Bewildering, subjective, unnecessarily complex, just plain mad! All of these insults have been leveled at the British grading system for traditional (trad) rock climbing. I run rock climbing courses in the UK and abroad and have grown up from a young age steeped in the world of trad rock climbing and my aim in this blog is to give you a brief overview of the basic rules governing the UK traditional rock climbing grades.
Without a doubt the British system is a difficult but necessary beast to get your head around when you start on your trad rock climbing journey. In my opinion it is rather beautiful in its execution and really sets itself apart from almost all other rock climbing grading systems in the depth of information it provides to the climber.
Having a clear understanding of how it works is essential for helping you progress your trad rock climbing and make good decisions around which route to choose to give you the right space to push your grade. Getting it wrong can lead to a confidence knocking experience or worse…
The UK trad rock climbing grading system boils down to two separate elements which when combined tell you a story about the route you are planning to climb. This alongside the route description and the view of the route from the ground come together to provide key information and clues to the strategy you might adopt, the gear you might take and the mental and physical fitness you will need to overcome the challenge.
Element 1 - The adjectival grade - This part of the grade is in the form of a word or phrase which is often presented as an acronym or shortened form. For example Severe (S), Very Severe (VS) or Very Difficult (VDiff). This part of the grade gives you a huge amount of information on how serious and sustained the climb is. The adjectival grade gives you an indication of how well-protected a route will be and how sustained the climbing might be. The British trad rock climbing grades start at Moderate (M) and go through to Extreme 1-11 (E1, E2, E3 etc.). See the Rockfax grade table presented below for the full list.
Element 2 - The technical grade - The second part of the grade refers to the difficulty of the climbing itself. This is much more immediately understandable if you have come from a sport climbing or indoor wall background as it follows the same basic format of the french sport grading system. This presents itself as a number (3 to 7) and letter combination (a,b or c). For example 4a, 4b, 4c, 5a, 5b, 5c, 6a and so on. As a general rule these grades can be compared to the French sport grade difficulty by adding two grades. So, a British 5b becomes a French 6a, a British 6a becomes a French 6c. Whilst this is not a perfect comparison, it can give you a general idea of the difficulty if you are used to sport grades. It is important to remember that the technical grade only starts to be used after the 4th adjectival grade Severe (S), before this you only get the adjectival grade. See the Rockfax table below for a full list and comparisons to French grades.
These two elements on their own can give you lots of information, however, the true ingenuity of this rock climbing grading system really comes to the fore when you combine the two. Together, adjectival and technical grades start to weave a story which reveals a sometimes striking description of what to expect as you ascend. You can see this really clearly with the VS and E1 grades as examples. A VS 4c is a classic grade and you will find this to be reasonably protected with several moves of 4c climbing. However, if you bring that technical grade up a notch to VS 5a you are met with an altogether different proposition. This rock climb is likely to have just one or two moves of 5a climbing which will be very well protected at the crux, a safe but difficult climb. The same can be seen with E1 5c, this will be safe but have a short hard section of climbing as opposed to an E1 5a which will be poorly protected with easier climbing.
It is only through experience of climbing these grades that we will start to be able to understand fully what each one tells us and begin to use them to paint a picture of your climb. With this in mind it is really important to remember to build up your grade slowly and gain lots of experience at each one before moving on to the next. I would always recommend booking onto a rock climbing course to give you the best start in your rock climbing career, getting the foundations right is so important to facilitate smooth and quick progress. Stay safe and enjoy your rock climbing journey!
If you are looking to learn more and would like some exceptional instruction on British trad rock climbing, get in touch to book a course or private guiding with me! I run Rock Climbing courses in Scotland, the UK and abroad.
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