Softest Crag/Area In The United States?

The moonboard   

in all seriousness probably ten sleep. 

Hangdog Hankwrote:

I was just joking around haha, Index sport climbing is by far the stiffest grading I have ever experienced, my general rule of thumb is to add two letter grades to any Index sport climb. In my opinion Leavy is actually a bit stiffer for trad routes than Index, especially in the more moderate grades. 

Agreed, I also believe vantage is only soft if you're good at vertical climbing, I've brought people there that couldn't thrutch up a 5.9 that dance up off-vert 10b slab in darrington or Leavenworth. But more than not, it's the opposite 

Tanner Jameswrote:

Pie shop in Tahoe is consistently a full number grade soft 

Pie shop makes prison hill in Carson city look like Kansas.

Joe Kreidelwrote:

Being new to the Front Range, I have heard this a lot. But personally I find Clear Creek pretty challenging relative to other local areas (and other areas around the country). I think the combo of being tall, and the specificity required for many of the feet and sequences is tough for me. I have been on a handful of climbs in the 12a-13a range that for me feel much harder than similar grades in BoCan or the Flatirons. I love the movement and rock, but Clear Creek does not feel soft at all to me.

I definitely find that in CCC I have to really lock in my footwork compared to other Front Range areas. It could be because of the rock type or the constant high traffic getting a nice polish going on the higher rated routes. It’s nice going to Wonderland (shoutout Tal) and climbing on fresh, sharp rock that feels like Velcro under my feet and will destroy your skin.

That being said, I climb mostly 10s and the grading can feel very inconsistent from crag to crag in CCC even within the canyon. I’ve flashed some climbs that I thought I had no business being on and then go to another crag and get obliterated by a climb with the exact same grade. 

Dawson Oliverwrote:

I definitely find that in CCC I have to really lock in my footwork compared to other Front Range areas. It could be because of the rock type or the constant high traffic getting a nice polish going on the higher rated routes. It’s nice going to Wonderland (shoutout Tal) and climbing on fresh, sharp rock that feels like Velcro under my feet and will destroy your skin.

That being said, I climb mostly 10s and the grading can feel very inconsistent from crag to crag in CCC even within the canyon. I’ve flashed some climbs that I thought I had no business being on and then go to another crag and get obliterated by a climb with the exact same grade. 

That’s it Dawson, you’ve inspired me - another wholesale downgrade or two coming to Guidebook V2.0

In all seriousness, I think CCC can just be a bit weird to read, and takes a lot more mileage than you’d expect to really learn. I think CCC has a tendency to be softer in the lower grades (or, more accurately, I think a lot of areas have massive grade compression in the lower grades - I.e the difference between a 5.8 and 5.10a is significantly bigger as the difference between 5.10c and 5.11a) but in general I’ve never climbed anywhere that still felt like it was sandbagged or soft above solid 11. Maybe some places have a few more popular gimme 12as than others but for the most part everywhere feels roughly the same on the whole whenever you hit the more “modern” grades that started getting more popular once sport climbing became the norm

Eric Marxwrote:

Don’t tell the gunkies but it’s the gunks

It’s not soft per se, but I do find it nowhere as sandbagged as a lot of folks claim (at least at lower grade). I suspect the complaints are mostly from cracky trad climbers who can’t pull 5.6 jugs/sports climbers who shit themselves being 6 inch above a bomber #2. 

Calebwrote:

Short crux at the grade, multiple rests, easy clips/gear = soft

Sustained movement but only a few moves close to the grade = soft

Sustained movement and a few crux moves at the grade= solid

Multiple cruxes at the grade, some reasonable rests= solid

Long crux sequences at the grade = stiff

Sustained climbing near grade with one or more distinct cruxes= stiff

Below grade climbing with cruxes that are distinctly above the grade= sandbag

Sustained climbing at the grade and crux sequences above the grade = sandbag

Your specific morphology may determine crux difficulty.

This is a pretty good summary.

Calebwrote:

Short crux at the grade, multiple rests, easy clips/gear = soft

Sustained movement but only a few moves close to the grade = soft

Sustained movement and a few crux moves at the grade= solid

Multiple cruxes at the grade, some reasonable rests= solid

Long crux sequences at the grade = stiff

Sustained climbing near grade with one or more distinct cruxes= stiff

Below grade climbing with cruxes that are distinctly above the grade= sandbag

Sustained climbing at the grade and crux sequences above the grade = sandbag

Your specific morphology may determine crux difficulty.

You are ignoring the long list of 30 to 40 meter monsters that have cruxes well below the grade but give you no respite. I think that to date, no route has a crux above V13 or so, but a single move of V13 would be only about 9a or .14d. There are plenty of .13- routes with nothing harder than V4, which under your formula would be no harder than a solid .12a. A classic like Omaha Beach would need to be downgraded to no harder than .12c. 

I've heard RRG is soft

The new ones are the soft ones.

Frank Steinwrote:

You are ignoring the long list of 30 to 40 meter monsters that have cruxes well below the grade but give you no respite. I think that to date, no route has a crux above V13 or so, but a single move V13 would be only about 9a or .14d. There are plenty of .13- routes with nothing harder than V4, which under your formula would be no harder than a solid .12a. A classic like Omaha Beach would need to be downgraded to no harder than .12c. 

