UKC

It's often been said that it's not very meaningful for Cuillin Ridge Traverse (Summer) (VD) to get a trad grade (especially a wrong one), for a few reasons.

Firstly, most of it is walking.

Secondly, the hardest bits (which are roughly Severe) are not obligatory as they can be bypassed.

Thirdly, even if all the climbs are done the trad grade doesn't necessarily feel very representative, with the factors of a heavier-than-normal bag and more-tired-than-normal legs and brain.

An alpine grade seems like a more appropriate reflection of the overall challenge, capable of absorbing variations in line and accounting for the uncommon (for an 'alpine' route) frequency of escape options.

Would changing the grade be offensive to anyone? Is it too unfamiliar, or too un-British? I've included an option for a scrambling grade as the 'minimum' difficulty could arguably be represented by that.

OTOH, who cares! But you know, bad weather etc.

YoAn Alpine grade would seem appropriate but people will still go away and look at what that means in trad/scrambling terms! 

I dunno. French alpine grades don't for me really feel comparable between pure rock and ice/mixed (admittedly possibly due to my lack of experience on the latter)

The Cuillin Ridge for me feels more comparable to Eastern Alps rock ridge traverses, things like the  Jubiläumsgrat (AD). And I notice somebody on here has decided the Jubi is AD, but I've never heard it referred to as that locally. It's normally just referred to as UIAA III, that being he grade of the technically hardest bit, similar to the Cuillin. And you are right in saying that doesn't reflect the main, real challenge, which on the Jubi is keeping it together on long stretches of chossy, unroped, high consequence scrambling when tired. 

Overall difficulty compared? Hard to say. I'd say the Jubi is technically easier but more serious, but I can't honestly say calling the Cuillin Ridge AD/+ would convey any extra information to me personally.

A grade for the whole ridge is now essentially a historic irrelevance, it’s been catalogued and graded for all the individual sections in such fine detail that an overall ‘holistic’ grade indication of difficulty is obsolete.

It is after all essentially an enchainment, and we don’t create a different grade for other big days; for example doing all the major Ben Nevis Ridges in a day. 

Instinctively I think it deserves an alpine grade but then you look at how, in the alps, alpine grades are almost meaningless you’d just be swapping one opaque grade for another. We just have to accept that, for a large number of routes, trying to describe a multifaceted activity with a simple alphanumeric with one or two dimensions doesn’t work and you need some sort of narrative.*
In this specific case it doesn’t matter, it’s not like someone is going to get out of a car in Glen Brittle looking for a decent V Diff to climb and then deciding between the Cullin Ridge and Cioch Nose

*Same with describing a style of ascent with one of three phrases (OS, flash, RP) when what you are trying to describe is a point on a continuum.

EDIT: All that said, I am here for a 200+ post thread on what alpine grade to give it were we to go that way! You know, bad weather etc.!

The only point I would add is that many (most?) people doing will the Cuillin ridge will not have much (any?) experience of Alpine climbing & grades, so wouldn't find them any more helpful.

I still think Trad grade with (obviously) long, scrambly walk-in/out sums it up best.

Agreed - I was approaching it from the point of view that in a context such as the database on UKC, the format dictates that it must have some grade, and thinking that it may as well be the most representative one.

I'd grade it with the grade of the TD gap* South to North.

Wouldn't multi pitch climbs typically be graded for the hardest pitch?

I think the "required" rock climbing pitches and Munro summits to be taken in are well documented.

Any deviations that you decide to make en-route are just the deviations you decided to make. So if you skip the TD gap then the route still has the same grade, just you've skipped the crux pitch. Or if you go North to South then that's just what you've done.

* felt like HS to me.  

Again, agreed, but see above.

It is a series of independent munros, all scrambles and climbs can be graded separately. Linking them together doesn't change their grade, only fatigue on the body can make them feel different or harder. Like doing all the ridges on the Ben in a day. 

Things like TD gap need a distinct rock grade so people don't think they are scrambling terrain and go under skilled. Alpine grades will just confuse, plus we have bouldering, sport and trad, we just don't need another system on top.

On this, not agreed. The idea that there is a standardised route and that anything else is 'not the proper ridge' is not in the spirit of mountaineering for me. It's transposing an attitude that makes sense in the more contrived activity of outcrop climbing to an enchainment of peaks. Traversing a ridge is about following the crest as much as is practical, as determined by the logic of natural lines of weakness, conditions and the ability of the party.

Sure, variations may be less direct, but take that argument ad absurdum and you'd have to insist that Naismith's Route is in fact a variation on the true crest line of the Basteir Tooth.

Route wise, tick the top of every munro, grade climbs followed as you would any rock route, scrambles you follow the general line, but as with any scramble they aren't literally specific hold for hold, more like a 2-3m wide corridor. 

