I was at 'boven the other day and after warming up on 'Monster' I sent 'Jabberwocky'. I was expecting to have to put up a fight to get it, but it was easily 2 grades easier than the guide had said. Has anyone else noticed this too? I also climbed 'Lotters Desire' and found it to be more of a 25/6 than anything else.

I'm also concerned about 'Snapdragon' being over-rated. I climbed this route about a month ago and it is nothing more than a 27.

With the rock rally so close now, surely these routes need to have their grades adjusted? Perhaps the whole of 'boven's grades should just go down 2 points?

What do you guys think?

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\"What one leads on-sight, in good, strong style, safely, is what one's ability is.\" - Pat Ament.

Are you a local or foreigner?? (you hold on extra tight from climbing on polished grips

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Climb ZA - Administrator

Ja, that is why we make a 2 grade adjustment on the handicaps for the Roc Rally.

You must be a purist like me (not using chalk) because I have been doing laps on Jabberwocky the last couple of weeks and did not notice any chalk?

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Gustav
Roc 'n Rope Adventures
Waterval Boven
013 257 0363
rocrope dot com

What is your name oh Holy One???

Drol! .... umm, I mean Troll!

Mr 8a hope to see you put your words into action at the rock rally.

True, well, I'm not much of a chalker, but I got the route on my second go, so I did brush off a lot of the holds after my first try. So you are doing laps on this route? Impressive! This will surely make you very strong
Gustav, from the looks of your posts, you seem like quite a local at 'boven. Maybe we can get together some time for a bit of a barbeque and trade tips & beta?


Hi Snowflake, I would have loved to have taken some of the prizes at the Rock Rally this year, but luckily for those competing, I'll be back in the US for a few weeks.

So to sum up then, are 'boven's grades soft? IMHO, Yes, they are.

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\"What one leads on-sight, in good, strong style, safely, is what one's ability is.\" - Pat Ament.

I second Jonos call on this oke, either a troll or the most arrogant arse to ever grace our humble webpages.

YAWN!

Hey 8a_climber

Sorry, I don't really socialize much... (well, not as much as my wife does!)

BTW: what do you mean let's have a bit of a barbeque?

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Gustav
Roc 'n Rope Adventures
Waterval Boven
013 257 0363
rocrope dot com

If Boven grades are soft I am interested to hear your views on the rest of the country and more to the point, the US where you supposedly hail from. What is the area you base your grading opinions on?

Hi Steve, I've been off and on in South Africa for a couple years now, and I've climbed most of the spots here. I would say that the Cape trad climbing is pretty much on par. Places like the mine are a little soft for the grade, but not as much as 2 grades. Outshorn [sp?] had some good climbs, they were on the grades as well.

To answer the second part of your question, we have so much climbing in the US, too much to mention just one area, but if you try any hard route at Smith Rock, American Fork Canyon, Rifle, Rumney or Red Rocks you'll quickly see what I mean. Is it because SA climbers are using the Ewbank grading system? I feel it could be. If you ever get up to New Hampshire and climb at Rumney, you'll not be able to do an 8a if that's your limit in SA.

I feel another reason your country has softer grades is due to the fact that you guys were so isolated from the rest of the world until 1995. The rest of the world was collaborating, conversing and working at climbing together, while you guys were probably just amongst yourselves, probably following and imitating the strongest climbers you had, which by world standards was not very strong. Quite possibly, your grading problem is related to these climbers' egos. It's really quite understandable in a country that had nothing (a friend told me that at one point you didnt even have a McDonalds here!). This can easily be rectified by just downgrading all the climbs in SA by 2. This has worked really well in other places that were isolated, like th Czech republic.


Hi Gustav, all I was meaning was to have a friendly meeting where we could share tips and beta. I'll bring the 'borevors'. Hope you're still keen. Are you in 'boven a lot? Maybe we can meet there some time when we are both up there?



XMod, I really do take offense to you calling me names like this. What kind of person are YOU to say things like this about a person you dont even know? I really hope the moderator/s of this forum step up and protect those who are trying to be constructive and objective here. You need to grow up and learn to speak to people in a proper fashion.

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\"What one leads on-sight, in good, strong style, safely, is what one's ability is.\" - Pat Ament.

he aaaaaaaa dude don't take the name-calling personal. there are a bunch of 5 year olds on this forum who will start calling you names if they don't agree with you. just smile and scratch their heads.

we might take offense at your observation that a country is isolated if it does not have a macdonalds though. there was a time when people here was a lot less overweight than in the US.....

point taken re the grading - our grading sustem is not the same as in Australia, generally about 1 or 2 grades down for the equivalent. that might explain the apparant overgrading. check out the grading chart on this website. but grading is alwasy subjective isn't it?

cheerio
mok

I think 8a is Johnny_Knoxville that made a comeback under a different name.

