Just a quick note on the philosophy of "grading" a climb. Every type of climbing has at least one, and often many, grading systems associated with them. Alpine climbing, tecnical rock climbing, freee climbing, bouldering, Aid climbing, ice climbing, all of it. It's odd to think of it. To reduce an entire Himalayan mountain to a sequence of numbers. To take a piece of weather beaten, ice age formed cliff and to trace lines and numbers on it. In one way these system serve a purpose. To within their limitations they let you know how to compare one route to another. 'I can do grade X here, that means that I should be able to do grade Y there'. On the other hand grades can lead to the most amazing amount of willy waving. 'Who can climb grade X +1, X + 2, can I? Does so and so mean X when he says X? I don't believe that thingy climbined Y, he only ever climbed P before, people in America don't understand system foo, their system is soft', and so on. Its OK to be interested in the grades you climb, its ok to to try to climb harder. To become happy with your climbing IMHO you need to learn a type of XP stocisim wrt climbing grades. The trick is to not take it too seriously. The chart I lay out is only for tecnical rock climbing, which is what I like to do, there are other system as I mentioned before, I hope some people add them to the node. I see some noders have made a start, YaY!
Here is a chart for comparing
climbing grades in different systems.
The v grade is the
Hueco bouldering grade, it is for
bouldering problems and not for climbs, but is included for comparison. I believe that problems as hard as v14 have been "pulled" but no v15, but I might be misinformed.
The UK has two grading systems that are used together. The adjectival system describes the entire route,
including danger, exposure, length, isolation, in general the feel of the climb. The alpha-numerical grade describes the single hardest move, the crux, of the route.
Two routes could both be 6a but the second route might have no gear and a fall would be potentially fatal, whereas the first route might have plenty of gear especially at the crux. In such a case the first route might be
E3 6a and the second E7 6a. To date the E system extendes to E11, there is only one climb of this grade.
In the American system the prefix of 5 indicates that the route can be climbed without aid but ropes and safety equipment is proabably required. An aid route is prefixed with a 6. A scramble the requires no equipment is prefixed with a 4.
French climbers are usually sports climbers, this is why the french system is purely alphanumeric. Often climbing walls in Britian will adopt the french system indoors as it has a larger descriptive range than the british equivalent. If you go to a climbing wall and suddenly find yourself climbing three grades harder this is likely to be what has happened.
+------------+----+----+------+-----+----+-----+------+------+----+-----+-----+---+---+-----+
|UK Adjective| UK | Fr.| USA | Aus.|UIAA|Belg | Pol. | DDR |Nor.|Swed.|NCCS | V |RSA|Czech|
+------------+----+----+------+-----+----+-----+------+------+----+-----+-----+---+---+-----+
| S HS | | | | 14 | 5 | D | V | | 5- | 5- | | | E | as |
| + | VS | 4b | 5a | 5.7 | | 5+ | sup | | VIIa | 5 | 5 | F7 | +---+UIAA |
| | | +----+----+------+ 15 +----+-----+------+ | | +-----+---+F1 +-----+
| + | HVS | 4c | 5b | 5.8 | 16 | 6- | inf | | VIIb | 5+ | 5+ | F8 |V0-|F2 | 6 |
| | | | +----+------+ | 6 | TD | VI | +----+-----+-----+V0 +---+-----+
| | | E1 | 5a | 5c | 5.9 | 17 | 6+ | sup | VI+ | VIIc | 6- | 6- | F9 |V0+|F3 | 7 |
| + | | +----+----+------+ 18 +----+-----+------+------+ | +-----+---+---+-----+
| E2 | | | | | - a | | 7- | inf | VI.1 | VIIIa| 6 | 6 | |V1-|G1 | 7a |
| | + | | 5b | 6a | b | 19 | | | | | | | F10 | +---+-----+
| | | +----+----+ 5.10 +-----+ 7 | ED | VI.1+| VIIIb+ 6+ | 6+ +-----+V1 |G2 | 7b |
| | E3 | | | | c | 20 | | | | +----+ | +---+---+-----+
| | | | | | 6b | + d | 21 | 7+ | sup | VI.2 | VIIIc| 7- +-----+ F11 | |G3 | 7c |
| | | E4 | | 5c +----+------+ +----+-----+------+------+ | +-----+V2 +---+-----+
| | | | + | | | - a | 22 | 8- | | VI.2+| IXa | | 7- | +---+H1 | |
| | | | E5 +----+ 6c | b | 23 | | | | | | | F12 |V3 +---+ as |
| | | | | | +----+ 5.11 +-----+ 8 | inf | VI.3 | IXb | 7 | +-----+---+H2 | |
| | | | | E6 | 6a | | c | 24 | | | | | | 7 | |V4 +---+UIAA |
| + | | | to | | 7a | + d | 25 | 8+ | | VI.3+| IXc | 7+ | | F13 |V5 |H3 | |
| | | | E9 +----+----+------+ +----+ +------+------+----+ 7+ +-----+---+ | . |
| | | | | | | - | - a | | 9- | | VI.4 | Xa | 8- +-----+ |V6 +---+ |
| | | | | | 6b | 7b | b | 26 | | ABO | | | | | F14 +---+I1 | . |
| + | | | | | + | 5.12 | | 9 | | VI.4+| | 8 | 8- +-----+ +---+ |
| | | | +----+----+ c | 27 | | | | | | | |V7 | | . |
| | | | | | - | + d | | 9+ | | VI.5 | Xb | | 8 | F15 +---+I2 | |
| | | | | | 7c +------+-----+----+ +------+ | 8+ | +-----+ +---+ |
| | | | | 6c | + | - a | 28 | | | | | | | |V8 | | |
| + | | | +----+ | | | | | Xc +----+ | F16 +---+ | |
| | | +----+ 8a | b | 29 | 10-| | VI.5+| | 9- | 8+ | | |I3 | |
| + | | | | 5.13 | | | | | | +-----+-----+V9 | | |
| | | | + | c | 30 | 10 | | VI.6 | | | 9- | +---+ | |
| | | +----+ | | | | | | | |F17 ?| | | |
| | | 7a | 8b | + d | 31 | | | | | 9 | | |V10+---+ |
| | | | +------+-----+----+-----+------+------+ | | | | | |
| | | | + | - a | | | | | | | 9 | +---+ | |
| | +----+----+ | 32 | | | | | | | | | J | |
| V | | 8c | b | | | | | | 9+ | | |V11| | |
| | 7b | | 5.14 | | 11 | | VI.7 | | | | | | | |
| | | + | c | 33 | | | | | | | +---+ | |
| +----+----+ | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | 7c | 9a | + d | 34 | | | | | | | |V12| | |
+------------+----+----+------+-----+----+-----+------+------+----+-----+-----+---+---+-----+
My How thigs change, Sharma has climbed a route considered to be 5.15, last year in France called
Realisation, it climbs an extenstion to an existing climb realisation. In bouldering several V15 problems have been sent by the likes of
Fred Nicole,
John Gaskins and others.