and overhung climbing both “rock climbing.”

There are almost no gym slabs, cause you can hit more stuff in a fall. Lots of outdoor climbing is slabs. IMHO, a big chunk of the “outdoor is different from indoor” feeling is just down to the difference between overhung vs slab climbing.

And that doesn’t even address cracks. 

lokep jokepwrote:

New outdoor climber here. I feel the big difference is in the holds. After finding out there are few if any holds outdoors where you can wrap your fingers around, I wonder why those types of holds constitute 90% of the 10a and below gym routes. Personally, If I was designing gym routes, I would start weening climbers off those holds in the 5.8-5.10 range before making the actual routes technically more challenging so people could come to grips with what you will see in the wild.

I think you are making the assumption that gyms are in business to help climbers train for the outdoors.  30 years ago that might have been the case but today not so much

Eric Engbergwrote:

I think you are making the assumption that gyms are in business to help climbers train for the outdoors.  30 years ago that might have been the case but today not so much

Definitely this. Today gyms aren’t in the business of being a place to practice for outdoors and get stronger for outdoor climbing. Gyms aren’t in the business of making a profit by catering to the masses who largely won’t ever think about embarking on an alpine trad adventure and want to feel good about a safe and secure place that they can measure some type of progress as well as feel like they belong to a community.

This is inherently going to cause a large discrepancy between what climbers can do and are ready for outside as opposed to what they’re comfortable TRing and leading indoors. 

So….how is OP doing? Should have a rack and some pitches under their belt by now

John Clarkwrote:

So….how is OP doing? Should have a rack and some pitches under their belt by now

OP probably read all these posts and quit climbing!!!

Hey OP, if it's not too late....TR outside on real rock first before leading anything, k? That way you can get a sense of just what your real rock abilities are.

You can practice placing gear on TR too, better safe than dead.

One big difference is foot work. Outdoors there is a huge variety of things you do with your feet. Gyms don't recreate that very well. Texture plays a role and poor rock is not represented in a gym environment. Ball bearing grain and moss or lichen are not easy to navigate. Loose holds and learning to read fractured rock is also something you don't learn at the gym. It all matters at least some. None of it is reflected in a grade telling you what the hardest move is. Throw in being too hot or freezing cold or rushing because a rain storm is on the way or getting caught in the rain all adds to the perceived difficulty outside even though those factors don't change the actual grade.

John Clarkwrote:

So….how is OP doing? Should have a rack and some pitches under their belt by now

https://www.mountainproject.com/user/202008662/kento-s/ticks

Tim Brattenwrote:

https://www.mountainproject.com/user/202008662/kento-s/ticks

Should probably mention it’s cool they’re getting after it and starting at a reasonable grade range in a safe way (toprope and mock-lead) so they know their ticks aren’t being posted in a negative way.

But looks like any other beginners reading this thread now have an answer! For a 10c gym climber new to outdoor climbing, 5.8 is hard (even on toprope), 5.4 feels harder than 5.4, and it’s all quite enjoyable regardless of difficulty. Sounds pretty spot-on to me, especially for grades in a classic trad area!

But figuratively, “yer gonna die”

So no rack yet

climber patwrote:

How is the naive climber, the OP, supposed to know that was sarcasm?   How am I to know his gym is not different than mine?  Sarcasm in this context is inappropriate and not funny.

It wasn't. I've always thought that indoor climbing is more difficult than rock. 

Sep Mwrote:

I feel like everyone gets that distance running and sprinting are two different sports. But we keep calling slab and overhung climbing both “rock climbing.”

There are almost no gym slabs, cause you can hit more stuff in a fall. Lots of outdoor climbing is slabs. IMHO, a big chunk of the “outdoor is different from indoor” feeling is just down to the difference between overhung vs slab climbing.

And that doesn’t even address cracks. 

100%. This becomes more evident especially at lower grades. 20% of all the routes in alot of gyms are vertical/slightly overhung jug hauls in the 5.6-5.8 (or V0-V3) range. Outdoor routes at theses grades are almost always less than vertical with rare exceptions, at least in Colorado.

I went with a guide in the ADK who taught me to trad climb. With that I also figured out what my limit was and it turned out to be 5.8 on TR. The guide claimed that the climbs in the area (Beer Walls) were sandbagged, an example being a pure hand crack called Seven Ounces rated 5.7.

10c indoors might put you at about 5.6/5.7-outdoors, but even that depends on the gym , the crag , the style, and how good you are with your gear 

For reference I climb up to about 12a indoors, 11c sport outside, 5.8/5.9 trad outside (Colorado)

Climb a lot of sport outside and find a mentor to follow on trad routes before you start leading them. Time on rock is the only way to gain real experience and learn real route finding. The gym will get you strong but does not really prepare you well for trad climbing. 

Gyms that have slabs to set them, typically 5.10a slabs are 5.7-5.8....5.11 slabs are 5.10a....