Global Standardization of Difficulty Grading Systems

In the most recent "The Run Out" podcast, Jonathan Siegrist advances the notion of a "style" based global standardization of the climbing difficulty systems.

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In summary:

• Trad & Big Wall - Yosemite Decimal System
• Sport Climbing - French Scale
• Bouldering - Verm scale

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JStar calls out a couple advantages, such as how there would be immediately built in "climbing style" info when shorthand communicating the grade you were climbing, and how it would quickly alleviate any bouldering/sport climbing confusion. e.g. 7b vs 7B, which is which and how do you verbally convey capitalization?

I love the idea of unifying the global language of climbing movement. If there's no difference between the systems other than nomenclature, and translating between them is simply a matter of applying a a scaling factor, whats the value-add of diversity in that space?

I also like that I *feel* it respects originators of the styles alongside the original grade systems. 

I might be romanticizing it, but it does feel like Trad-with-a-capital-T as in technical free climbing was officially established as an activity for it's on sake, not just a way to the top, on the Walls of Yosemite. The French *really* enjoy drilling bolts, or so I've been told. And the Verm scale was the first scale to take seriously the notion of giving short sequences of moves their own definition of difficulty.  

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Tangentially, I saw it mentioned here, the notion of plus ("+") and minus ("-") grades being utilized as some form of indication of sustained vs cruxy difficulty, and while I know that's not how it's currently used in the YDS system, I really like the idea of applying it. 

Perhaps even modifying the french sport system from a/a+/b/b+/c/c+ to a/b/c/d/e/f so the same plus/minus utility can be realized.

Plus, something about "a" representing 'easiest' within a range and "f" being hardest within a range is just aesthetically pleasing, I'd posit.

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Anyone want to quibble over the gaps in the model? Or argue that there are better reasoned choices of system for each style?

Best grading system to treat as the standard for aid climbing? 

mountaineering (not necessarily involving technical climbing)? 

mixed/ice climbing?

I Like it. But if you're going to use a system specifically for trad grades, it HAS to be the British system. Why not use the only system that properly conveys both difficulty and seriousness?

OK, well I don't really like the bit about the + for sustained difficulty either. It seems like an unnecessary complication. But overall, yes please to standardizing grades more.

Hmm. I guess one advantage of having “+” built into the “official” French system is it kind of says “yeah, we know you can add a + or - ad infinitum to micro-increment between grades. Our building the + into the system is a way of asking you not to do that.”

I also am not clear on the functional origins of the French system. I’ll buy into it’s popularity, but does it have the same storied history as YDS? E.g. “you see, the 5 means dont fall without a rope or youll die, and 10 was once expected to be the upper bound limit.... these letters came along as a way to prevent fistfights in parking lots...”

Yeah but the +/- is already part of the French system and it translates well to the YDS. That is, there's no need to worry about micro adjusting with +/- because it's already there. 

I have no idea on the origins of the French system, but perhaps that's a good thing that it's not based on the whims of a bunch of self-important 20 year old goobers in Yosemite? :) Maybe not? I'd say its main advantage is that it's the most commonly used system in the world. Otherwise I say go with Australian grading for sport climbing. 

Aid climbing should definitely use the Jim Bridwell system of "Pretty Damn Hard", "Not too Bad" etc. Anyone know exactly how that went?

Yeah this'll happen right after we finish switching to the metric system.

Bro you just gotta chug a liter and then throw all 80 kg of your weight into it, and it’ll happen. 

The trad-vs-sport distinction has gray areas, which I guess would become more problematic with the proposed system.

But realistically, whoever tries to impose such a system could get a taste of the challenge by trying to unify YDS between crags 30 miles from each other.

If anyone can get this done we must immediately fund their efforts to temperature, weight and distance, driving, electrical plugs. When they are done, a solution to fairly divide Israel/Palestine.

Raz Bob wrote:

When they are done, a solution to fairly divide Israel/Palestine.

