UKH

As the post title. What is the most sustained /hardest climb at each grade from Diff to E5. Difficult call above this as not that many experience the highest grades. It when you complete a route and in reflection you think that was a battle and well earned. You certainly remember the ascent. Not really sure this applies to Sports bolt protected climbs, as many at Malham  Raven Tor etc. are all sustained and require weeks sometimes to crack.

I will kick off the list with:-

VS. Lost Horizion  Baggy Point

HVS. The Corner, Cloggy

E1. Matchless, North Devon

E2. Left Wall, Dinas Gromlech

Interest to hear what others think. Sorry if this had been previously posted.

Chemin de Fer, Dumbarton

Though Matchless was bottom end of E1.

Octo (E1 5b)

Keeps coming at you and HVS when I did it!

I find Krapp's Last Tape (E3 5b) very sustained. However I'm an Avon climber and I think it's E2 5b (PS in the 1970s it was graded HVS!)

Good shout.

Other than that this is an impossible list.

That's the main issue here; routes that are, in whatever way,  tough/ sustained for their grade will all get upgraded if you wait long enough! I'm thinking:

VD January Jigsaw

S Tophet Wall

VS Aero

HVS Leg Slip

E1 Crinoid

E2 Heart of the Sun

I've done a few E2s that felt harder than that, Wombat to name but one.

KLT isn't even the hardest at the grade on that wall, it is the least sustained route on the wall, you can take both hands off after almost every move! I also think E2 more appropriate. I thought The Pretter was harder and worth an upgrade to E3.

We'll have to agree to disagree about KLT being "the least sustained route on the wall" - I found the following Main Wall E3s I've done The Mal (E3 5c), Think Pink (E3 6a), and Drang (E3 5b) all certainly less sustained than KLT. Doesn't it just show how subjective all this is? And certainly KLT isn't the hardest E3 on Main Wall - as I said, I think it's E2. And yes, it's a hands off rest several times

What a great route, though, KLT

Happy climbing!

Checking my guidebooks January Jigsaw is now considered a S or S 4a! 

I think that was their point.

Yeah, nightmare. No footholds. Horrible route, glad not to have led it

Bachelor's Left-hand (HVS 5b) for me, great route with lots of variety. 

Pretty reasonable I thought. When I first did Saxon (E2 5c) it felt like the living end, but nothing I've done comes close to Darius (E3 5c).

Ha, e3 on here! Well it is, but I'd rather it was kept as a classic sandbag...

It is so subjective, I got a bit pumped on the think pink crux even though it's short lived. Absolutely agree about the quality of KLT, I thought it was a belter!

I thought Lost Horizons was quite steady; perhaps I was climbing well that day. Without having given it much thought I think Jean Jeannie meets the sustained bit, especially now it is as shiny as glass. I’m sure there are harder.

Not even the toughest E2 on the Cromlech - Grond.  Wasn't that E1 as well?

I thought Left Wall was sustained E0 until the thin crack, then after that back to E0.

It's all subjective but I can tell you the E2 I had the biggest battle on and came closest to being off. In recent years at least. The Avon Man (E2 5c)

I thought Monkey Man (E3 5c) was desperate for E3... and I was on the blunt end! Top end of the grade, surely?

Hard question, in general, though. Walker Spur is presumably pretty sustained for E1... or is that stretching the grade too much? I'm sure Piers Gill at S is pretty exciting, too...

Finale at Shepherds. I also thought Brant Direct was pretty sustained.

Sustained - yes, hardest for the grade - not even close, but this might all depend on how much you like cracks. Certainly near the top in terms of routes able to swallow a complete rack 😁

In reply to Alan Moore - I don't think Aero (VS 5a) will get upgraded to HVS because Tinker Tailor (HVS 5a) is just next door, is similar and obviously that bit harder - they're actually a good pair to show where the VS/HVS borderline is.

Brant Direct (HVS 5a) is at the bottom of the HVS graded list - 1978 Llanberis Pass guide 😁 - it is sustained but I don't think it's hard for the grade - I think a lot of people get slightly jinxed by the smooth nature of the rock - this can be practiced by climbing at  Beacon Hill

Next route up is Ivy Sepulchre (E1 5b) - these were my first 2 Welsh HVS's IIRC - this is also only HVS- in the Ron James guide.

Things start to get suspicious with Curfew (E1 5b) being the 4th easiest route (there are approx 30 HVS's in the list) - not been near this one but it seems that many think worth E2

Other gems from that list - Sabre Cut (VS 4c) is the 3rd easiest VS, Cenotaph Corner (E1 5c) is the 2nd easiest MXS

There are a lot of rests on Brant direct it can be mostly udged rather than bridged, or a mixture of the two ofc.

