anyone notice that people griping about grades are older and primarily past their cranking prime??
Having just come back from a relatively fresh event, with young , energetic, motivated cranking climbers, ratings weren't even an issue...in fact they weren't even rated...and no one gave a shit...
and then, you take a climber like Ben, accomplished at both well protected trad, scary trad and hard sport, and well, guess what, he doesn't really care anyway...
funny thing, all this hairsplitting, the actual rating is + or - a couple of grades one way or the other...big f-ing deal...
and...some areas really have their own rating scale (ie, ex 38) and gee, pretty much everyone figures that out and moves on with it...