V grades, Font grades, British adjectival and/or technical grades, there are a number of different ways of grading the difficulty of a particular piece of rock. V grades are sometimes used in conjunction with a technical grade but sometimes not, f grades change depending on whether they're used for bouldering or sport climbing, H grades instead of E grades, Peak District B grades and Yorkshire P grades. Confused yet?
Starting climbing in the Lake District I got used to using a system that has two parts, the first part indicates how a climb feels and the second part gives the grade of the hardest individual move. This may seem quite confusing when starting out but it actually gives a lot of information that you wouldn't get from other systems. Lets take for an example two climbs, one graded VS, 4a and the other VS, 5a. In general the first will be easy but bold, the second harder but safe. This is perhaps a little over simplified but using this information in conjunction with the route description you'll have a good idea of what your going to encounter and how the climb will feel before you leave the ground. On larger crags this works really well but the problem comes when this is translated to smaller climbs.
Over to the NYMoors and to Scugdale where most of the rock is between 4 and 8 metres high. I'll use Scugdale as an example because it's a well known spot and is similar to many NYM venues. Many of the climbs here are a bit short for leading and most people climb here without a rope. Although completely different to Lakes multi-pitch the climbs were graded using exactly the same system. Even though these are two very different experiences I still found the two-tier system useful, the adjectival reflecting more in the height and the landing. I think this is why you find strange grades like VS, 5c and HVS, 6c here. I always considered what I was doing here as soloing, I didn't use a bouldering mat and so regarded even a 3metre climb I could hurt myself on as a 'route'. It's the risk factor that mattered here, you could take a bouldering mat and climb an HVS, 5a above it but now it's a 5a boulder problem as you've removed some of the risk. In the last few years bouldering mats have become more and more prevalent and having bouldered more myself recently I certainly see the attraction in concentrating purely on the movement of the climbing and trying harder grades without the fear of pain if you fail. It is though, a completely different game.
Most of the recorded routes in this area will have been climbed before bouldering mats, some small routes with good landings were given just technical grades as these were probably considered low risk 'problems'. Recently many new routes climbed above mats have been recorded on the moors and the people who did these 'problems' chose to record them with a different grading system, even though this wasn't in keeping with other routes and problems in the area or even on the same crags, the font grade. I understand that these first ascentionists perhaps regarded this as a superior grading system and perhaps they had used this a lot in other areas prior to visiting the moors but I see this as akin to me giving an American 5. grade to a new climb at Stanage just because that's my personal preference. Anyway, these grades stuck as some active climbers on the moors started grading there problems in the same way and discovering new bouldering venues that now solely use the font grading system thus giving us a bit of a mishmash that was confusing to me. I have always seen bouldering as a way to improve my trad climbing / soloing and as such wanted my bouldering to be relevant to my climbing, this new system seemed to take away from that.The main difference between the font and 'normal' adjectival grades seems to be how many levels of difficulty there are in each system. The font grade has more, thus there is a smaller difference between each level. Difficulty can be a very individual concept, dependent on your height, strength, balance, preference for different types of rock and techniques. and therefore with time and feedback a consensus can be reached on what the grade of a particular climb is for the average climber. With more expansion of the numbers there will be a greater discrepancy between how hard individuals find the climbing and thus general agreement on the grade will surely be harder to come by.
With this in mind there currently seems to have been a decision made by the 'collectors and distributors of route information' to not only accept font grades for new boulder problems (would they accept B or Japanese grades?) but also to convert older problems and short climbs from UK tech to font. This is not just happening at Scugdale but many of the moors venues where bouldering occurs, Bridestones being a prime example. The problem I see with this is: Who has decided upon the grade? I aren't sure they are so easily converted meaning they may well be wrong as no consensus has been reached, whereas with the old grade it has had a long time to settle down. I personally did a new problem last year that I graded using the 'normal' system and although, to the best of my knowledge, it has seen no repeats yet it has still been converted to a font grade. My only source of information with my preferred grade system will now be the old, out of print guidebook.The decision to change the grading system I think has been made rather quickly. I feel like a consensus may have been reached between a small group of the more active climbers in the area without the input of the majority. Have we been a bit rash? Is this the 'thin end of the wedge'? Other areas have retained the UK tech grade for bouldering, it's been in use for quite a long time. Perhaps it is because I am not climbing the harder grades, but then again what percentage of climbers are? I would say I am fairly representative (ability wise) of the average climber. Who knows, perhaps this change will turn out to be a good thing. In a years time, when I'm more used to using this system, perhaps I'll be a convert. Watch this space.
So this is part of the current changing state of moors climbing and it will march on it's merry way whatever my thoughts are on the subject. Perhaps I'm a little old fashioned and stuck in my ways. Some new guidebooks to the area will be appearing soon and I will of course be buying them even though they will be full of font grades but that doesn't mean I can't have a moan about it.
Over and out.
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