I thought it was pretty cruisy. E3 for sure but no particularly hard moves.

Surely Brant Direct is more or less yardstick HVS, albeit very steep and relentless.

The superb crux of Ivy Sep is very full weight E1. Problem is, the rest of the route is easier and scruffier.

Curfew is superb and high end E1, because the crux pitch is technically complex, steep and intimidating. And not massively well protected. Probably should stay at top end E1?

Sabre Cut, bog standard (but excellent) VS. Cenotaph, much harder to grade because the crux is so much harder than anything else on it.

Later edit: Probably fair to say Curfew is bottom end E2.

Just a juggy romp after a tricky start. Brilliant fun.

Brant Direct, ivy Sepulchure , spectre and Diagonal were my first Welsh routes in 1977, thought they were benchmark he’s at the time. I bridged Brant Direct all the way but thought it was technically fairly sustained with each move of a similar standard. Thought ivy sepulchre was a one move wonder past the old aid peg.

Exactly that. Good route, and pretty cruisey for the wall fit.

At E2, I'm going with 'The Strand' at Gogarth.

I think you are going to have to define terms here. ''Most sustained /hardest' could be very different things. For example, the hardest E2 is likely to be some E2 6b horror show in the County but it won't be sustained. Dwarfs Nightmare (E2 6b)

Of course there is no definitive answer but the discussion is fun.

I think the problem is the sustained hard climbing.

If you're fit, that kind of climbing will feel easy (or it is graded incorrectly). Or it is not sustained, but has a hard crux (or harder cruxes...) which will feel certainly harder, but sustained it is not.

So as an example, a non sustained E1 would be E1 5C, thus really hard (but safe crux). And as per the Rockfax chart, E1 5A would be the easy but bold option. I guess E1 5A could also be still safe but really sustained (think of 30 to 40m splitter.... every move from start to anchor/ledge worht of 5A)... Albeit I guess if that were true, the overall grade might not be E1.

In sport climbing terms, from what I have heard is DNA in Kalymnos. Based on hear-say, any indevidual move is one that you find on most middle of the pack 6as, but as every move is that, the overall effort brings the grade to ~7a.
 

Finale is sustained! But, I suspect there are some steep HVS routes at Reiff that are also  contenders. There's also King Bee Crack on Holyhead. I couldn't choose between them

Unfortunately, I haven't climbed enough around the UK but in the South West (i.e. Devon and Cornwall) Lost Horizons is nowhere near the most sustained or hardest VS. It's straightforward, particularly if you can jam, with great gear. For my bette noire grade of VS 5a, then Dexter at Sennen and the second pitch of Triton (which I think is harder and more sustained than anything on Moonraker) are up there.

The most boring VS ever goes to Urizen. It looks great but is terrible.

At E1, Crinoid as mentioned above or 19th Nervous Breakdown or Oesophagus or Machete Wall. Actually, I've just remembered Stalking Horse at Cow and Calf which gets it for being very emotionally sustained (as in thank God I'm still alive after that). 

Hmm... maybe it was the steepness, a lack of fitness, or too much sun. I remember it as extremely strenuous, especially near the bottom.

I was almost going to add Strand, but its a gradual increase in difficulty as it steepens.

I'm  really thinking of those climbs that are unrelenting in their sustained difficulty (whatever the actual grade),  a fight all the way to topping out. Perhaps of all the 3000 climbs I've ticked, Cloggy Corner best illustrates this quality.

Easy Picking Easy Picking (E2 6b) at Rivelin. E2 6b! Utterly ridiculous 

I don't think anything at Reiff is goig to be a contender for hardest in grade, the rock is (mostly) super friendly and the grading generous.

As HeMa says, stamina routes feel easy for the grade if you're fit and moving well. In the same week I cruised Fay (E4 5c) and had World War Three on Kafoozalem (E4 6a) because the former is stamina plodding and the latter has a cruxy section. 

Um... no. I'm not talking about the closest crag to the road.

Queer Street at Chee Tor for E3.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/buachaille_etive_mor-387/shibbolet...

Shibboleth is the hardest E2 I have done.

The NMC have conveniently done the legwork for you, and put them all in one guidebook 😉

Neither am I. 

2 straightforward HVSs on top of each other, bottom limit of the grade. Loads of HVSs, including the Corner and Bachelor's Left-hand are harder! 

I agree it is a very hard E2 (I think it should be E3), but for boldness rather than sustained difficulty.

Exactly the same thoughts.

Robin Smith quested up there in the style he did is impressive!

I didn't think Bachelor's Left-hand (HVS 5b) was top of the grade, Delstree (HVS 5a) felt like more of a struggle, although no one move was as technically hard as BLH.

