UKH

I did a lazy search but didn't get a good lead.  I'm sure it's been answered.

Is there a list of the first year an ascent of each (Trad, UK) grade being made?

I'd like to see the fit to things like EBs, Fires, Friends, kernmantle ropes and so on arriving

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/laddow-132/cave_arete_indirect-158...

First ever E1 done in 1916, that's about as much as I know!

Edit: a quick google throws this up - 

https://rockclimbingcentral.com/the-history-of-rock-climbing/?utm_content=c...

Some useful suggestions but not UK focused.

Surely there aren't enough grades, enough granularity to see the impact of any of those things. There will always have been outlying routes of a new given grade which for one reason or another significantly lead the wider spread establishment/acceptance of that grade. And then it'll be further messed up by the use of XS and HXS still being fairly common at the time of most of those innovations.

If you wanted to see the events/innovations align with trends I think you'd have to look at the rate of establishment of new routes at each grade (using their modern/settled grades) over time, I recon there you'd probably have enough signal to see through the noise. But of course you'd first need to find and/or digitise that data.

It's a limited dataset but if you were more than casually interested the Yorkshire Grit' guides would be a good starting point having a good history section and FA dates on the route entries. Thing is, for a single area I think you'll find the trends trace back to individual people/teams more than tech and ideas.

jk

I think for some of the grades its possible to an answer thats likely to be right - using modern guidebook grades at least:  

E1 1916 cave arete indirect 

E3 1949 Demon rib? 

E6 1974 quiver cloggy? 

E8 1983 Requiem at dumbarton? 

E9 above should be easy to find starting with Indian face 

Some grades don't have very clear-cut answers to this question. Worth a read of this thread and some of the links included in it: https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/rock_talk/first_route_of_each_grade_trad_... 

Perhaps not that easy - IIRC Caff reckoned E9 for Masters Wall the way Jerry went

I believe the earliest route to carry a VS grade (grade not invented at the time) is Eagle's Nest Ridge Direct (VS 4b) climbed in 1892. The first ascentionists reportedly tried to keep the ascent a secret as they didn’t want anyone else to attempt such a potentially lethal route. Debbie and I climbed it on the 100th anniversary in 1992. It was April and I had to wipe snow off a number of the holds.

To supplement that list, I think I read somewhere that Suicide Wall Route 1 at Idwal was considered the hardest route of its day, climbed in 1945, now graded E2?

May be useful to find out when the first HHHHHHHHHVS was done. 

That was my understanding for first E2. 

Difficult to say because routes, gear, protection change over the years. Demon Rib for example was first climbed by traversing in from Lone Tree Groove to stand on the second's head thus missing out the current crux. There were also rumours that the upper arete was missed out. Javelin Blade on Idwal Slabs (1932?) is only given E1 now but when Longland did it in plimmies without gear and probably without pre-cleaning it must have been equivalent to E3 ..

Cheers, Graham