I think you mean Palestine/Israel :)

Ewbank and Hueco, which are both purely numeric, are the obvious grading systems we'll all end up using 20 years from now. Map it all to the number line and be done with the damn discussion.

Why the hell do we need a mix of letters and numbers (with no discernible logic behind why we use a certain number of letters per number, and only historical reasons behind where in the scale we start using letters) to represent the magnitude of a one-dimensional difficulty measure? I cringe every time Americans use the Font scale for boulders outside Europe - "You're going the wrong way!"

Brent Kelly wrote:

I might be romanticizing it, but it does feel like Trad-with-a-capital-T as in technical free climbing was officially established as an activity for it's on sake, not just a way to the top, on the Walls of Yosemite. 

People have been pursuing pure difficulty on rock climbs in eastern Germany for over a century. You can argue that the rules of the game as it is currently played on big walls originated in Yosemite, but giving it credit for being the birthplace of free climbing isn't really justifiable.

And the Verm scale was the first scale to take seriously the notion of giving short sequences of moves their own definition of difficulty.  

The Font bouldering scale is several decades older than the V scale.

Tangentially, I saw it mentioned here, the notion of plus ("+") and minus ("-") grades being utilized as some form of indication of sustained vs cruxy difficulty, and while I know that's not how it's currently used in the YDS system, I really like the idea of applying it. 

I doubt you'd ever get much consensus on this. This is what guidebook descriptions are for. There's a huge spectrum between a one-move wonder and a 40-meter handcrack with the same move over and over again. Where would you draw the line?

mountaineering (not necessarily involving technical climbing)? 

Mountaineering is basically always too complicated to reduce to a single grade. Attempts have been made, including the Alpine scale (PD, AD, D, TD, ED, etc.), Alaska Grades, Russian Alpine Grades, and others. What these have in common is being mostly useless. A 2000' 50 degree ice ramp and a 4 pitch 5.10a crack line with an easy approach might both get a D grade in Chamonix. The farther something is from a 6-move boulder problem, the less likely a single grade is to adequately describe what you are in for.

I like the beautifully simple South African system: 1-2-3-4-5 ... 38-39-40-41-42 ...

Dylan Colon wrote:

Mountaineering is basically always too complicated to reduce to a single grade. Attempts have been made, including the Alpine scale (PD, AD, D, TD, ED, etc.).

My 2 cents about alpine grades:

I think the French alpine does a pretty good job to assess the global difficulty of the route. It always imply a rock grade (D is always in the 5c range for example, TD 6a/b etc...) when its a rock route or mix grade when its a mix route (mix sections of a D route would more or less be M5, the angle of the slopes is also include in the grade) The grade also give you an idea of the commitment of the route, objective hazards as well as difficulty of the approach and retreats options (when at all possible...) 

Still, I know that it can be confusing to newbies, regardless of where they come from. I once had a discussion with a american in Chamonix and basically had to really explain that, yes, "F" stands for "Facile" ie. "Easy" but that it was not just a "hard hike" but required equipement, technics and a degree of exposure not seen in hiking.

I think we need  new standard that will end all standards. 

Basically Trad grades will T1, T2, and T(N+1)
Sport - S1, S2, and S(N+1)
Boulder - B1, B2, and B(N+1)
Alpine A1, ...
Ice - I1, ...
Mixed - M1, ...

( https://xkcd.com/927/)

What we really need is a standard on standards...

amarius wrote:

I think we need  new standard that will end all standards. 

Basically Trad grades will T1, T2, and T(N+1)
Sport - S1, S2, and S(N+1)
Boulder - B1, B2, and B(N+1)
Alpine A1, ...
Ice - I1, ...
Mixed - M1, ...

( https://xkcd.com/927/)

Your post is funny but the point of this OP is to pick ONE standard that already exist, per discipline, not to create a new one... 

BTW I really think it would make sense. Disciplines born more recently already have a unifying grading system such as mix climbing (M1, M2, M3 etc...) or ice climbing (WI1, WI2 etc...), even deep water solo I always heard graded with the french sport climbing system (taking into account that shoes and hands may be wet)

The discipline that does not yet have an unifying  grading system are:
Bouldering
Sport climbing
Trad climbing
Mountaineering

Those systems were born before travels and exchanges were so widespread and when everybody was just reinventing the wheel in their own corner of the world...