Never tried Hen Cloud Eliminate (HVS 5b) which always looked too gnarly to contemplate - I thought this had been upgraded to E1 - just looking at the comments, several seem to think it's easier than BLH, maybe it's one of those routes whose bark is worse than its bite.

I think we all need to agree that any route mentioned in this thread should not be upgraded. I remember not getting much change out of Bon Voyage (Pembroke) when it was E1 - upgrading has ruined the surprise! Having said that it’s always nice to bathe in the glory of a yearly clutch of retro points…

Dream/Liberator must be top end E3

Such meaty routes! For me, it's Delstree, then BLH then Hen Cloud Eliminate. The latter is a touch harder, but it's all the same kind of stuff, if you get up the first 2 you should make it, battered and bruised up the last.

What makes me laugh is the comparison with the Almscliffe big 3 HVS. Orders of magnitude more weeny.

For pure pump intimidation I'd suggest Ocean Boulevard at Boulder Ruckle, Swanage:

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/boulder_ruckle-246/ocean_boulevard...

and The Cull at Bass Point, Lizard

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/bass_point-311/the_cull-424

Still an easy E3 though

I did Brant Direct not long after The Corner on cloggy, and found it loads easier. I think that the latter is the only route I’ve had to rest on through being exhausted, rather than not being able to do the moves or just falling off.

Remember finding Hangover on the Grochan good value at E1

I've seconded it, I'm sure it was HVS and I remember being annoyed I didn't try leading it as it was well protected and pretty straightforward. 

I led Lost Horizons the same weekend and thought it was straightforward too. It's pretty rare I find stuff easy !

Jamaican Dub (E3 6a)would definitely be my call at E3

And Sacre Couer E2 5c is another one...

Freddie's Finale (HVS 5b)? (Now the other ones have seemingly been upgraded)

What a struggle.

Only a couple of E4 suggestions. Penny (Katana) (E4 6a) springs to mind until it joins King Bee and The Roc-Nest Monster (E4 6a) consistently tricky and technical and I was only on 2nd

At E4, Bitterfingers at Stoney. I don’t know how many bad falls there have been from the initial moves onto a bad landing and if successful on the start, you are now below all difficulty. Should be E5 and harder and more sustained than most Chee Tor E5,s.

Put The Doffer at Fairhead in your list. Eighty feet of wide crack, or three Elder Cracks stacked on top of each other (the later description from my mate who’s done Elder Crack, I haven’t).

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/bowden_doors-824/lorraine-984
 

Lorraine for the most sustained and difficult VS in the UK.

Short, but brutal.

I thought about nominating that but sadly, and wrongly, it's now HVS in the definitive guide.

Maybe  a better thread would be 'proper crags'. Crags with no (or few) gifts, burly crags that you come home from feeling like you've done an honest day's work on the roads.

I'll start with Staffin Slip and Ardmair.

I'm surprised no-one has nominatedMars (E2 5b) for the E2 slot, andWar (E1 5b) is a good struggle at E1 but The Grooves (E1 5b) is much longer and very consistent all the way up

Hell's Kitchen (HVS 5a) is pretty full on for HVS

At VS Silhouette Arête (VS 4c) (or any other VS in the Ruckle) makes Lost Horizon look like a path.

At Hard Severe I thought Ganymede (HS 4b) was pretty sustained.

Surely a typo - they just slipped and put an erroneous H in there.

Edit: I should add I have no clue about the grade. I did it when I was solid at E1 (and bouldering much harder) and found the layback start outrageous for VS and then the traverse pumpy as hell (it was an onsight solo so cut me some slack). If your average VS climber could get up that with a full rack on I’d by them a pint.

Yeah, EP’s a desperate E2 right enough but it’s not really sustained, is it? I think you’re not hitting the quality the OP wants.

jcm

For VS could The File (VS 4c) be a contender. Sure enough a crack master will find it much easier but the line is quite sustained.

For Severe i'd suggest White Slab Direct (S), when I did it I was in the punterish land of happy VS and this route felt a lot more VS than S.

I think the guide has it right (Shibboleth) - hard E2. The trouble of course with saying that in a guidebook, as Alan Moore suggests above, is that next time they'll feel irresistibly compelled to upgrade it! But I wouldn't say there's any E3 pitches.

Gallow's Route (E2 5b) on the other hand I'd put up to E3 5b, and the guide does hint towards that. Another very bold undertaking for the era.

A couple for which I couldn't get the links to work [don't worry - I'm an idiot]:

Silent Night at Cheddar;

Big Boys at Rhoscolyn.

Neither at the the top end of their respective grades - but both leaving a feeling of "nothing left in the tank" and "it ain't over 'til it's over"!