I don't think there is any risk of that, for the reason Tyler mentioned above. No one turns up to do the ridge with no more information than the grade alone!

You could just as easily turn that around and say that the ridge needs more than a trad grade so that single-pitch outcrop climbers with no mountaineering experience don't go under skilled! It's not going to make any difference.

Nope, not having it. Too many rules.

For a start, Sgurr Dubh Mor isn't on the ridge. The early traverses didn't include it, its inclusion only became 'standard' with the establishment of running records in the 80s. Sod the Munros, if you want to tick Munros then by all means do so, but if you want to traverse the Cuillin Ridge then do just that by whatever means you judge practical and satisfying.

Well spoken Andy!

Then how can you seek to put a grade on the traverse if you don't define what is to be traversed?

If I were to start Gars Bheinn, descend to the Glen Brittle road, walk to Sligachan, then walk up to finish at Sgurr nan Gillean will I have completed the traverse? Of course not. You can only grade what you define as a route. No route definition equals no grade.

I agree with most of what you say here, except for the Alpine grade bit... because I feel most British climbers find Alpine grades meaningless. It's true that VDiff is also meaningless... and inaccurate. But, as someone else noted upthread, the difficulty is well expressed by being broken down into km, height gain, no. of pitches with trad grades and no. of sections with scrambling grades, mapped across the ridge along with variations. If you want to give an overall grade, then you may as well give it the meaningless grade of HS as give it the meaningless grade of AD.

The definition does not need to be as rigid as you are suggesting. 'Traverse the ridge between the most southerly and northerly summits, sticking close to the crest as much as is practical' is good enough.

Taking your ad absurdum example, no one is going to argue in good faith if they went via the road that they traversed the ridge. For the most part, sticking close to the crest is the most practical anyway.

Sgurr Alasdair isn't quite on the main ridge either.

Fine, but you can't seek to grade it because "as much as is practical" will, for some, reduce the route to a scramble which by passes all technical climbing.

No, and if someone chose to skip it I wouldn't say they hadn't 'done the ridge'. It would just be a shame to skip it, because it's the highest summit in the range, a cool summit, and not a very big detour.

All variations in line are just details IMO. The best traverse of all in terms of maximising quality would be to start up the Dubhs and finish down Pinnacle Ridge. The best in terms of the 'ridge line' aesthetic would be to start via the south ridge of Gars-Bheinn and continue to Sgurr na h-Uamha at the end. Almost no one does either of these.

Well that was why I thought an alpine grade would be holistic enough to absorb variations. You can't reasonably bypass all technical climbing - the third and second tops of Mhadaidh are essentially unavoidable.

At the risk of going off on a tangent having started via the Dubhs, having gone down PR and done (but not as part of a traverse Sgurr U). May I suggest an esoteric variant up Gars-Bheinn, namely its NE ridge.

Which as an approach from Coruisk has much to recommend it. You are constantly assaulted by the grandeur of the Coruisk basin yet still are aware of the juxtaposition of sea versus mountain and it offers better underfoot terrain than the S ridge, plus has scrambling with a very airy and satisfying finish direct to the summit. So in all a better and more in keeping prelude to the ridge, than Sligo g up the S ridge.

It's quite a long way to Sligo (and to Tipperary) from Coruisk.

(The joys of autocorrect!)

I welcome your tangent. I've also done both those ridges and would concede that the South one (which is actually more correctly East) is a slog until you hit the base of the ridge proper at 686m (though not nearly as bad as the slog from Glen B), from which point it's very pleasant and more distinctly 'ridgey' than the NE one.

But it’s very close, and also just happens to be the highest summit. And a very fine one: the ‘crowning peak’ one might say.

Of course, but it is slightly odd that the main ridge traverse - particularly for the fast-time people - has come to be merged with visiting all 11 Munros. Does anyone know of a "pure" ridge traverse, Gars-bheinn to Gillean (and maybe on to Sgurr Beag and Sgurr na h-Uamha) without deviating to Sgurr Alasdair never mind Sgurr Dubh Mor? Plenty of people will have done the ridge without Sgurr Dubh Mor, but most (entirely understandably, for the reasons Gordon states) do make the little out-and-back to Alasdair - eg Shadbolt and McLaren did that on their pioneering traverse in 1911.

This is where we need the much-missed Robin Campbell - Cuillin history was one of his specialist subjects and he might well have known of examples of this, or at least why the ridge-plus-Munros tradition has evolved. Iain Thow might be able to shed some light - again he knows a lot of background to such matters.