The reason he finds our grades so easy is because of that helmet I bought him - he never turned off the \"Jet Assisted Take-off\" feature.

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Live fast, die young & leave a good looking corpse

at least when we, in our country, take part in a sporting event mentioning the word \"WORLD\" we actually have other countries competing in it ...

and when our primary school kids are shown an atlas they can point to countries other than their own nine times out of ten.

Barbeque = braaivleis. Except the yanks flame-grill their meat, and don't slow cook over coals like we do. Most of their beer is poor. Anchor Steam (San Fran microbrew is good though).

FWIW I dropped a grade when I went to yosemite, but ironically did my highest ever on site trad flash on my last day. So maybe some of the US grades are soft???

Of course you make like Tim Fairyfield and refuse to grade any of your climbs/boulder probs.


On another note...
BTW climbed at Stanage (UK) this weekend and it most certainly was not closed to climbing. There were loads of people on it.

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\"When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you\". - Oom Nietzsche

I wish we still never had a Macdonalds.

\"It's really quite understandable in a country that had nothing (a friend told me that at one point you didnt even have a McDonalds here!).\"

THE McDonalds is not a measure of having nothing, but not having THE Americans is a measure of having everything.

I think you posed the poll question in a way that shows you want confrontation, not debate - no one can disagree without "admitting" that they are not up to your standards, which is indeed arrogant.



Thank goodness we don't have oil.

As far as 8a's concerned and if he's an American, agreed, although I still think he's posing. He's probably from Bapsfontein or something

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Live fast, die young & leave a good looking corpse

Guest, Drifter, Johny Knox, 8a - they are all the same person ie Justin.....

My imagination is not that vivid!
The only duplicate there is Guest and Jonny Knox. Drifter is for real. No idea about 8a

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Climb ZA - Administrator

I've spent a bit of time climbing around the US and France, and found grading to vary quite a bit from area to area. Compared to the New River for instance, places like Red Rocks and the Front Range are really soft. Also, when it comes to trad, all of North Carolina climbing is one big sandbag. My general feeling is therefore that some areas in the US are on par with the SA grade conversion, whereas some are easily 2 grades off.

Grading systems therefore only seem useful for comparing climbs during a trip to a particular area, be it while traveling around the US, Europe, SA, wherever. Just forget about what number grade you climb back home and enjoy the new places for what they offer. I for one mostly remember what my tips felt like around a good cup of java.
Grades, who cares!

I think Justin will be running a serious risk of being made Justine if it's found out that he's the man behind Johnny & Guest




Good advice. A mere mortal like myself uses it as a guideline to see if I have any chance in hell to finish it otherwise as you said, who cares?

I bet 8a_climber drives a really big car too....

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Live fast, die young & leave a good looking corpse

He's just another troll, check how defensive he gets when you take a poke at him.

So MR 8a if youre so hot post up your name and your 8aNu ID so's we can check youre for real.

oh please do not let this \"not for real see how much reaction i can get\" thing become cool. what a waste of everybody's time......

Well said man, well said indeed.

--A

Fully Ma-can-jetski, at least his word count is still higher than ours!!

At least his 'A country without Mac Donalds has nothing' was quite good. Its a pretty typical yank conception that material things define reality. Completely ignoring scenic wealth, cultural diversity, artistic and design integrity, technological ingenuity etc etc

@XMod, you South Africans are a funny bunch! I just found it funny your comments, that's all. I'm sorry to inform you that I have not yet registered with 8a website yet. I just climb for fun in any case and certainly don't need a website to pat myself on the back. I like to just go out and climb a route. Be it an 18 or a 33. I know you all would love to have a dogfight about the US or whatever, but I just dont have the energy for this. Have some respect though, I didnt throw any names at anyone, now I'm a wanker and a yank? You people are unreal. It's no wonder the rest of the world has tried to make it really hard for you lot to live in our countries.

ps- I do have a car, but it's a small Uno, so, sorry to bust your bubbles all

Have a great day and happy climbing to everyone!

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\"What one leads on-sight, in good, strong style, safely, is what one's ability is.\" - Pat Ament.

Surely the 'hard boys and girls' from the Rock & Road trip will inform the greater climbing community as to any grades that require adjusting?

p.s. Arjan de Kock Flashed Snapdragon (the update with pic's will go up later tonight)

p.p.s. Guest's username was banned from this forum a while back because of a distasteful pm that he sent to another user.

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Climb ZA - Administrator

An Uno? I don't think so!

Ladies and gents, we have a poser in our midst.

Howsit 8a - \"The holier than thou\" attitude is great / american (its always difficult to decide the difference isnt it). Leave the political agenda and the s%$t stirring off the site. Personally that MacDonalds chirp was a blatant attempt at a reaction and then you act surprised you got one - rather go out and use your energy on that 33 - whoever you are