Scrambling Grades

"-- Paul --" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Can someone direct me to a website that details scrambling grades and what
they mean please?
I've tried to google without much success.
Thanks

Try here. http://www.outdoorsmagic.com/news/article.asp?UAN=1375
remember google is your friend

"-- Paul --" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Can someone direct me to a website that details scrambling grades and what
they mean please?
I've tried to google without much success.
Thanks

don't know any sites, but heres my vew, and there's many many different
views of the grades, so be warned:

Grade 1. Using hands mostly for balance up steep sections of rock.

Grade 2: Steep rock and using hands for holding, also much more exposed
sections.

Grade 3. Moderate rock climbing, Usually, the inexperienced my need the
confidence of a rope.

Grade 3S. Difficult climbing, ropes recommended for most normal people ;-)

Cheers

Jhimmy

Thanks Guys.

"Jhimmy" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"-- Paul --" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Can someone direct me to a website that details scrambling grades and
what they mean please?
I've tried to google without much success.
Thanks

don't know any sites, but heres my vew, and there's many many different
views of the grades, so be warned:

Grade 1. Using hands mostly for balance up steep sections of rock.

Grade 2: Steep rock and using hands for holding, also much more exposed
sections.

Grade 3. Moderate rock climbing, Usually, the inexperienced my need the
confidence of a rope.

Grade 3S. Difficult climbing, ropes recommended for most normal people ;-)

Cheers

Jhimmy

"-- Paul --" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Can someone direct me to a website that details scrambling grades and what
they mean please?
I've tried to google without much success.
Thanks

Scrambling grades? To be honest there is no such thing in the UK unless you
mean a moderate climb. Quite a few years ago someone did try to grade them!
But to no avail.

I'd suggest having a look at climbing guides. Probably, nowadays when I
climbed they are graded as scrambles;-)
--
Craven and Pendle Birds:
Bird watching in and around Craven & Pendle.
North Yorkshire and East Lancashire.
http://craven-and-pendle-birding.org/

The message <[email hidden]>
from "C R Fishwick" <[email hidden]> contains these words:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Can someone direct me to a website that details scrambling grades
and what
they mean please?
I've tried to google without much success.
Thanks

Quoted message said:

Scrambling grades? To be honest there is no such thing in the UK unless you
mean a moderate climb. Quite a few years ago someone did try to grade them!
But to no avail.

Oh but there are. Every writer of scrambling guides will use a grading
system and those I have come across show some similarity to each other
even if they are not necessarily consistent within the same book
reflecting as they do a rock climbers opinion of what is and is not easy
which may not fit with what a walker thinks at his or her limit.

Quoted message said:

I'd suggest having a look at climbing guides. Probably, nowadays when I
climbed they are graded as scrambles;-)

Easy (Jacks Rake, etc.) has long since ceased to be a rock climbing
grade and most modern climbers would think it beneath their dignity to
be seen on a Mod or even a Diff with a rope which may be why some
scrambling grades venture into that territory. Relying on climbing
guides however might be misguided. I doubt if many guide book editors
have bothered to test the lower grades when they bring out a new edition
and the routes that might appeal to the scrambler as being less exposed,
gullies and the like, were put up at the start of the climbing era and
may still be graded for nails, not rubber soled boots or sticky shoes
which would be worse than useless on the green and wet rock generally
found in gullies.

--
Roger Chapman
Nearest Marilyn still to be visited - Great Orme.
89 miles as the crow flies,
considerably more as the walker drives.

Roger said:

Easy (Jacks Rake, etc.) has long since ceased to be a rock climbing
grade and most modern climbers would think it beneath their dignity to
be seen on a Mod or even a Diff with a rope which may be why some
scrambling grades venture into that territory.

Fair comment. It must be remembered that a low trad grade reflects
exposure as well as difficulty, and some technically simple scrambles
are /fearfully/ exposed. I've done the Inn Pinn several times, but I've
always used a rope and been glad of it, though it is "only" a scramble...

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

The message <[email hidden]>
from Peter Clinch <[email hidden]> contains these words:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Easy (Jacks Rake, etc.) has long since ceased to be a rock climbing
grade and most modern climbers would think it beneath their dignity to
be seen on a Mod or even a Diff with a rope which may be why some
scrambling grades venture into that territory.

