Grades

[cbcbd]

You can't compare the Gunks to Index. You don't get splitter cracks and corners in the Gunks without having some face holds or horizontal ledges. If you find a vertical crack it probably will be shallow, quick, and dirty.

 

I still also compare grades to Gunks' grades because that's where I started climbing and its what I'm used to from the start. The only detriment to this is that when I get to a softer rating area (ie. Squamish) I am reluctant to get on 5.9s because 5.7s in the Gunks would have me shitting my pants.

 

But all this is irrelevant. Just visit a crag and start climbing and find out how the grading works there. If you want to compare it to the Gunks or whatever your home turf is then go ahead... anything to help your brain understand.

 

Gunks is good practice for roofs, face, and elitism about other crag's ratings.

 

[counterfeitfake]

Yeah, I do find climbing is scary.

 

And having only climbed a couple of dozen routes in Washington, will not really know answer to question.

 

OBVIOUSLY never from you guys. One can but guess why not..........

 

Dude, I don't know what the problem here is. You just told us that the North Ridge of Stuart is like a 'Gunks 5.3 and that the West Ridge of Forbidden is like a 'Gunks 5.0. We all think these are dumb apples-to-kiwi fruit comparisons. I don't think being solid on 'Gunks 5.3 prepares you to climb Stuart.

 

I've never been there, but a quick look shows an awful lot of low-fifth class routes. If you guys really know the difference between 5.2 and 5.3, then yes, I'd say you do something different from us over here. Washington 5.0-5.5 is all low-fifth to me.

 

Yes, if the hardest pitch on Stuart's easy N Ridge were magically teleported to New York within walking distance of a parking lot, it would probably wind up with a lower grade.

 

No, I do not think "the guidebooks are wildly imprecise." It's rare that I encounter a case where I think the book is more than a letter-grade off. When you grade an alpine route by the hardest single move on it, it's obvious that you're going to end up with something that is overall easier than a crag route at the same grade.

 

I think it's also obvious that on an alpine route there are a hundred other factors that can make the route seem easier or harder than what the book says. That is the nature of alpine climbing.

 

Yes you're getting flamed. You asked for it!

[RJRiha]

Comparing Gunks climbs to alpine climbs is a silly exercise at best. I'd be more interested to how they compare to our crag testpieces, specifically routes like Classic Crack, Canary, Godzilla, Deception Crack, etc...

 

I'm personally heading to the Gunks later this year, so I'll be interested in how the routes compare to our crags.

 

If this tool can climb 5.10 at the Gunks though, I can't image they can be TOO sandbagged....

[video:youtube]

[cbcbd]

Comparing Gunks climbs to alpine climbs is a silly exercise at best. I'd be more interested to how they compare to our crag testpieces, specifically routes like Classic Crack, Canary, Godzilla, Deception Crack, etc...

 

I'm personally heading to the Gunks later this year, so I'll be interested in how the routes compare to our crags.

 

If this tool can climb 5.10 at the Gunks though, I can't image they can be TOO sandbagged....

I agree. Even in WA you can't compare alpine to crag ratings.

 

BTW, in the Swain book the Dangler is a 5.9... the MP consent was 5.9+.

 

I haven't felt Index ratings yet, but right after climbing some routes at Castle Rock (the first area I climbed after I moved) this is what I thought it felt like compared to Gunks grading:

-The Fault 5.6

-Catapult 5.7

-S Face Jello Tower 5.7+

-Midway chimney pitch 5.5

-Midway Direct 5.4/3

-Canary 1st pitch 5.7+

-Canary 2nd pitch 5.7

 

Not many/any clean vertical cracks at the Gunks, but if you want to compare I'd recommend getting on Laurel and Ken's crack - two classic 5.7s in and near the Uberfall area.

 

Have fun, its a great crag with 100s of routes. Make sure to go to Bacchus in downtown New Paltz for a wider selection of beer.

 

Oh yeah... I know they are a love/hate thing, but tricams can come in useful there - shallow pockets and horizontal cracks.

 

 

 

 

 

[Off_White]

Yeah, I do find climbing is scary.

 

And having only climbed a couple of dozen routes in Washington, will not really know answer to question.

 

OBVIOUSLY never from you guys. One can but guess why not..........

 

No wonder you get kicked to the curb with your arrogant east coast crap. Stay back there in your crowded corral, I assure you no one out west will miss you.

[Off_White]

Oh, but please keep lobbying your east coast legislators regarding refusing funding for repairs for Washington forest roads, we all love that kind of ignorant blabber from you right coast jerk offs.

[dirtysloper]

Index is soft.

[JayB]

This is guaranteed to irritate and create flames. So in a sense, am merely a troll asking for abuse but...

 

In the Shawangunks, I've climbed a fair number of .7s and a few .8s. Irritatingly hard stuff. (Actually my routine leads have been in pitiful .3-.4 range, which one can do on a craig but maybe not wisely in mountains.)

 

Guidebooks call N.ridge Stuart (easy version) a .7 and W. ridge Forbidden a .4, both of which I've followed and would rate them maybe .3 and .0 by Gunks standards.

 

I dimly remember "Beckey Route" on LB is maybe a .4 by Gunks rating, and is officially a .6.

 

Reasonably well-accomplished and athletic climbers find these distinctions trivial, yet they are made.

 

My guess is ratings in Washington guidebooks are wildly imprecise, often, compared with intensively climbed Gunks. Maybe this is most true at the low end of difficulty, but I certainly wouldn't know.

 

Whole class 2-4 thing (unknown in Gunks) seems hopelessly sandbagged and nearly meaningless. (Some ambitious and well-meaning hikers might be killed by misreading a "class two" WA guidebook rating.) I have zero confidence that I understand the published class 5 ratings.

 

 

I can't offer any insight relative to the Gunks, but if climbs at a given grade there really are that much more difficult than climbs pretty much everywhere else, then when it comes to alpine routes in the Cascades, there are probably special cases where you could systematically downgrade the technical rating by the factor that you have proposed and have a relatively low probability of finding yourself hopelessly out of your depth as a result.

 

In my mind, those cases would be most heavily trafficked trade-routes, that have been getting climbed dozens of times every season, by folks from around the country, and which have been more or less continuously re-evaluated and perhaps re-graded for the past thirty years or so, and for which it's possible to get something close to move-by-move micro-beta. In prime summer conditions.

 

Apply that same method to remote routes that are seldom repeated, have rock of indeterminate quality, and for which the prime reference is a short entry in one of the Beckey volumes and the probability that the applying the "Gunks Veteran Auto-Downgrade" (GVAD) will result in an experience that's profoundly humbling, at best, becomes dramatically higher. I don't know from experience, but I suspect that applying the GVAD to routes that include the name "Doorish" in the FA citation, as well as some other key surnames*, is particularly likely to result in an experience that'll be as unfortunate as it will be memorable. That's in perfect weather.

 

Not sure that answers your question in full, but I hope you find it helpful.

 

*Maybe some folks will chime in with other helpful suggestions concerning FA surnames, routes, and/or mountains/ranges that are best avoided when employing the GVAD.

[counterfeitfake]

Are there glaciers in the 'Gunks? I've never been there.

[Rad]

Ratings schmatings. This perennial debate is boring, particularly when people feel that the so-called hardest rated area is somehow the most valid. Why is no one arguing that the so-called easiest area is the most valid? The answer = ego. It's all about your ego. Get over yourselves.

 

If a route is rated 5.9+ and it kicks your ass does that make it cool? If the same route is rated 11a will your griping about its soft rating somehow diminish its quality? It's the same freakin route! Just shut up and climb your 60m.

[genepires]

right on brotha!