Yes, thought the crux pitch was VS 4b when I did it, even if the rest of the route was severe or below. Went over and did Crack of Double Doom in the rain afterward, which wasn't appreciably harder.

What about Wasp at Tremadog. But if a stopper.  

Indeed!

The lower grades seem overlooked, so I'd propose Lands End Long Climb for the VDiff option.  And probably for the VS grade, Bachelor's Climb at Hen Cloud made me work unreasonably hard!

Probably something in Scotland at VDiff that would be testing. Was Ardverikie Wall not originally at that grade?

Hardest and most sustained are unlikely to be the same thing unless you're an outlier in power to fitness ratio.

The most sustained routes by definition won't have any hard moves for the grade, so people with decent endurance won't find them hard for that grade.

I think this should be for well known climbs or classics to cut obscure sandbags. I'd add an lower grade one at VD: Land's End Long Climb (solid HS 4a IMHO with several pitches at S or above). Struggling at Severe...  Monolith Crack doesn't meet the sustained part and  Rockfax have upgraded that beast now.

For an inverse list, with daft overgrading, Bowfell Buttress would be a ridiculous unsustained, easy-for-the-grade HS.

Altar Crack. gets my vote Altar Crack (VS 4c)

There are loads of harder sustained well known grit VS climbs than Altar, even quite a few harder starred laybacks.

Can you give us some examples? I'm struggling to think of any, apart from The Crank.

I can't find a brutal VS layback list I made but I know Downes at Froggatt, Beech at Curbar, Layback at Gardoms (where I've seen some horrible falls), and that's just three crags in one definitve grit guidebook out of nine. There were some harder starred layback routes than those three in Yorkshire and on Moorland crags.

I thought the Crank was tough but not desperate if you shift to jams after the first few moves.

Did LELC earlier this spring. Interesting in that it is very easy to follow, just climb the line stripped of green lichen. Not sustained in that it wanders around quite a bit and many difficulties can be bypassed. But I agree that there are a couple of stiff pitches for a V Diff.

We surfaced right besides the famous viewpoint/signpost and promptly informed the crowding tourists getting 'selfies' that Land's End is actually down there, pointing to where we had been!

It's a grade muddle due to a historical approach that many old VDiffs had where you could bypass a crux section. If a route description says climb the steep cracked groove, do the jump (or trickier traverse) and take on that terrifying (for a VD) top wall (with an ankle breaking ledge awaiting below) the grade should IMHO be for that line: for the three pitches respectively: S 4a, S 3b (or HS 4b on the traverse), and HS 4a (that left me pumped and shaking with adrenaline despite cruising various VS classics on the same trip). The rock can be climbed there at VD but not the route.

In the sustained stakes  Ethos (HVS 5a) might be considered

In the lower grades isn't The Wrinkle (VD)  unusually sustained?

Trambiolina on Middlefell Gully wall, Langdale is continuously sustained and hard for the grade, feels much harder than some of the adjacent HVSs.

DC

The Wrinkle has portable holds on the hexagonal columns. Not difficult, but it could unnerve someone starting out with trad climbing.

I didn't think it was desperate at all (simply high in VS grade), in fact I rather enjoyed it. Somehow the climbing suited me, the way you have to adapt the jamming to the widening crack. A bit of a gem for its short height.

I've just done Engineer's Slab on Gable today and would put that forward for sustained VS - pretty much continual 4c for the full 60m. 

It was one of John and I's first leads in 1968. I remember it as a very good climb, but absolutely OK at the grade. Memory borne out by my logbook entry at the time, referring to it as 'pleasant' and 'perfectly safe':

https://www.gordonstainforthbelper.co.uk/images/TheWrinkleLogbook1968.jpg

Well done, great route and good suggestion for this thread. For some reason made me think of this offering:

Sinister Grooves (VS 4c)

Two more contenders:

VS Crows Nest Crack Buchaille

HVS Samson High Crag Buttermere

But how important is the guidebook grade, really, in the lower grades? We all know that you can't start measuring the difficulties of climbs at all accurately/meaningfully under about VS. Above that, technical grades start to make (some) sense too.

I agree, I thought Finale was desperate

I'd rather lead Samson than Finale anyday

Bengal Lancer on Carn liath on Skye has to be up there as hardest E2 about. Big bold and very sustained , closer to E35c..

I always thought it was the opposite way round, with a big proviso. People on lower grade climbs are a lot more at risk of falling on sandbags and when you fall from a lower grade climb you tend to hit things like ledges. The big proviso is you have to have the basic skills required for the style at the grade (as an example: say, an ability to chinmey at Diff standard)  or grading would make no sense whatsoever. Genuine beginners need a big health warning in guidebooks that grades won't make sense until they gain skills for the main styles they will face. These days, with trad beginners often coming from indoors fairly climbing fit some correctly graded VS climbs with a style they are used to might feel easier than a correctly graded Diff chimney!

