Dude Where are the Grades?

How we Grade New Routes

Whenever we do route setting – routes won’t be graded for a while.

• This allows us to collect feedback from all climbers.

• Once we have an average for the grades we then publish them on the Vertical Life app – and add the teardrops on the wall

During this period of review, which could be as long as 3 weeks we review the grading.

Why Grading delays?

Grading is subjective – no one will ever agree on what grading should be for a given route/problem.

Lately due to an increase in traffic and changes in setting we’ve taken as a policy to delay publishing of grades in order to accumulate as many opinions as possible.

The purpose of leaving new routes untagged is to capture the enjoyment of a route without any comparison or pressure. Too many times we get fixated on a grade, or a number at the detriment of exploring new routes because they are deemed too 'easy' or too 'hard'.

How will this work?

1. Once route setting is done – we are not putting any grades for a week on the walls themselves,

2. However, we do offer a grading option on the Vertical Life app

3. After one week: we publish a grade in the form of a range – 4-5/5-6/6-7/7+

4. After 3 weeks we publish on the wall the aggregate grade