Back To Britain!

British climbing is never boring. Sometimes you don't have to be actually even climbing. Web-talk, slanging, arguing and debating- I've been abroad for a week and it's all happening, but luckily some save their talking for the crag.

At the moment it all seems to centre around grades. The "E" grade, Britain's beloved brainchild, but now some are having the audacity to suggest that it may be flawed. Jens Larssen (the father of 8a.nu) has written about the fact that many foreign climbers see a big grade like E12 and think F9b. And why wouldn't they? The Rockfax grade comparison table suggests that E12 is this level of difficulty so if it was safe then maybe it would be F9b? But what if it is certain death, physically how hard would the climbing have to be then? What about if it's a two move boulder problem 50 feet up, what grade then?

I've often thought that the "E" grade is flawed at the upper end. For me it makes perfect sense in the majority of cases up to say E6/7 but then t starts to get confusing.  Take E7 6c. Well... how hard is the climbing physically? Is it F7c with good gear? F7a with death consequences but only one hard move? A short well protected boulder? Does the "E" grade tell us enough? Maybe it isn't supposed to. After all it is a system built upon the spirit of adventure, the unknown and the on-sight! Oh, the on-sight. So what happens when the first ascent is after repeated top rope practice? Well, the usual thing is for the route to then be given a proposed grade for an on-sight. But does that proposed grade reflect what a prospective repeat ascender is likely to find? Well, maybe but maybe not! 

Basically, my feeling is that at the upper end the "E" grade becomes confusing-  it's confusing for Brits who are familiar with it, never mind foreigners who are coming to crush our so-called test-pieces in super quick time. So maybe a new revised rating? Jens may have been questioned for his audacity at suggesting we change our system when the pesky foreigner has no "real" knowledge of it but I have to say that in this instance he speaks a lot of sense. Okay, he may not be the best person to suggest it, but others have also suggested it before him. To me the US system (eg 5.13a x/r) which gives an indication of the difficulty (physically) and the danger or lack of it is pretty good. Yeah it's not perfect as it doesn't take into account the sustained nature (or lack of it) or if it is a bouldery crux but easy below and above, but then perhaps nothing is going to be perfect and anyway, there's nothing wrong with a little uncertainty. Don't we like adventure?

There's nothing wrong with change, things move forward and evolve and we should all be open to suggestions of it. Perhaps it's a good thing when a group of foreigners come over and tear our crags to pieces, realising that E10 is not F8c+ on shit gear, but actually quite attainable. It doesn't take anything away from the first ascent when someone ground-ups a route that has previously been only head-pointed, it's just positive evolution. It helps to enrich climbing. New attitudes, new styles and surely new motivation for our climbing communities.  It's about time more climbers from abroad came to taste our wonderfully diverse brand of rock-climbing. The routes are great and  the climbers who climbed them deserve recognition but it doesn't mean we always know best. 

The questions are complex and the answers remain unclear but I'm sure the debate will always continue! Hopefully it might even fire a few of us up to get out and climb. We've seen what is possible- let's evolve!