Meh.  It’s all blurry anyway.  Sustained difficulty accumulates more in the high grades, sure.
A 13- is a soft 13a.  In your example, lacking anything harder than sustained V4 is why it’s soft. I think that illustrates the idea.  If you want to be rigid about Vgrade/YDS equivalents, you will probably end up downgrading some routes.  I don’t think that’s necessary.

If we are considering Puerto Rico in this discussion as being part of the US (as they should be since they are citizens), that's the softest grading that I've come across. 

Calebwrote:

Meh.  It’s all blurry anyway.  Sustained difficulty accumulates more in the high grades, sure.
A 13- is a soft 13a.  In your example, lacking anything harder than sustained V4 is why it’s soft. I think that illustrates the idea.  If you want to be rigid about Vgrade/YDS equivalents, you will probably end up downgrading some routes.  I don’t think that’s necessary.

Not to derail the thread, but it's worth noting that MP (and most folks, I think) actually consider 5.13- to be a harder grade than 5.13a, not a halfgrade between 12d and 13a. I've always considered it and 13a/b to be equivalent, i.e. "hard for 13a but soft for 13b" or "could easily be considered 5.13a or 5.13b, grade fidelity is fake and there's no real difference between the two - it's in the lower third of the overall 5.13 spectrum"

MP Grade Chart - note that 13a is equivalent to E6 6c British and 13- is E7 6c, and is also listed after it sequentially.

Calebwrote:

Meh.  It’s all blurry anyway.  Sustained difficulty accumulates more in the high grades, sure.
A 13- is a soft 13a.  In your example, lacking anything harder than sustained V4 is why it’s soft. I think that illustrates the idea.  If you want to be rigid about Vgrade/YDS equivalents, you will probably end up downgrading some routes.  I don’t think that’s necessary.

But according to your grading rubric that long sustained .13a with no move harder than v4 would need to be downgraded not to easy.13a, but all the way to hard .12a. 

Y’all, just have darth-grader.net figure it out for you. Although it tends to inflate about 1 letter grade for Chattanooga climbs. 

Frank Steinwrote:

But according to your grading rubric that long sustained .13a with the move harder than v4 would need to be downgraded not to easy.13a, but all the way to hard .12a. 

Nah man.  You’re stuck on grade equivalencies.  I didn’t assign grades to anything.  I’m not downgrading, just designating it soft.  

If I climb a 13-, I’m going to count it as 13a unless consensus is strongly towards 13b and it felt that hard to me.  

Eric Marxwrote:

Don’t tell the gunkies but it’s the gunks

Curious why you think this. I know you've climbed most of the 5.12s there, wondering how those compare to 12s at other places. From what I can tell, 5.10 at the Gunks is way more involved than 5.10 anywhere else. 

My personal experience with trad climbing, especially with on sighting or going ground up, the entire experience is more mentally demanding and less so physically than following a bolt line. Which makes the grading thing complicated because we are supposed to grade based on RP efforts. 

Trevor Joneswrote:

My personal experience with trad climbing, especially with on sighting or going ground up, the entire experience is more mentally demanding and less so physically than following a bolt line. Which makes the grading thing complicated because we are supposed to grade based on RP efforts. 

I am surprised at these statements.
First, while I agree that, In general, trad climbing is more 'mentally demanding' than sport climbing ( though often each style can be mentally demanding in different ways), I disagree that it is 'less physically demanding'. Hanging out, especially on steep ground, to place gear is often much more 'physical' than 'clipping and going'--especially on routes of comparable grades.

Second, upon what are you basing your final sentence that "...we are supposed to grade based on RP efforts"? Maybe that is something in the MP 'fine print' that I've never bothered to read, but as someone from the 'old school', my belief has always been that grades, particularly for trad, should be based on an 'on sight' ascent--with such an ascent being 'the ideal'. Even on today's hardest sport routes, the 'first on-sight' usually gets significant recognition and the redpoint/flash/onsight distinctions themselves underline that hierarchy.

Index is soft

Alan Rubinwrote:

I am surprised at these statements.
First, while I agree that, In general, trad climbing is more 'mentally demanding' than sport climbing ( though often each style can be mentally demanding in different ways), I disagree that it is 'less physically demanding'. Hanging out, especially on steep ground, to place gear is often much more 'physical' than 'clipping and going'--especially on routes of comparable grades.

Second, upon what are you basing your final sentence that "...we are supposed to grade based on RP efforts"? Maybe that is something in the MP 'fine print' that I've never bothered to read, but as someone from the 'old school', my belief has always been that grades, particularly for trad, should be based on an 'on sight' ascent--with such an ascent being 'the ideal'. Even on today's hardest sport routes, the 'first on-sight' usually gets significant recognition and the redpoint/flash/onsight distinctions themselves underline that hierarchy.

Hey Alan, 

Great point about the physicality, I agree with your point. I meant to say that sport climbing in general is just more about the physical pursuit of climbing movement with less required attention to route finding, gear quality, etc. Hanging out to place gear can for sure be a crux on some routes! Which is why in trad, I suppose we make a difference between pink points and red points. 

The second point could probably take a whole novel to really break down and discuss fully haha. I really try my best to on-sight / flash as many routes as possible and enjoy that pursuit and the rewarding experience of sending in that fashion. But at the end of the day, if I spend 10 days or flash we still take the same grade. Even though after multiple days or weeks of effort something could end up feeling much easier than the initial go. The only difference here I think comes down to personal experience and acknowledgement.