IIrc when I did it in '84 Andy Hyslop had just set the then record at 4-ish hours. We took about 10½ summit to summit and were very proud of being towards the low end of the Hamish MacInnes standard guidebook time!

Back then the main ridge was the main ridge, no nonsense about inlcuding off-ridge Munros - and in any case we'd already done the Dubh Slabs and the Coire Lagan round as warmup/training days.

Interesting, ta. So did you not even pop across to Sgurr Alasdair, ie just main-ridged it throughout?

Good effort re 10hr30!

(Sorry, this is getting off the subject of the supposed grade of the ridge.)

I think for reasons people have given a single ‘grade’ for the whole ridge, as it is best done, with TD Gap, Naismiths, etc, is fairly meaningless. But, on the old principle of the adjectival grades, using the French alpine grades I’d say you’d have to be climbing comfortably at at least D to do it well and enjoy it. So, if anyone asks, I suggest one just says “Difficile!” with a French accent  

I refer you back to my comparison with the Jubiläumsgrat (AD). If that's AD, then the Cuillin Ridge is a bit longer, with harder sections of actual rock climbing, but overall probably safer and less serious. So two grades harder overall? Dunno

Yep. Might have been tempted to nip up Alasdair if I hadn't already done the Coire Lagan round a couple of days before as a recce.

Just after his 4ish  hour traverse, Andy told me his reasoning for defining the route followed as doing all the munros and all four climbing sections.

He wanted a simple definition, unambiguous and acceptable   to both climbers and runners.

To have a record, you need rules. 

To have a grade, you need a route , so perhaps still on topic.

It was however Andy Hyslop who wrote the Rockfax mini-guide, which I always viewed as one of the culprits in propagating the view that doing Sgurr Dubh Mor was standard practice.

Which is fair enough from the point of view of having agreed rules for runners to compete for a record, but shouldn't cross over to anyone who's not competing for time.

Totally disagree.  Linking them together does completely define the overall grade.

I'd say that the ridge is the hardest E1 I've done.

And I'm pretty sure that if you asked all the people who have done it unguided, unassisted in 1 push, you'd find:

The still found it quite taxing

Their median struggleButSuceed grade would be way in excess of Severe.

I've no problem with the grade being for the hardest pitch, like it is in Classic Rock (so V-diff / Severe). Everyone knows it's a big ridge traverse with lots of scrambling and ascent/descent.

I think the whole dialogue thus far perfectly illustrates how people nowadays have to be led by the hand, have everything catalogued or described to the final enth degree before they can try anything, but also have to go on an obligatory course first. Back in the day for me, 1975 in the Alps we just set off up routes with a vague description, but looked for the easiest line and cracked on. In our first season we managed three of the classic N Faces incl. for our first mixed route the 1938 Eiger N Face, with shit gear, but big ambitions. If you want to do the Cuillen traverse, you should know if you are capable. I’ve not done it, but at 74 I’m planning to have a go this year with dodgy knees and COPD.

Parp!!!

And lo, was heard the sound of a trumpet.

And it was a mighty sound.

The sound of an owntrumpet.

And a righteous sound did it make.

Phillippians 4.13

Lol.

Oh my. I'm crying man, jeepers. I wish I could like that twice.

I think it's about PD+ to be honest as there's no unavoidable v diff or severe and AD rock generally has unavoidable vdiff or severe on it.

Edit it seems like French people agree. 

https://www.camptocamp.org/routes/970869/fr/monts-cuillins-traversee

Well that told me, but probably correct and it was after a bottle of wine and reminiscing sat looking up at the Dru. Seriously though an alpine grade would be appropriate as it brackets the terrain encountered from AD to ED and the likely maximum pitch grades. Perfect for the Cuillen. 

Perfect for those with alpine experience (and don't need it), but largely useless for typical Cuillin newbies who don't have experience of alpine grades. Either way, not very useful.

Well ignore any overall grade and buy one of the plethora of extremely detailed pocket guides, complete with virtually hold by hold descriptions and pics of the climbing sections and easier variants. If you still can’t decide you shouldn’t be there.

I would put it in a slightly less condescending way: Do your homework (there's plenty of info around) and treat the route with respect (relative to your experience).

Agreed.

I love that camptocamp description!  Just like the Tour de France in Yorkshire, where we had the "Cote du Buttertubs", here we've got "Franchir le TD Gap"  and "Gravir l’In-Pinn".

They seem quite happy with missing bits out - "On peut également contourner le TD Gap suivant une sente", and for the Inn Pin "On peut facilement le contourner main gauche", without bothering about it messing up the grade.  Ah yes, the grade - "PD+ 4c>3a III P4"!  Which I think I can safely say, is exactly how it felt doing it in a day in Galibier Super RD big boots, about 45 years ago.

Cheers, Andy