Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Climbing, But Were Afraid To Ask

[rydra_wong]

This is a post where you can ask all the questions you're always wanted to ask about climbing, whether you've already started or are just beginning to think about maybe possibly kind of giving this a try.

Or maybe you've been climbing for decades, and have always wondered about that one thing, and by now it would be OMG TOO EMBARASSING to admit you don't know.

No topics are off-limit, no questions too clueless, so let rip and get answers from demi-n00bs experienced climbers.

Comments

[cofax7]

On edit:

Okay, so the numbers are indicators of degrees of difficulty. In the US, we use three different measures for difficulty, depending on the type of climbing. These measures reflect steepness of the face (including potential overhanging), number of possible holds, and usefulness of those holds.

1. Bouldering (like Rydra does) uses a V scale, going from V0 (easiest) to V10 (hardest). I've never seen anything harder than V10 at the gym, but I'm sure they exist outside. In the gym I attend, V0 is roughly equivalent to a 5.9 or so, maybe an easy 5.10. But the routes tend to be steeply overhanging, with multiple difficult moves linked together.

2. Free-climbing, like you see when people are roped up and either climbing bolted routes or setting their own protection, use what is called the Yosemite Decimal System. You start with a system of classifying hiking/scrambling, where flat ground is Class 1, easy uphill walking is Class 2, etc, up to Class 5, which requires the climber to be roped for safety because if they fall they can die. Class 5 was originally broken into ten subcategories, so you could climb 5.1 to 5.10, and 5.10 was The Hardest. The grade is generally set to reflect the difficulty of the hardest move in the routes (the crux), although it may score higher if there are multiple difficult moves.

Of course, what happened after the YDS was established (in the 1930s, according to Wikipedia) is that climbing technology improved--new shoes, new ropes, better protection--and we could safely climb routes that couldn't be climbed before. So now the YDS goes up to 5.15 IIRC.

Most indoor climbing starts at about 5.3-5.5, which are basically ladders on a straight-to-slightly-sloped face. Nowadays, I spend most of my time on 5.9s and 5.10s, and because this is common for a lot of climbers, the 5.10s are sub-categorized into 5.10a, 5.10b, 5.10c, and 5.10d. Same with 5.11s, not so much with 5.12s. I've never seen anything harder than a 5.12 at an indoor gym.

Sometimes there will be an added note in the guidebook indicating the risk of injury if you fall: the one to worry about is "X", which basically means there are spots on the wall where if you fall, you will hit the ground and very likely die.

3. Aid climbing, which is big-wall climbing where you actually use the ropes to pull yourself up the wall, uses a different system, looking at the requirements for specialized gear and the possibilities for protection placement. A0-A5, where A5 involves the potential for a fall of 20 meters or more.

Finally, the YDS is not universal; the British and French both have their own systems, and the Australians also have one. So when I climbed in Thailand I got to know the French system, possibly because the first international climbers there were French? I dunno.

This Wikipedia page has a pretty good overview/explanation of the rating systems, and a very useful comparison chart at the bottom.

[rydra_wong]

I've never seen anything harder than V10 at the gym, but I'm sure they exist outside.

I think I've seen a V11 at the place where I climb, but it was only after they'd had someone very high-powered guest-setting.

Outside, the current hardest problems in existence are V14s and V15s, with a very few possible V16s. But only a tiny handful of people in the world climb at that level.

ETA: thank you for pitching in!

[jumpuphigh]

I was watching a vid today of Sharma working a bouldering problem that apparently had never been sent and when he finally did it, he said something along the lines of "if I was to rate that, I would give it a V15 but I am not going to rate it." I both laughed in amusement at his "it really doesn't matter what it's rated cause it was H-A-R-D! attitude" and boggled at the idea of V15.

[sophinisba]

Thank you and rydra for explaining this. I've been watching the comm for a while but was always disconcerted by the V-talk and was afraid everything I'd learned about 5.8s and 5.9s was wrong. :D I'll feel more confident joining in now.

[jumpuphigh]

I've also seen bouldering problems labeled 5.7/5.8 which is nice for those of us who find the V's more than a little intimidating.

[gchick]

Thank you - this is all fascinating; I love all the systems that have tried to say "no climb could *possibly* ever be harder than a... oh, wait, never mind. 15c++x it is!"

[pellucid]

As I posted the other day, my gym recently hosted the MEC Canadian Bouldering Championships, and they kept a couple of the problems from that up--including one of the men's problems that no one sent during the comp (though rumour has it that a couple people have sent it since--I haven't seen it). It's insane, with two different crazy dyno moves and impossible holds, and rather than rating it, they've marked it "VHARD!" But if I had to wager a guess, I'd say it's more than V11, though certainly not to the V14 range. Maybe a V12? It's definitely the hardest problem I've seen indoors, though.

[ilanarama]

I would also like to add that trad (outdoor) climbing is really a different animal from indoor sport climbing, because indoor climbing is all face climbs and features on overhangs, and can't replicate real rock features such as cracks and chimneys or factors such as exposure, sustained length, and multiple pitches. (Although it's been a long time since I've been in a gym - maybe someone has made a hugely tall wall that requires multiple pitches!)

Someone who can face climb 5.10d might be stymied by a 5.9 crack, for example. And I remember passing a slow party on a high-elevation six-pitch 5.8 and suggesting that they bail, being told the leader was a 5.11 climber, and later finding out that they got stuck and ended up rapping down, leaving gear, and spending a miserable night in a gully as the weather came in. Turns out he was a 5.11 gym climber.

Finally, ratings are generally consistent in a single climbing area, but often widely vary from place to place. Older, historic areas may have been rated when 5.9 was the hardest; I remember climbing the "5.6" Durrance route on Devil's Tower in Wyoming, first ascent in 1938, and it was HARD. (I just did a quick google and see that it's now thought to be 5.7, with one 5.8 move...)

(Oh, and one correction to the comment above - the rating system used to be 5.0 to 5.9, not to 5.10. Because it was the decimal division of grade 5. Grade 6 was aid climbing - of course this has been replaced by the A system.)