Is the British E-Grade Broken? And Can an Algorithm Fix It?
This article originally appeared on Climbing
The British E-grade system is rumored to be one of the most sophisticated methods for classifying trad routes, yet it is also surrounded in myth, causing many new climbers to be baffled by its workings. The classic misconception is that routes with higher E-grades are always more dangerous, yet, in reality, the E-grade blends difficulty and danger in order to make an overall assessment. This means that you can have both safe and dangerous routes at all E-grades--or, to put it another way, there can be safe E11s and dangerous E2s. Such a formula is enough to leave anyone scratching their heads and feeling that the E-grade is sliding into the anals of history, which is why an experienced team of British trad climbers have joined forces to give it a reboot.
James Pearson, Tom Randall, Steve McClure, and myself, Neil Gresham, have collaborated with the software developer Reyt to produce eGrader, a calculator built on an algorithm which combines two inputs: the technical difficulty of a given route (using the French grade) and also its danger rating (by giving it "D-points"). Combined, this data provides a good idea of what E-grade a route should be given, without any cultural, regional, or emotional bias.
The system we're working to is the logical continuation of a model first proposed by John Dunne, a trad pioneer from the '90s who established many E8/9 routes on different rock types all over Britain. Dunne had the breadth of experience to identify trends between different regions as well as the skill to articulate the inner workings of the E-grade. Dunne's model was slowly adopted by many experienced British climbers and has more or less stayed in use to this day. The objective of the eGrader was to highlight Dunne's logic, which we believe to be lost, to some extent, and make it available even at the upper end of the E-grade scale.
Take a look at the eGrader for yourself and see how a route's difficulty and danger scales up and down in proportional increments; this helps us to understand how hard routes relate to easier and middle-grade routes. Previously, we've heard arguments that a "hard" route shouldn't receive an impressively high grade because it's objectively safe. But the eGrader aims to remove such a bias: If you argue that the inputs are set incorrectly for a hard route then you'd have to say the same for a classic mid-grade route too. You can't really have one without the other.
A further issue which the eGrader team has tackled is how the use of bouldering pads has affected the E-grade of highball-style routes. Historically, E-grades were always used on shorter gritstone routes and it's a simple fact that crashpads have made these climbs considerably safer. Employing the use of pads on such routes has spurred countless grade debates online. This issue seems unresolvable at a glance, yet the fix which eGrader proposes is relatively simple and logical. If we consider that one of the main tasks of the E-grade is to reflect danger, then the grade of high-ball style routes simply has to fluctuate (approximately) in accordance with the amount of padding used. This is by no means a precise science and the aim is to avoid endless tedious arguments about the exact number of pads used. Instead, the eGrader hopes to depict a general feeling. For example, a highball-style route might feel E9 without pads, E8 with two or three of pads and E7 with a huge pile of pads. This solution won't be satisfactory for those who want grading to be binary, but at the time of writing, it provides the last glimmer of hope that the E-grade can be resurrected for highball-style climbing. The debate will rage on as to whether highball boulder grades (i.e. a Font grade followed by an X) are better suited for this style; however, some of the routes concerned are exceptionally high and there is a feeling in certain camps that the E-grade should live on, if nothing else but for the sake of tradition.
On this note, quite a few climbers have queried whether the French grade alongside an R, X, or XX would generally be more effective than the E-grade in modern times. This is certainly a useful and effective system but it does something different: One of the nice things about the E-grade is that it allows routes of contrasting styles to be compared. For example, a very safe F8b (5.13d) and a very bold F7b+ (5.12c) might both be given E9, even though the experience of climbing these routes will be very different.
A secondary strand of the eGrader project was to highlight--and potentially debunk--what has been described as a log-jamming of the grades at the top end of British trad. As stated, all grading systems should rise in a consistent manner and yet when we look at the state of play with British trad we see the French grades correlating approximately to E-grades up to around E8 and then suddenly it flatlines after E9. As James Pearson explained on his Instagram:
"Over the last decade, we've had the distinct feeling that the E-Grade scale has become incredibly compressed at the top end. The hardest trad routes of the '90s were given E9, yet 30 years later the same grades are almost default for the hardest routes of today."