I'll give you a glaring  recent example. Over the bank holiday I got someone to lead their first route outdoors at Pobbles West, on a slightly soft graded VD that I was happy to solo up and down all day in approach  shoes. The next day I was onsighting a VD at Pennard that due to sandbag grading and suspect rock I was climbing just as I would on a popular Wildcat VS 4b. If I'd trusted the rock (to pull out on the suspect blocks) it might only be a stiff S 4a, when carrying cams that fit a narrow offwidth (I used a camelot 5) and microcams. It also benefitted from a weird skill combination: limestone delicacy and an ability to manufacture offwidth crack rests.

Tech grades came from font via SS and can make sense at any grade, which is why we included them on our Offwidth site (eg a standard safish severe is S 4a etc....HVD 3c ...VD 3b...HD 3a...D 2c...M 2b  Easy 2a). In practice we work these backwards but the combination can tell you if a route is very cruxy or very bold, like it does in guidebooks from VS. The UK has an amazing trad grading system (until you hit the idiocy of the super wide higher tech grades) so why not use it at lower grades as well !?

But in the real world no-one thinks in those tech grades, they just think 'that felt like a v-diff/mod/etc'.

Well we think they do think that way. They certainly think that's a very bold route with diff type moves but fair at VD... or that's a safe but very cruxy route with a severe type move but fair at VD .....2c and 4a just extend the superb two tier system to illustrate that.

I have to admit that my attitudes to the grades surprised me right back in my first days of leading in 1968. I was, being south-east based, far from the mountains, 'born and bred' on South-East Sandstone and found all those grades on the easier routes, from 2A to 3B, very useful. But once we started leading our first sub-VS classics on Welsh Rock, they didn't seem relevant or useful at all. I don't remember ever so much as mentioning technical grades to John on any of those easier climbs. I mean, just how on earth would you have graded Monolith Crack or Angular Chimney technically? I haven't a clue. Far, far more relevant were a whole lot of other factors, like smoothness of rock, exposure, lack of protection and, particularly, strenuosity. Quite a lot of those Ogwen Classics were pretty scary for all those reasons. The adjectival grading system seemed to work just fine, as far as it went. We started using technical grades again (but not much) once we moved round to the Pass and started leading our first VSs.

You're echoing my feelings exactly there.

It's the difference, I think, between connoisseurship (which the Moulam guides were superb at) and scientific analysis. To use an analogy: it's like the huge difference between wine-tasting and measuring the alcoholic content of a bottle of wine. But even that analogy doesn't really work because it's like trying to convert qualities into numbers.

Monolith is about HVS 4c if you don't fit (I climbed up the outside after I couldn't get inside but Lynn didn't fancy it so I climbed back down and then finished up the delightful De Selincourt's instead) and anything down from 4a if you do.... I'm lucky Lynn is quite claustrophobic so didn't  lead that pitch as otherwise we might have had an interesting time . There are plenty of wiggle chimneys out there at 4a.

I don't recall Angular much other than it being bloody hard (and not VD). We did it around 1990 well before we got into guidebook mode. It's depressing to still see it still as a VD on the logbooks.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/clogwyn_y_tarw_the_gribin_facet-49...

You probably lost the relevance because you got too good to notice it. A lack of sensitivity on lower grades is why bad grading happens there. The serious route that felt like diff moves when checking for the next guidebook almost certainly wasn't.  A safe but noticably hard move on a VD is tempting to upgrade (leaving Bowfell Buttress at a bizarre HS 4b).

Just to be clear we are not softies we though most lower grade Gribin classics were OK grade wise, yet Herfords at HVS 5a, either as a layback or jamming route, we thought was overgraded.  Not the case for the less popular lines this was another sandbag:

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/clogwyn_y_tarw_the_gribin_facet-49...

Here is another on Milestone Buttress, a really good climb that should be sought after by HS leaders but languishes as a sandbag Diff .....we had to dig it out in May 2018:

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/tryfan-491/canopy_route-5721

Our  view:

"Good route seemingly hardly ever climbed. Total sandbag though, we thought maybe top end S 4b compared to local classics. I found it more intimidating to lead than Soapgut but thats partly expectations and being less clean. The 'easy' pitch one slab has a brutal mantel/rockover that some would think is 4b. The exposed swing from under the canopy is OK in comparison, VDish. The Pitch 3 slab has a similar tricky 4b sequence (both these crux sections have OK but not as perfect as you might like protection). The line in the latest CC guide is wrong... the route escapes the pitch 3 slab neatly on the left just as any exit straight up looks dirty and worrying. Above pitch 3 you can weave up nice rock heading right for 40m above, as an alternative to the normal ledge escape right."

