Lake District Sports - Rock Climbing Grades

Climbing communities in many countries, as well as individual regions, have developed their own climbing rating systems. Ratings are a method to communicate or record the consensus difficulty of climbs. The more refined systems exist in areas where the routes have been ascended many times, by many climbers. Nevertheless, the perceived difficulty of a climb may vary from person to person, depending upon individual strengths and weaknesses. For a climber very good at pulling on large holds, for example, a 5.11a "jug" route will probably seem a little easier than it would for another climber whose specialty is balance-climbing on small holds.

There are three considerations that are commonly addressed by a rating system:

How hard is the hardest move? (pure technical difficulty).

How sustained is the route? (how much stamina you need to climb the route).

How dangerous is the climb?

Hiking, Bouldering, Roped free climbing, and Aid climbing all share these factors to one degree or another.

Many existing systems deal only with one or two of the factors cited above - some emphasize the technical difficulty, some the endurance. Other systems (such as John Gill's "B" system) are partially based on the number of ascents the climb has had. The result is a complicated situation in which comparison of climbs from one region to another--particularly if the types of rock differ--can be tenuous. Go to the main article for details of the various systems, and a comparison chart.

Just for good measure there is one more scale to remember. A scale for how much time a route typically takes to complete.

Types of Rock Climbing