Ultimately, I would compare it to the metrification of the US: something that would make everybody's life easier....

Edit: The natural authority to push this unifying standards could have been the UIAA but their only attent is not reassuring, they indeed created a new scale for sport climbing instead of picking one that already exist (idiots...) At the end, only germany is using it for some random reason.
The next best candidate to work on this topic could be the IFSC, in their competitions if they impose the use of one grading system around the world, for each discipline, maybe the recreational climbers, mountainers, boulderers, would eventually follow...

Dylan Colon wrote:

People have been pursuing pure difficulty on rock climbs in eastern Germany for over a century. You can argue that the rules of the game as it is currently played on big walls originated in Yosemite, but giving it credit for being the birthplace of free climbing isn't really justifiable.

The Font bouldering scale is several decades older than the V scale.

I doubt you'd ever get much consensus on this. This is what guidebook descriptions are for. There's a huge spectrum between a one-move wonder and a 40-meter handcrack with the same move over and over again. Where would you draw the line?

Mountaineering is basically always too complicated to reduce to a single grade. Attempts have been made, including the Alpine scale (PD, AD, D, TD, ED, etc.), Alaska Grades, Russian Alpine Grades, and others. What these have in common is being mostly useless. A 2000' 50 degree ice ramp and a 4 pitch 5.10a crack line with an easy approach might both get a D grade in Chamonix. The farther something is from a 6-move boulder problem, the less likely a single grade is to adequately describe what you are in for.

You make extremely reasonable, informed points. Especially in pointing out that there’s a limit to how much we should be seeking to “compress” descriptions of route difficulty into singular statements of relative difficulty, and that a big part of the fun is sharing lengthy, personalized, subjective, qualitative descriptions of the overall experience — not just simply adhering to numerical categorization for ease of tallying achievements.

Superficially, I am impressed and acknowledge the validity of your statements and the hopeful absurdity of some/many/most of mine.

But deep down I am broiling with a begrudgingly jealous, dejected, patriotic rage.

FACT: Before John Muir stood atop Cathedral Peak, mountaineering and rock climbing simply didn’t exist. It was all just rope access labor. Argue with me all you want. That’s science.

Global standardization = boring, sterile, production, transactional-based bullshit.

Celebrate the confusion and cross-purpose of the many grading systems. Don't try to homogenize climbing. You list makers need to stand down on this one.

Cherokee Nunes wrote:

Global standardization = boring, sterile, production, transactional-based bullshit.

Celebrate the confusion and cross-purpose of the many grading systems. Don't try to homogenize climbing. You list makers need to stand down on this one.

I hear you and generally agree with the sentiments.

but i also feel like this table is getting pretty damn wide....

Gasp! Million dollar app idea. Climbing grade conversion app. It will use machine learning to convert from one grade to another. Revenue will be provided by partnering with advertisers, particularly caffeinated wheatgrass beverage producers and sales of quartz/feldspar crystals that promote healing and emotional omniscience. Brand goodwill will also account for 75% of the value when it’s sold to Intellectual Ventures.

Dibs! Triple stamped, no unstampies, touching blue makes it true.

Never heard of the British bouldering grades. What the hell is up with that?

Brent Kelly wrote:

but i also feel like this table is getting pretty damn wide....

Let's be honest though, it's a lot wider that that. Just in the USA column, an 11a in one location can be fairly different from an 11a in another location.

But that makes sense, since that is the kind of data climbing grades are. A thing is often an 11a because it is harder than a nearby 10d, but not as hard as an 11c two crags over. They all supposedly go back (kind of) to centralized standards, but there is inevitably local drift.

Different countries having different scales isn't an error. It's a reminder of what KIND of measurement a climbing grade is. It is inherently comparative, and inherently local. The scales may be translatable, but the reminder of what they really are seems important.