Climbing Rating Games

OAN! regularly receives queries from climbers who are frustrated, confused and dazed with the never ending number of climbing grade conversions. History shows that climbing was practiced in small communities worldwide, many of which developed their own systems for evaluating the difficulty of any given route. Eventually, these communities coalesced their systems under national umbrellas.

As national borders are ever decreasing in significance and climbers begin to interact and travel on a more global scale, converting one system to another becomes increasingly important.

To add to the confusion, consider that each climbing niche has its own rating system. You can hardly rate a 15,000-foot climb the same way you rate a 7-bolt climb at the local crag or a two or three-pitch ledge. So the average All-American climber -- knows and loves the Yosemite Decimal System -- who runs across an A, VS, 4B, VI+, or even a 2A, probably wonders who took the time away from climbing to create these crazy rates. After all, what exactly does all them fancy numbers and letters really mean?

Climbers everywhere would like to give there input on developing the ultimate system for rating climbs. Blow is an example of a rating chart we found online.

In the end, does anyone really care about ratings? Often times the ratings are very subjective and often times inaccurate, even within one system. For the most part these numbers are only general guidelines -- look them over, then forget about it and go get in the Great Outdoors!

The Climbing Rate Chart