You know what Jams My Cams? What grade is that, really?

Before, I laid out my opinion on the “actual” grade of a climb.  I think it ought to be the statistical mean, the average of everyone who has climbed it experiences.  That puts it somewhere on a spectrum, and we as humans have hacked that spectrum up into pieces we can assign names to.  For you statistics nerds, thats trying to turn a continuous function into a discrete one, for the rest of us, lets call it ’rounding’. Not that different from other spectrum problems now is it? Where along the visible light spectrum does green end and blue begin?  You ask 10 people, you get 10 answers.  Unfortunately, unlike climbing, the wavelength of light is objective and measurable, and the bluegreen threshold is 495nm according to the science folks.

Now, there are certain people, and places out there on the interwebs, that seek to ‘objectify’ climbing.  As if coming up with a concrete, repeatable, measurable way by which to classify the difficulty of a climb will somehow legitimize our sport. I mean, how else are you going to decide who is objectively “the best” or is having a “world record” year?

As I see it, there are a number of persona that appear when grading:

The Inventor: Don’t like the grade scale of the day?  Make up your own! I’d write more, but its all summed up here better than I ever could.
Notable Users: John Gill, John Sherman, your buddy George who’s scale is “If I can do it, G1, if I can’t, G8”

The Modest Spiritualist: Don’t grade your climbs. If anybody asks, “It was hard”, the media will fill in the rest, for better or worse.
Notable Users: Chris Sharma 2000-2010, modern era Fred Nicole, your buddy who is too stoned to read the guidebook

The One Drop Rule: Pretty easy – whatever the lowest grade is that has been proposed, that’s the grade. A half dozen people call it V15, and then one person says V14, sorry folks, the downgrade is the word of law. Whoever gave the downgrade is obviously more brave and humble than the other 5 repeaters who were content to lie to themselves and take the higher mark.
Notable Users:  I was going to take this space to take out Jens over at 8a, but I’ll be honest, he’s getting better (recently).

The Brave and Humble and Respected: If you have a history of climbing really hard, and you don’t cause too much drama by sniping at others, you can say what you want. If it feels easy for you and you downgrade, you are humble in admitting that you won’t take high marks for something you don’t feel you’ve earned, and you’re brave in standing up to the grade deflators. If you upgrade, especially as one of the first to the next level, you’re brave because you know there’s an army out there ready to smack you back down.
Notable Users: Adam Ondra, Jimmy Webb, your local icon

The Southern “Sandbagger”: Let it be noted I really respect the man I am about to reference, and I don’t think he is a sandbagger at all, since he tells you how he grades outright; not based on onsite attempt, perfect conditions, intimate knowledge of the problem from previous ascents, and based on suggestions of folks who prefer whatever style the problem is (crimps, slopers, etc). Also, if you don’t like it, he won’t take it personal if you take whiteout to the guidebook.
Notable Users: Adam Henry, anyone who first started climbing south of Chattanooga

The Archair Climber AKA The Worst Person: Me. And you. And anyone else on the internet really. Yes, we can all parrot how our favorite pro-climber weighed in on a given climb, and slander opinions that contradict it up or down. But lets be real clear here, you’re doing just that, quoting somebody else. You don’t get to have your own personal opinion on how hard a climb is unless you’ve done it. If you could, you may as well feel entitled to weigh in on all the other things you’ve never experienced, like exactly how great moon gravity is.

There are probably more that we forgot to mention.  If so, please talk about them in the comments!

-Justin Mesreve, just might be all of these and then some.