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wednesday, march 3, 2010

Bouldering grades: Everything is average nowadays I decided to write down some of my thoughts on bouldering grades,

since a lot has been happening during the last years in the bouldering

world. This sort of conversation still seems to be some sort of a taboo in

the climbing community, so I am prepared to receive a lot of negative

reactions, but I feel like this is a really important topic to discuss.

I'm going to start from the beginning of this

whole mess. In the year 2000, 8C (V15) grade

first got introduced to bouldering, when Fred

Nicole did the first ascent of Dreamtime and

proposed a never before seen grade of 8C for it.

Soon it became known as the standard for 8C in

the climbing media. That was 10 years ago. Still

to this date, most of the cutting-edge boulders

being put up are 8C. To most, this means that a

decade passed and we have not progressed at

all.

Sometimes things are not how seem. There has

been huge progression difficulty-wise in bouldering. What happened is

deflation in the grading scale. Dreamtime being set as the 8C standard

(by the media), other hard problems are being put up and since

Dreamtime is the 8C standard (and the only problem of that grade in

the world) they get graded based on Dreamtime. New Base Line gets it's

first ascent and marks the upper end of 8C. Time goes by, more hard

problemsgetputupandgradedbasedonthesestandards.Andthen,BOOOM! After Dreamtime gets enough repeats, turns out it is actually

not 8C, but only 8B+. Same thing with New Base Line, which marked

the upper end of 8C, it turns out to be 8B+ also. This is were it all

started to go wrong.

Dreamtime, the problem that started it all.

In 2005 Dave Graham makes the first ascent of The Story Of Two

Worlds and decides to call it the new standard for 8C, even though he

could have proposed 8C+ as it was harder for him than anything else at

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the time. Instead, Dave chose to use it as the 8C standard and make

some sense to the chaotic grading scale. Today, there is a lot of variety

in the upper-scale grades, simply based on these double standards,

because some problems are still graded based on the old standard,

while other problems are more reliant on Dave's standard.

Story of Two Worlds, in Cresciano, Switzerland

I have repeated at least five boulder problems that were originally

graded 8C or even 8C+, and have now been downgraded by a grade or

two. And the list goes on. Actually, most of the proposed 8C's or 8C+'s

have been downgraded and many of the ones that have not, are still

unconfirmed. The issue here is that a few people (like me and Dave

Graham for instance) are still trying to define the 8C grade (which I

personally think is still the cutting edge) while rest of the climbers do not

necessarily realize the the grade deflation, that has been going on for

some years now.

Here are a few examples:

- Dreamtime downgraded from 8C to 8B+

- New Base Line 8C (hard), downgraded to 8B+

- The Never-ending Story in Magic Wood was originally called 8C+, now

downgraded to 8B+

- El Techo de los Tres B's, downgraded from 8C to 8B

- Banshousha, supposedly the hardest slab in the world - downgraded

from 8C to 8B

- Memento, downgraded from 8C+ to 8B+ (and according to many still

deserves a downgrade)

- Amandla, downgraded from 8C+ to 8B+

- Terremer in Hueco Tanks, downgraded from 8C+ to (soft?) 8C

- Ode to the modern man, downgraded from 8C to soft 8B+

- Kheops assis, downgraded from 8C to 8B+

and the list goes on...

I see this

trend

repeating

itself year

after year

and there

seems to be

no end to it.

Why do so

many

problems

keep getting downgraded? Why are so many problems overgraded in

the first place? The media is adding pressure for professional climbers

to strive for new grades, since bouldering grades have been stalling or

even on the decline for years. An 8C first ascent is not necessarily that

newsworthy anymore, after all that grade was climbed already 10 years

ago.

Last June I did the first ascent of

Livin' Large in South Africa. It is

by far the hardest boulder I've

climbed so far, a lot harder than

any 8C that I have climbed in the

past. Does that mean that it is

8C+? Maybe, just maybe. Does

that mean that I should grade it

8C+? I don't think so. Why do we

always have to shoot high first

and then wait for the downgrade.

Why is it never the other way

Could Be Worse

Nalle Hukkataival Ninja Skills (8B+) FA

PURE - A Bouldering Flick by Chuck Fryberger OFFICIAL TRAILER

ROCKLANDS: Black Diamond Climber Nalle Hukkataival visits South Africa's famed boulders

Nalle Hukkataival bouldering in Maltatal

around? I graded it 8C because I

feel certain that it is at least 8C.

If other people feel like it's

harder, they can upgrade it. Why

do people always choose the

egotistical approach to these

things instead of "playing it safe"?

Furthermore, I think Livin' Large equals in difficulty with The Story of

Two Worlds, the stiff standard set by Dave Graham back in 2005,

defining the standard further.

The previous standards failed us and sent the highest grades to a down-

ward spiral. This time we tried to set standards that are very likely to

hold their grade. A solid foundation for the grade is what we need to

correct the situation and that also means lots of downgrades. This is

where it gets hard, because often people can take it personal, when

their biggest pride gets downrated. The few people who actually put

themselves on the line and try to make a change for better, get a bad

name for criticising other people's ascents or more precisely the grades.

Grading climbs based on the new-school standard can mean getting "left

behind" so to speak. In the world of professional climbing, that can be a

big risk to take.

It is too easy to keep

quiet and go with the

flow, but where will

this lead us in a few

years?Already,thegrading scale is so

chaotic in the upper

end, that sometimes

I'm not sure if it's

even salvageable

anymore, especially if

we start basing an

entirely new grade on

the "standard" set

right now.

Like I said before,

there are not many

people out there trying

to fix the current situation, before jumping to a new grade. If others do

not approve on this standard that we are trying to set and grade things

based on a slightly different scale, that's totally fine with me, but in that

case our problems need to be potentially re-graded. Who sets the

grading scale, is the question here. I totally agree, that we need to

move up on the scale soon, but I'm not sure if the necessary (big) step

has been reached yet and further do we want to base a new grade on

such a chaotic "foundation".

The fact is, that there is still no clear standard for 8C. We can all be

throwingout big grades and flashy numbers and get on magazine

covers, get better sponsorship and then a few months later watch our

problem getting downgraded. The irony here is that a downgrade rarely

makes the news and one would not necessarily get discredited for what

he claims to have done.

I see lists of

the hardest

boulders in

the world

and in reality

there is a

three grades

alternation

between different problems, all categorized under the same grade. This

almost makes me want to start a new grading scale. Another important

thing is, that grades should be openly discussed, not kept quiet.

Although, most grade related conversations on internet forums are

usually quite pointless, I think there are people who are in certain

situations qualified to state their opinion about a grade, without

necessarily completing a climb.

In

conclusion,

grades are

only

estimates,

personal

opinions of

the difficulty

of a climb.

People make

mistakes,

that is how it

will always

be. But how does it happen that 99 percent of the time, the mistake

happens to be giving a HIGHER grade, very very rarely lower.

Especially with upper-scale boulder problems, comes a fair amount of

responsibility with the grading, because when the problem becomes a

standard of some sort, a test-piece, it can and will affect the grading of

many other climbs.

Grades are only a very small and quite unimportant part of climbing, but

why do we even bother with the grades, if they really mean nothing?

sreengrabs:www.8a.nu

posted by nalle hukkataival at 7:48 pm labels: 8c, bouldering, grades, v15