Quoted message said:

Fair comment. It must be remembered that a low trad grade reflects
exposure as well as difficulty, and some technically simple scrambles
are /fearfully/ exposed. I've done the Inn Pinn several times, but I've
always used a rope and been glad of it, though it is "only" a scramble...

I think I have been up the Inn Pinn 5 times and on one occasion I was
almost persuaded to solo it but my brave leader insisted we carried our
sacks so we roped up. We needed the rope anyway to ab off.

IIRC Jacks Rake is probably harder technically than the Inn Pinn
although ISTR the hardest bit is at the top and is avoidable. :-) I have
however done JR only once and that was some 50 years or more ago. I went
back to do it again some time around 1970 but the queue at the start was
so long that I walked round Pavey Ark instead.

--
Roger Chapman
Nearest Marilyn still to be visited - Great Orme.
89 miles as the crow flies,
considerably more as the walker drives.

"Roger" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

The message <[email hidden]>
from "C R Fishwick" <[email hidden]> contains these words:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Can someone direct me to a website that details scrambling grades
and what
they mean please?
I've tried to google without much success.
Thanks

Quoted message said:

Scrambling grades? To be honest there is no such thing in the UK unless
you
mean a moderate climb. Quite a few years ago someone did try to grade
them!
But to no avail.

Oh but there are. Every writer of scrambling guides will use a grading
system and those I have come across show some similarity to each other
even if they are not necessarily consistent within the same book
reflecting as they do a rock climbers opinion of what is and is not easy
which may not fit with what a walker thinks at his or her limit.

Quoted message said:

I'd suggest having a look at climbing guides. Probably, nowadays when I
climbed they are graded as scrambles;-)

Easy (Jacks Rake, etc.) has long since ceased to be a rock climbing
grade and most modern climbers would think it beneath their dignity to
be seen on a Mod or even a Diff with a rope which may be why some
scrambling grades venture into that territory.

Good God, your are older than me;-) JR! Classed as a climb in the 1930s at
the latest;-)

Quoted message said:

Relying on climbing
guides however might be misguided. I doubt if many guide book editors
have bothered to test the lower grades when they bring out a new edition
and the routes that might appeal to the scrambler as being less exposed,
gullies and the like, were put up at the start of the climbing era and
may still be graded for nails, not rubber soled boots or sticky shoes
which would be worse than useless on the green and wet rock generally
found in gullies.

I disagree! If any route is in a climbing guide, scramblers should give it a
wide berth;-) At the best of times;-)

--
Craven and Pendle Birds:
Bird watching in and around Craven & Pendle.
North Yorkshire and East Lancashire.
http://craven-and-pendle-birding.org/

"Peter Clinch" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Roger said:

Easy (Jacks Rake, etc.) has long since ceased to be a rock climbing
grade and most modern climbers would think it beneath their dignity to
be seen on a Mod or even a Diff with a rope which may be why some
scrambling grades venture into that territory.

Fair comment. It must be remembered that a low trad grade reflects
exposure as well as difficulty, and some technically simple scrambles are
/fearfully/ exposed. I've done the Inn Pinn several times, but I've
always used a rope and been glad of it, though it is "only" a scramble...

It's not a scramble at all! Don't please say that, I noticed it's in
inverted commas "" It's just the exposure if you look in the wrong
direction:-0
But to be honest anyone who is used to climbing would think b*ggar all of
it;-) Classed as a Moderate in most guides! Although quite a few climbs on
that ridge are similarly graded:-(

--
Craven and Pendle Birds:
Bird watching in and around Craven & Pendle.
North Yorkshire and East Lancashire.
http://craven-and-pendle-birding.org/

The message <[email hidden]>
from "C R Fishwick" <[email hidden]> contains these words:

snip

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I'd suggest having a look at climbing guides. Probably, nowadays when I
climbed they are graded as scrambles;-)

Easy (Jacks Rake, etc.) has long since ceased to be a rock climbing
grade and most modern climbers would think it beneath their dignity to
be seen on a Mod or even a Diff with a rope which may be why some
scrambling grades venture into that territory.

