"Obligatory" grade rating for optional aid climb vs free

[MelwinQ]

Many routes in the Alps have a routing scheme like "6a (5c+obl.)", meaning that it is 6a when climbed completely free, but the crux may be circumvented by pulling some bolts or easy aid (sometime also specified with an extra A-rating). Is there already a way how this can be fit in the current scheme?

[scd]

There is always more with grades :)

Business rules question: Do we want this obligatory rating to be searchable and in index view, or do we just want the system to be able to parse the grade and correctly identify 6a, with the rest of the grade just being visible in the grade contribution.

[MelwinQ]

Indeed, grade issues area bottomless pit. However you decide, it would be nice to cover these special cases in the help text, so the user knows how this should be treated (in fact, I think it is already mentioned there). Currently, this help text for grades is very extensive with lots of details, that may not be strictly necessary to know in the moment I enter the grade, perhaps it could be streamlined a bit.

[theSCRAG]

I'm for it :-) Please note that obligatory rating is used with UIAA and french grade in the alps - also e.g. "8 (6 obl.)" I think that the system should be able to parse correctly the syntax and deal with main grade. The obligatory rating don't have to be searchable and so on. It should only shown on route details.

[killakalle]

+1 This is also used in the Pyrenees in Spain.

Examples:

• Tozal de Mallo, VÍA RAVIER. 390 M. 6ª+ (V+ Oblig) https://www.pirineosur.es/noticias/escaladas-en-ordesa-ravier-al-tozal-del-mallo
• Tozal de Mallo, Kharrum (400 m, 7b+, 6b+/A0 obl).

Oftentimes the A grade is omitted for the obligatory part. I have the impression then it automatically assumes A0. At least you see that in some topos.

[killakalle]

The obligatory rating don't have to be searchable and so on. It should only shown on route details.

I would hear more opinions on this before deciding. In fact, I do think it would be quite valuable if you could filter by obligatory grade. The nature of these routes is oftentimes that they were first climbed e.g. some 50 years ago. It was perfectly fine then to aid certain sections. It may be only years later that some strong climber with better equipment is able to free an old classic line and give it a free grade.

For a big portion of climbers the free ascent of the route may be way out of their league. However, if they can do the mandatory sections, e.g. 6b+ instead of 7b+ they would be able to climb the route. Hence, while searching for routes, it would be really helpful if you could choose between the two, e.g.

• only free climbing
• consider also obligatory aid

[killakalle]

To illustrate the problem. Take for example Montanejos, a crag with lots of multi-pitch routes. If you are a solid 6a/6a+ climber looking for a suitable route, this is what is looks like if you filter for routes within your grade range. Just 9 results....

https://www.thecrag.com/es/escalar/spain/montanejos/routes/with-grade/FR:1a:6a/length-between/100+1000/?sortby=at,desc

However, if you extend the range and bother to look also at the obligatory grade, i.e. if you don't mind pulling on a draw for some sections, you get a lot more options. https://www.thecrag.com/es/escalar/spain/montanejos/routes/with-grade/FR:6a+:8a/with-gear-style/sport/length-between/100+1000/?sortby=at,desc

[georg-d]

I think that the system should be able to parse correctly the syntax and deal with main grade. The obligatory rating don't have to be searchable and so on. It should only shown on route details.

That's matching the clear definition in https://www.thecrag.com/en/article/gradesonthecrag#aid-eliminates "the route should have the cleanest grade as its assigned grade, but may have all the other grades listed as grade contributions." That has an important implication: It's quite difficult to find all routes you are able to climb for sure (but maybe with a short grab to a quickdraw) as @killakalle pointed out. Bad from a pragmatic point of view, good from an idealistic point of view 😉 Luckily, we can satisfy both views:

Still, by not choosing one "main grade" but instead recording one grade per climbing style (free and aid climbing), both of "6a (5c+obl.)" can already be searched. As we are not (yet?) able to assign more than one climbing style per route, we'd need to enter the same route several times, for example 6a free climbed, 5c+ A0 (which is AFAIK usually the same as "obl" but not sure about it), 4c A2, and ice AI5+ as done in this sandpit crag. The style shall be added to the route name so make them esaily distinguishable in auto complete list. All of these routes could be easily searched now, satisfying the pragamatic users, and at the same time, the variances are perfectly visible & separated from each other, including all details (different FAs etc), satisfying idealist users. Except for one route, each route's description could only contain info specific for that climbing style, while the general info is in one route entry where the others link to.

IMHO the biggest downside is that few users will come up with the idea to select "Grade 4c-5c+" and "Style Aid" in search form when they mean "6a (5c+obl.)" – so even if we had all information in the databse, it wouldn't be used much. Less important downsides: I did not find a way to tell search to show only "A0" but not "A4" while at the same time filtering to the difficulty French 4c-5c, but only either or. And I doubt users will be happy to live that approach as it means quite more editing effort than just writing "6a (5c+obl.)" because name, tags, pitches, bolts,... need to be entered redundantly for each route to make search working fine.

@MelwinQ: How satisfying is this solution for you?

IMHO it would be great if entering "6a (5c+obl.)" would create two grades behind the scenes, one for climbing style free, one for aided climbing A0. In the edit route form, in search, etc. But to get that reliably working is probably quite tricky, also because of many spelling variations (e.g. with or without tailing dot, brackets, A-grade,...).

@rouletout Are you currently coordinating help & translations? In course of research for this issue, I was unable to find an explanation of field "Alt. grade" of ticking form by searching "alt" in https://www.thecrag.com/en/article/loggingascents and https://www.thecrag.com/en/article/gradesonthecrag and https://www.thecrag.com/en/article/grades

[MelwinQ]

If I understood you correctly, assigning different grades to different climbing styles would be the silver bullet (I agree), but is not (yet) feasible. Your proposed solution would be duplicating the routes. I understand this technically solves the issue. However, I think that the hassles you mentioned (duplicating entries, tags, topos, ...) are something that the average user would not be willing to do. It would get even worse with multipitch climbs, where you might free pitch 3, but aid pitch 5. This would create countless replicates with lots of redundancy, difficult to maintain, cluttering the view and biasing route count information on parent nodes. That said, I'd personally rather live without the feature until assigning different grades to different climbing styles could be implemented.

[killakalle]

I support MelwinQ's view that duplicating routes is not worth the effort and has many unwanted side effects.