It can't be any grade if you don't fit! -- as you know, I'm quite a small person, and I had to take off my helmet to get into it. John, put off my grunting, came up De S's variation (I think Hard Severe?).

I suppose at High Rocks it might just be 3a

Yes. Good example. I still look upon it overall as a Diff, with one very hard pitch.

I suppose the truth was that we arrived in the Ogwen Valley in 1968 for our first leading with a huge amount of technical ability in reserve (climbing 5c by then on SE sandstone).

Herford's we missed out on. Don't know why.

Shame you missed it, it's a nice VS jamming or layback route. I'd love to see any convincing argument it's harder than any of the VS 4c jamming classics on Almscliffe given VS 4c, or The File for that matter.

I don't accept your Moulam connoisseurship grading on those sandbag routes I've listed. I think they, like you, just lacked the sensitivity to grade check on lower grades that the very earliest guide authors had (they even sometimes described exactly how to do crux moves).

Another example is The Silvan Traverse on the Milestone which was regarded as a tough Diff in the earliest guides (above routes upgraded to VD 3 star status now), but somehow Silvan became and remained a Mod. Finding the line is a hard enough challenge for any grade of leader.

On Monolith the outside of the crack is sort of climbing the route and it is HVS 4c ish. It's funny you say 3a...my conversion of fair Font grades, sub 4, to UK tech allowing for decades of grade creep is add one full number. Font is full of horror-show lower grade sandbags thanks to polish.

That was another interesting one that didn't seem to give us too much trouble, even though a couple of climbers had been killed on it the week before and there was allegedly still 'blood in the jugs' – we didn't find – and it had a v bad reputation. 

https://www.gordonstainforthbelper.co.uk/images/CanopyRouteLogbook68.jpg

I did say 'High Rocks 3a'

Wow! You should consider getting those notebooks to the Mountain Heritage Trust.

I do note:  "....grade (should perhaps be higher)"

The exact truth was that we really weren't thinking much about technical grades then. We were working our way up through the grades, it's true, but it was very uncomplicated. The main thing was we were just doing the classic routes. Technical grades still seemed to be a very minor talking point in 1968 in N Wales, IIRC.

Later ... actually, come to think of it, had technical grades in the mountains even been invented then? I think they may not have come in until c. 1969-70, instigated by Pete Crew ???? Of course, the sandstone technical grades went right back to the 1930s. Once the two systems were going in parallel there was a definite discrepancy, with the mountain technical grades being a full grade easier than SE sandstone. E.g Long Crack 5a, and Stupid Effort 5b (at Harrisons) would probably have been 5b and 5c in the mountains.

Maybe. It is rather a lovely document. It gets much more verbose once we started doing our first VSs and HVSs.

That was pretty much how we talked about the difficulties. All rather vague.

I'm much more concerned with the more than a full grade out incorrect adjectival grades that still exist in current guidebooks. It adds risk (on routes where you really don't want it)  and puts people off trad climbing. Even the Bowfell Buttress overgrade adds risk: it will give false confidence that could come unstuck on a fairly graded classic like Tophet Wall... let alone on an overlooked HS sandbag.

Putting technical grades on our lower grade Peak gritstone notes is something we do as a fun and hopefully useful addition for some.

Bowfell Buttress v Tophet Wall is a good example: the latter being at least two adjectival grades harder ...!

Actually - serious senior moment, this - I'd forgotten that I put that whole 1967-68 climbing logbook on line about 2-3 years ago:

https://www.gordonstainforth.co.uk/1967-68-climbing-logbook

The first guide with Technical Grades was Crew's 'Cloggy' with a separate list of Technical Grades in the back, circa 1967. I also started on Kent sandstone in '67 and had no comparison of difficulty when we had to translate those to Welsh Grades. I think that Nea would have been our first mountain route, but we managed to get up OK. A much steeper learning curve on Brant Direct & Slape Direct!

As for difficult Diffs, I certainly would nominate Helfenstein's struggle via the Rat Hole. I can well understand why Helfenstein gave up climbing immediately afterwards!

PS That logbook of yours was a great idea Gordon. It is only in later years that we wish we had detailed our climbing experiences rather than rely on distant memory. I didn't even record who i climbed what with or when, just underlined the route in the guide. And then guidebooks go missing.

Yes, many of my climbing friends/partners envy the fact that I kept detailed logbooks of everything I did. (5 log books in all). The entries go so far beyond what one's (often faulty) memory can do, and then they trigger further memories. Re. technical grades: I see I referred to them occasionally in the logbook. This my corroborates my memory that detailed discussions of grades was not something we indulged in at all in those days. I don't know why. I guess - to make a sweeping generalisation - that the world was less materialistic and reductionist in those days. There wasn't yet any obsession to reduce everything to numbers. To put it in an even more woolly way, I'd say it was all a lot more poetic than clinically factual.

