Hi,

I climbed at King Kloof this weekend (That place is really stunning) and we did a difficulty rating 15 (called Three wise men) and 17 (Angel of mercy). What does that mean and how do the ratings work? I tried googling it and always get people explaining ratings like 5.8, 5.10 etc

And also, are the ratings for indoor walls more different than for on real rock. The reason I ask is because a friend that went with me said that he did an indoor wall a couple of years ago and they told him it was a 17 difficulty, which he finished with relative ease, but the 17 we did this weekend he was not able to finish the last part (arms gave in )

I will be honest, I struggled on the Angel of Mercy (17) and made it to the top with one fall. Is this considered a pretty easy climb or for a beginner something I can be proud of?

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No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. 1 Corinthians 10:13

Climb ratings in SA range between 8 and 34. The higher the number the harder it is supposed to be, although its very subjective. Read some of the previous discussions. Abroad Sharma has put up some routes at a grade as high as 38. 17 is very much a entry level grade. Indoor climbs are graded the same but the fact that you can see the next hold makes things easier.

The SA grading scale is an open ended scale, there is no top end to the scale, 34 is the grade of the most difficult route opened in SA as yet. The scale begins at 1, which would be walking on the N1 and goes up from there. From around 10 it is considered a good idea to use a rope. The grading is a reflection of the difficulty of the route and is usually arrived at by consensus (lots of people climb a newly opened project and give it a grade, eventually it is settled on). There is subjectivity around this however, some people will find a given route much more difficult than others (taller people usually find face climbs easier, shorter people are better at overhanging climbing etc). Some routes will be 'more difficult' than another route of the same grade because they are sustained (consistent difficulty) rather than having a 'crux' (easy climbing, hard move, easy climbing again) but because routes are graded by the most difficult move (and not average difficulty) they will have the same grade.

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Happy climbing
Nic

Yo ironclimb,

Be proud! If you and your mate (who both sound new to the sport) got out there, roped up and climb to completion on a route or 2... you rock!
This is where it starts... the rest is up to you....
17 is considered an entry level climb although not a 'walk in in the park' for a beginer, especially if there is no one else with more experience around to guide you along.
Being outdoors always adds an element of "the unknown" wether it be with regards to the type of rock/ hold, exposure or even just the approach walk. But as we all know, this is where it's at!

Let us know when you open SA's first 35.....

That makes sense. Thanks guys. Maybe with a few more climbs I will be able to scale something a bit more difficult.

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No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. 1 Corinthians 10:13

@ Ironclimb:

A more interesting question to ask is: how does the community ensure a consistency in grading to ensure to don't get on what the guide book calls a 16, but your forearms call a 22!

Grading is one of the eternal debates of climbing: treat what you read in the guide as a best guess, don't get upset if the odd 17 defeats you, might mean the grade is wrong, or the route stiff for the grade.

hope my bad grammar helps!

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Sandbagging is a dirty game

Thanx Proze/ Paul....

Ok... the first 36? Or is there on of them too?

Didn't Adam say Mazawattee was 8c+?

Which is 35...

Depends who's table you looking @...

We use the Ewbank grade scale, like the Aussies, but we're off by about 1 grade. So our 35 is their 34 is the French 8c+ is the American 5.14c.

Here is a Sport Climbing Route Grade Conversion Table on Climb ZA
Gustav doesn't like it and I can see why.

I could replace it with the one below? Thoughts please?

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Climb ZA - Administrator

I prefer the old system, it's much easier:

Blah
Can't be bothered
Damn easy
Easy
Fair
Gnarly
Holy shit!
Insane!
Jy joke seker

Haha Shorti! I prefer your scale!

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No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. 1 Corinthians 10:13

I don't like your suggested alternative Justin, it makes the Aussies look two grades more hardcore than us! That Ukrainian system looks a bit rough though. It looks like you could spend your whole life dreaming about sending 6B, and when you finally do, you know that's likely to be as good as it'll ever get!

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...Chalk is cheap...

We go through this quite frequently...

Is it simply a 1:1 ratio?



18 6a
20 6b
22 6c
24 7a
26 7b
28 7c
30 8a
32 8b
34 8c
36 9a

Simple is better...

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I hate this real world place... I'd be more than happy to live out there rather...

So where does the bouldering V1-V12... system fit in?

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Happy climbing
Nic

i like brian's suggestion. the irregular band widths are confusing and the french grading system is the basis everybody knows. we should simply calibrate to that. might have to downgrade a few 24s to 23 (6c+) but en large i think we are pretty much there in any case.

Hang on...