Quoted message said:

Good God, your are older than me;-) JR! Classed as a climb in the 1930s at
the latest;-)

Don't know about our comparative ages (I will be 63 next month) but
Jakes Rake was still classed as a climb in the 50s. I have the FRCC
guide to Great Langdale with a reprint date of 1958 and JR heads up the
list of classified climbs although the text calls both JR and the other
listed Easy useful means of descent.

I did JR in 1958 (or shortly) thereafter together with my father and
older sister. I think it must have been 1958 as JR is highlighted in
Book Three of Wainwrights guides. My copy is a Third Impression bought
in the summer of 1958.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Relying on climbing
guides however might be misguided. I doubt if many guide book editors
have bothered to test the lower grades when they bring out a new edition
and the routes that might appeal to the scrambler as being less exposed,
gullies and the like, were put up at the start of the climbing era and
may still be graded for nails, not rubber soled boots or sticky shoes
which would be worse than useless on the green and wet rock generally
found in gullies.

Quoted message said:

I disagree! If any route is in a climbing guide, scramblers should
give it a
wide berth;-) At the best of times;-)

Steve Ashton suggests in his preface to Scrambles in Snowdonia that the
rock climbing limit "ought not to exceed Moderate or Just Difficult". I
don't have the appropriate guide but I am sure Pinnacle Ridge on St
Sunday Crag is a Mod that is treated as a scramble.

--
Roger Chapman
Nearest Marilyn still to be visited - Great Orme.
89 miles as the crow flies,
considerably more as the walker drives.

The message <[email hidden]>
from "C R Fishwick" <[email hidden]> contains these words:

Quoted message said:

I've done the Inn Pinn several times, but I've

Quoted message said:

always used a rope and been glad of it, though it is "only" a scramble...

Quoted message said:

It's not a scramble at all! Don't please say that, I noticed it's in
inverted commas "" It's just the exposure if you look in the wrong
direction:-0
But to be honest anyone who is used to climbing would think b*ggar all of
it;-) Classed as a Moderate in most guides! Although quite a few climbs on
that ridge are similarly graded:-(

And some.

Gordon Stainforth in his "The Cuillin" (the best route description of
the Main Ridge I have come across) divides his classification of the
tricky bits into 2 parts. W - 3S is the extent of the scrambling
section. The rock climbing section goes from RI (Easy - Moderate) to RIV
(Hard V. Diff - Severe).

Stainforth has the Inn. Pinn. as RI as well as An Stac just below which
I never had any trouble soloing. My bete noire has always been the steep
climb up to the TD gap (RI). The first time a tried that I had to have a
top rope and subsequent ascents always left me almost gripped. Further
on there are indeed several more sections of RI but also RII, RIII and
RIV although the RIV can be bypassed by a marginally easier alternative
without a separate grade. Recognised rock routes apart the bypass to
that RIV (Basteir Tooth to Basteir) is the only other place I have
needed a top rope and one year I even soloed that. (Incidentally I don't
agree with some of Stainforths RII, RIII and RIV gradings. Outside of
that bit on Am Basteir and the 3 recognised harder rock climbs I don't
think there is anything much harder than Mod on the Main traverse
although I don't know what the approach to Gillean is like now the
Gendarme has gone.)

--
Roger Chapman
Nearest Marilyn still to be visited - Great Orme.
89 miles as the crow flies,
considerably more as the walker drives.

C R Fishwick said:

I disagree! If any route is in a climbing guide, scramblers should give it a
wide berth;-) At the best of times;-)

Not so! The traverse of the A-Chir ridge on Arran is in the
climbing guide for a start, which is a classic scramble. Not for
the faint of heart, but not requring rope and gear either.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

Peter Clinch said:

C R Fishwick said:

I disagree! If any route is in a climbing guide, scramblers should
give it a wide berth;-) At the best of times;-)

Not so! The traverse of the A-Chir ridge on Arran is in the climbing
guide for a start, which is a classic scramble. Not for the faint of
heart, but not requring rope and gear either.

Oh, hang on, I seem to have an irony-meter malfunction... Must be
the date cocking it up...

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/