I'll have to make a shameful confession: I never did Helfenstein's Struggle! It's a bit like admitting one's never done Lockwood's Chimney, Monolith Crack or The Devil's Kitchen (original route). Or the Clachaig Gully - actually, I'm quite proud not to have done the latter. I'm also v proud to have done the Devil's Kitchen ("V Diff"). Wow! - is that undergraded and scary (in slimy conditions, which I think is the norm). My advice to contenders who've asked me about it is: treat it as about Mild VS and you'll be OK.

I've mentioned it before but if there's a harder HVS than Way Fruitsome Experience (HVS 5c) I don't want to hear about it.

Only grit, but sustained in that it consistently lacks a useful HVS hold for almost its entire length.

Our 'Offwidth' notes say: unprotected technical wall moves between blind breaks...a dangerous sandbag, E2 5c. It should really be treated as a highball f6A with several mats.

I've never done the Devil's Kitchen or Lockwood's Chimney (not even after the pub) - but I have to save something for my retirement!

I couldn't get through Helfensteins either and badly bruised my ribs trying. It has a worthwhlie outside route as well.

Devil's Kitchen is yet another classic sandbag. I'd agree with MVS if it's slimy but more like a tough S 4a if dry (if you ignore the boulder problem to access the cleft below). Clachaig Gully was brilliant fun... I have pics on my UKC Gallery.

I have pretty compete diaries (including grades) from my Freshers’ meets in 1976 to 1995.  They get a bit scrappier after after that and never really resumed after we got back from Cape Town in 1996.  I have lots of notes from doing the Roaches guide but not really a complete diary of who did what and when, so my log on here has a big gap from then until I started using it regularly.  I still haven’t transferred everything to my log and, of course, I’ve done quite a lot on South African, Zimbabwean and European crags that aren’t on UKC.

I have a log (not on UKC) of every bit of climbing I've done since first being taken up Needle Ridge (VD) in 1974.

But it's basically an enhanced list with a few comments that would be totally uninteresting to anyone but myself.

Yours on the other hand, is a quality journal that would be interesting to many people.

I'm another member of the "not small enough to fit through  Helfenstein's Struggle (HVD 4a)" club but I have done the enjoyable outside variation more than once.

Not sure what you mean? Your experience at v-diff will help you know what to expect on other v-diffs, so it will be of value. Obviously you have to gain that experience, usually done by only trying the next grade once comfortable on the one below.

Look at the grade votes for Land's End Long Climb. As someone very experienced in grading at lower grades this indicates most climbers are pretty clueless, presumably as most on such a climb (on a serious sea cliff for a genuine VD leader near their limit) climb so much harder that voting suffers heavy cognitive bias to the grade label.

I've helped teach over a hundred beginners to lead outdoors and climbed with many hundreds of lower grade climbers. I found good grading really helps build confidence and every little extra information helps (especially if the climber is sbort and the route very reachy). Sandbag grading puts people off trad through frustration and/or fear.

Genuine question though - Does one 'notice' moves as low as 2a, for example? At what point are you actually doing a 'technical' move which warrants a grade? I know on-paper you could extend this to 1a but does a 1a move actually exist? A lot of lower-grade routes don't feel to me like they actually have any 'moves', they're just scrambling in a serious position. I feel like the ones which have 'moves' are usually graded as such (e.g. HVD 4a). At what point does scrambling up stairs become a technically graded move?

It's hard to word this without sounding like an elitist prick but please don't take it that way, I'm not a good climber but to me I'm not sure I can conceive a move below 3cish. Fair play though, it must take a lot of work to grade easier things! I'd imagine Vdifs can have a relative difficulty wider than HVS, since I've done some that felt like walks (limestone ledge-shuffling) and some that felt like climbing (grit). 

What this thread has highlighted for me at least (and this might not be a popular opinion for ukc grade debaters!) Is that grading at best is a vague guideline and at worst total bollox and the latter seems to be more often than not the case.

2 of the climbs suggested above I thought were bottom of the grade rather than the top,  another one resulted in a 30 minute solid monologue by my climbing partner weather somthing was E36a or E45c (quite a range)

For me so much comes down to what I'm feeling like on the day sometimes I think I'm going to die on vdiff's sometimes I cruise E3 probably lucky for everyone I dont write guidebooks...

If you can tell a technical difference between the scrambly first pitches of Ordinary Route on Idwall slabs and the Diff crux and between that crux and the cruxes on the classic VDs next door you are doing just that. These Diff and VD climbers are out there....read the solo Corvus thread and there is a climber looking for good non sandbag Diffs to lead and ditto for VDiffs.