By my understanding the basis for the French and the Ewbank scales is different. The French system takes into account the relative OVERALL difficulty of a climb (eg a sustained 23 and one-move-wonder 24 both end up as about 6c+), this allows crux at start vs crux at end vs multiple cruxes to be differentiated. The Ewbank system takes into account only the HARDEST move on a climb.

If there is no difference between the methods to acheiving the grade (ie there is a one-to-one mapping) perhaps we might as well use the French system (okay okay I know the Ewbank system has historical traction here). It seems to me many of the top climbers do this anyway (see brian's aritcle).

This discrepancy is likely what leads some international climbers to feel some of our grades are soft. If the SA-Ewbank is set at 35 because there is one 35 move and many 32 and 33 moves then the French might call it 8c+. Similarly if there were a whole load of 34 moves all strung together with shrimps (shitty-crimps) as rests but no stopper 35 move the French would STILL call it 8c+. I have no idea what the case is on Mazawatee.

I personally find that both sets of information are useful to me. Thus I like it when my guidebook says 22-sustained. To me it says the hardest move you must be able to do is 22. It also tells me that if 22 is my absolute max in terms of moves possible I am going to work VERY hard for the send.

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I don't think, therefore I'm Not

Just to add on to my original question, what do the 4 stars behind the rating mean as well as the 6B and A?

e.g. taken from Route Wiki "Kings Kloof (Gauteng)", TURN OR BURN (17M) 23**** [6B+A] S

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No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. 1 Corinthians 10:13

The starts are a subjective quality rating (out of 5) - hence a 4-star route is well worth the effort and should be pretty memorable. The star rating of a route can also give you an idea of how sustained it is. Most 4 & 5 star routes tend to be fairly sustained and pumpy as there's nothing like a few resting ledges to ruin the flow of a route.

6B+A means there are 6 bolts on the route, excluding the anchors. So you'll need at least 8 quickdraws + 2 more if you're cleaning.

Niels, the answer to the last part of the question is in the Kings Kloof route guide.
In the case of Kings Kloof, the 'S' means there is a safety bolt added. A safety bolt is used to either anchor the belayer down to keep the climber from decking/falling too far or to keep the belayer from falling down a cliff or boulder.

Please let this not become a habit... putting bolts in the floor for the belayer. Seriously, if that's a problem for you, you need to ask someone to show you how to belay properly. Let's not try and turn sport crags into gyms.

Is there is a good grade aggregator for climbing in SA?

What I am looking for is a website where you can log what you thought the grade of a route is, and view what other people thought the grade was.

www.8a.nu nearly does this but does not add the average grade up. Also it the interface is clunky.
www.ukclimbing.com/logbook is really good. The map feature is really nice and displays the consensus grade.

There is also the SA route guide wiki (www.climbing.co.za/wiki) which is very good but does not do really work as an aggregator.

Is there a better one for SA?

A guide book is usually a good indicator of what the consensus grade is.

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Happy climbing
Nic

8a,nu is the only place, as grade is a general consensus. Do remember that a dude 6ft guy climbing 30 isnt gonna find the same problems in the route as a 4.5ft girl climbing the same route. This is why THE GRADE IS NEVER WRITTEN ON THE ROCK. Everybody has their own ups and downs, judging is all about perspective.

ebert

Paul, Andrew and I started something in Google Docs a while back. I can't remember where it went, I don't think much ever came of it. It was a basic Excel doc that was publicly shared with crags and routes in the rows and person's name of ascent in the columns. You could then add your opinion of the grade at the intersecting points.

We should really start that up again. Maybe post it here in the wiki somewhere...

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I hate this real world place... I'd be more than happy to live out there rather...

The trick would be to not explicitly bring the grade into it: rather have people rank routes in order of difficulty.

An aggregator could then create an overall ranking list that best explains the individual rankings. (Some maths + programming.)

This would stop people from being anchored by the commonly-held bizarre notion that the given-grade is somehow an inherent property of the route rather than a guidebook. And would also remove the emotional issues people seem to have about grade inflation and so forth --- as the obfuscating notions of grading hard/soft, sandbagging, appeasing girlfriends with cheap grades &c &c would disappear.

Lastly you'd fit grades to the overall ranking list to create a much more objective estimate of grades.

You could also see which routes varied the least/most in terms of opinion of difficulty and all sorts of stuff like that.

Garron, I'm sure you could implement something like that.

mayb stop climbing grades, climb the beauty of the route.
why worry about grades when a 11year old girl (Ashima Shirashi) can sport climb harder than anybody in this country?

ebert nel
Im SANDBAGing EVERYTHING I 1st ASCENT TO force people to climb harder:D