In support of this, many of the cutting-edge trad routes of today are considerably harder in terms of physical difficulty, and often with similar levels of danger. However, breaking into new grade boundaries has always been seen as a difficult step, and anyone who claims E10 is often greeted with scathing cynicism and if E11 is claimed then there's an uproar. Many trad first ascentionists have opted to keep their powder dry and grade more cautiously rather than being ridiculed. This also plays into the fashionable, conservative mindset which prevails in trad, as well as preventing the worst nightmare of any first ascensionist from coming true: that their route will be downgraded! If left unchecked, this trend will drift to crisis point and mean that hard grades aren't really allowed to exist. As Tom Randall explained: "Whilst sternly graded routes are not necessarily a problem, an unbalanced grading system is."
British climbers have seen this pattern of grade compression before and many of the hardest sport routes from the late '80s and early '90s have now gone up a grade. This is what happens when there is a relatively small number of players at the top of the pile, but as standards rise and more climbers enter the fold, it's the repeat traffic which levels things out.
There is now a feeling amongst many, but not all, elite British trad climbers that E10 should not be regarded as the cutting edge. E11 exists and has for some time, and E12 is also achievable by the most talented. When we look at Steve McClure and James Pearson's recent fast ascents of Lexicon (E11) in 2-3 days, then we see that these climbers can put their money where their mouths are. Routes like Echo Wall from Dave Macleod, Bon Voyage from James Pearson, and Tribe from Jacopo Larcher would all seem to fit the bill for E12 and it's notable that all of these climbers were reluctant to nail the E-grades of these routes to the wall.
The eGrader team felt that it was about time that people had some meaningful benchmarks to aim for. As Steve McClure said with aplomb: "What's the point in having grades if everything is given the same grade no matter how hard it is?"
The big question is how has eGrader been received by the community. It seems that the response has generally been positive and the majority of climbers have understood the motives behind the project were simply to provide a helpful free tool for the community. But some have cried foul and accused the team of trying to reinvent the grading system or somehow fix it to their advantage. Yet the team replied that they've simply helped to formalize the system that John Dunne proposed over quarter of a century ago. eGrader is not a for-profit venture, and, during its developmental stages, the team consulted with virtually all of the British climbers who've ever climbed E9/10. Additionally, many of the hardest routes in the UK were not put up by the core members of the eGrader team, but by climbers including Dave MacLeod, Franco Cookson, and James McHaffie, so if anything, the project stands to give deserved credit to climbers outside of its core group.
In short, eGrader is simply a grading table in app form, whose sole purpose is to prevent grades from being skewed one way or the other. Once you get your head round it there isn't really anything to dispute unless you believe sport climbing grades are a poor way to measure physical difficulty, or that the boundaries between the grades should not be equal. Grading always seems to be a highly emotive subject and, no surprise, some have taken eGrader a bit too seriously. This isn't about surrendering the control of grading to machines. The inputs still come from humans and depending on the inputs submitted, anyone can get the calculator to spit out whatever grade they wish. It's a tool to help us check our work and should be regarded as a bit of fun rather than "the last word." As Jacopo Larcher commented in an Instagram post: "Nice! It definitely helps the rest of the world understand the magic behind the E-grade. Helpful!"
There are some obvious flaws in the calculator which the eGrader team was the first to point out in a list of caveats (which we'd encourage all critics to read before getting in touch). For example, the eGrader often struggles to assess routes which have two contrasting halves: a dangerous section and a harder but well-protected section. We are actively working with the "Darth Grader" grading app to solve this and other issues in future iterations. As any experienced climber knows, grading will only ever be painted in shades of grey and anyone who is expecting perfection is in cuckoo land.
Fundamentally, eGrader has prompted some to question whether focusing on grading is healthy. But the eGrader team's view is that it's easy to roll out the classic sound bite that "it's the climbing that counts and not the grade." Climbers are the first to want to measure themselves and surely if we're going to bother using grades at all then the system may as well be vaguely accurate and representative. As a parting shot, the team have made a general call for tolerance when it comes to grading. First ascentionists usually operate in an echo-chamber, it's easy to get it wrong and this shouldn't be viewed as a mortal sin. If you've ever put up a new route yourself you'll know just how tricky it is to get it right!
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