The best place to experience technical differences is on a quiet out-of-the-way Font easier yellow circuit that's not polished. Climb a f2C problem and that's usually UK tech 3c and a f1C problem is UK tech 2c etc. The grade equivalence is less important than feeling the noticable differences.

As I said earlier we mostly reverse engineered things and, where we can, we check widely with different partners and by watching many others.... as an example a route feeling middling VD to us (compared to classic benchmarks) and which wasn't especially cruxy or bold is a VD 3c on the system we used for our website (and in the experimental use in the definitive crag pages for Birchen and Woodhouse Scar). We also try to note especially reachy routes or other unusual factors.

Good grading remains part art and a best guess for a population with varying experiences but it helps and there is much more too it than just technicality and boldness (other common factors adding to sandbags are not adjusting grades up a tad for say loose rock, poor belays, or exceptional exposure for the grade....my last climb on Pennard at the weekend had all of those, as well as being an adjectival and technical sandbag assuming none of them).

The more important issue is do you commonly feel that way about all climbs of that type. We nearly all have strengths and weaknesses compared to a nominal average. Good graders know that and adjust for it. Say: 'that route felt easy E2 for me and it played to my strengths, so it should be graded harder than that'.

I think the up arrows support my proposition!  

Let them press the idiot buttons.... that's just ignorance of the other routes. Go try them.

I do think Altar is easiest to mess up if in a panic... some keep laybacking too far and skip a good half rest...others try and finish direct which is HVS (the definitive says swing right at the top). Nonsuch next door is much more of a sandbag (an E1 pretending to be HVS).

Layback Crack at Gardoms is easiest to inadvertently pop off due to polish... quite a few do.

So I need experience at V-Diff in order to be able to get experience at V-DIff to assess routes because they're V-Diff... Thanks - I feel enlightened already. 

Ah - I may have misunderstood. You're suggesting I should just go up the grades unit I find one that is too dangerous for me and then back off a grade and all of those should be OK. In which case I managed an E2 so I should be OK throwing myself at E1's for a while instead of working through a bunch more V-Diffs and Severes.

I may have been fascetious here, sorry. My point is that by climbing a single V-Diff, I have no reference what another V-Diff might be like. Whereas if the V-Diff has a bit more information gained form comparing a tech grade with an adjectival grade, I may be able to understand whether the one I tried was harder but well protected or easy but almost a solo.. 

I totally agree - having found some mountain V-Diff's harder than some HS I've climbed and others just about a scramble..  The morpho aspect is so important too. My wife is starting to lead and being off balance and having to make a little pop without gear half way through a V-Diff isn't good for the confidence. The more descriptive the better for those beginner climbs please!

Agreed, it doesn't let up much, but that can be said for much of Boulder Ruckle 

Devil's Kitchen is horrible! Wet and ..... Devilish! Lockwood's chimney is much nicer and fun.

For Diffs I nominate the Yellow Slab pitch on Second Pinnacle Rib. It's technically a good Severe, but it can be turned, so the whole route doesn't really fall into the category of sustained.

I agree that Lands End Long Climb is quite tough for a V Diff, but the most intimidating move - the jump - doesn't actually require any climbing skill at all, just balls!

For HVS Munich Climb must be up there somewhere. The climbing is pretty sustained, and the crux move used to be difficult to protect. I led it a couple of times in the 1980s, and remember the dire warning in the guide book at the time ringing in my mind as I embarked on the scary leftward step around the bulge and onto the traverse. "This climb requires good ropework. There have been too many fatalities here" or words to that effect. I believe this warning has been removed from more up to date guidebooks? But it certainly concentrated your mind in those days.

That reminds me...... The hardest V.Diff I have done is definitely easily Median (VD) on Sron na Ciche. I think it would terrify anyone not a competent and experienced VS climber. Huge, some loose rock, bold sections, complex and confusing route finding. Just generally demanding (and brilliant!) I had to resort to a point of aid on the slimy chimney crux (though my second freed it). I nearly backed off a bold section above trying to avoid damp patches (I imagine it is rarely dry). The most honest way I would grade it would be a serious AD+/D-.

I'd say Munich is easy HVS. The short 5a crux section is OK to protect with modern pro ( microcams and RPs) but getting polished. I do agree Yellow Slab (and Thompson's Chimney) are a bit much for a Diff. Rockfax list the wandering bypass line as a 3 star Mod these days.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/tryfan-491/pinnacle_rib_variant-48...

Median was dry the two times I did it and it was a Diff until the new guidebook! An utterly brilliant climb but very bold. A contender for HS 3c?

You are right - I've just looked at my old guidebook and it was VS in those days!