Inflating Grades and Egos

On October 23, 2016, Finnish pro climber Nalle Hukkataival walked to his four-year bouldering project in Lappnor, Finland. Discovered by Marko Siivinen, the problem follows five hand moves on a series of crimps over four meters on a 45° red granite wall. Dubbed the Lappnor Project, the boulder problem represented the upper limits of hard bouldering. That day, Hukkataival linked the small holds and dubbed it Burden of Dreams. Hukkataival, who has climbed more than a dozen V15 and harder problems, suggested the problem entered a new domain.

Daniel Woods working the FA of Box Therapy (V16)

“Having achieved the first ascent of Burden of Dreams marks a new level in my climbing,” Hukkataival wrote on his Instagram. “With a handful of existing 8C+ (V16) boulders in the world, proposing 9A (V17) is the logical step.” This grade jump was a bold move that sparked conversation about the current status of bouldering grades.

 In the early 1990s, bouldering pioneer John Sherman authored a new climbing guide to Hueco Tanks State Park. He almost printed the book without climbing grades, but the publisher,

George Meyers of Chockstone Press, thought the book wouldn’t sell without ratings. He asked Sherman to differentiate the difficulty of the climbs. Previously boulders used either the Yosemite Decimal System, meaning problems had confusing route grades, or John Gill’s B-system, suggested in his 1969 American Alpine Journal article “The Art of Bouldering.” Gills’ sliding scale suggested that B1 was a climb at the highest level of traditional roped climbing, B2 signified a bouldering level harder than 5.10, and B3 was “very rarely repeated, although frequently tried without success.” Repeats of B3 routes meant they were automatically downgraded to B2.

At the time, the concept behind grading was so that people knew roughly what they were getting into when starting a climb, partly for safety purposes. For the book, Sherman devised an open “V” scale, short for Vermin, his nickname, compiling a list of problems according to difficulty, and he had other local climbers review it. He adjusted the scale so V0 would be introductory and V9 would be the hardest problems established. “As soon as the book came out, the race was on for somebody to do the first V10 in Hueco,” Sherman said. “Now the race is on to do the first V18—or at least downgrade that V17.”

The process of establishing new hard problems or downgrading the most difficult one is nothing new. Jim Bridwell discussed downgrading when he introduced the Yosemite Decimal System in his article “The Innocent, the Ignorant, and the Insecure” in Ascent Volume 2, Number 1, published in July 1973. Bridwell suggested that Yosemite climbers had become stuck at 5.9 because they were innocent (a rarity), ignorant (solved by education), or insecure (inherent in individuals and difficult to remedy). “Fair rating of a climb implies a moral obligation, on the part of the climber, to consciously be as accurate as possible,” Jim Bridwell wrote. He then suggested benchmark climbs in a variety of styles to solidify the climbing grades.

Taimur Ahmad working the Buttermilker (V12)

 At the upper end of the bouldering scale, there have been a few benchmark climbs. In 2000, Fred Nicole completed the first ascent of Dreamtime in Cresciano, Switzerland, proposing V15. In the past 16 years, more than 20 people have repeated the problem, with just over half calling it V14. In 2004, Dave Graham suggested The Story of Two Worlds, a problem he put up in Cresciano, be the benchmark for V15. These climbs as standards for the grade have fluctuated, meaning new beta and improved gear have made them “easier.” A dozen people have repeated Story, resequencing many of Graham’s original moves and using better toe hook rubber on shoes. “It might be V14 now,” Graham said. Most of the dozen repeaters call it V15, making it one of more than a hundred V15s in the world, according to a thorough list on 99boulders.com.

"I do believe V15 is solidified at this point,” said Daniel Woods, who has climbed and established 22 problems of the grade. With so many problems of the grade, a number of them have reached a consensus of V15. Certainly some will be easy for the grade, some hard, and some accurate, but an issue arises when there are fewer repeat ascents.

There are only five V16s according to 99boulders.com. A number of suggested V16s have been downgraded. When Woods made the first ascent of The Game in Boulder Canyon in 2012, he suggested V16. The problem has since seen three repeats and was downgraded to V15 by all three climbers. In 2010, Woods established Hypnotized Minds in Rocky Mountain National Park and graded it V15. After six years of attempts by some of the strongest climbers, Woods uprated the problem. The Russian climber Rustam Gelmanov repeated the route in summer 2016, taking only a few days. Uprating problems tends to be less common than downgrading. “Nobody wants to upgrade boulders,” Nalle Hukkataival said, “it makes them look weaker in other people eyes.”

Drew Ruana works the FA of Echalo (V15)

In late September 2016, Woods completed the first ascent of Creature from the Black Lagoon. Graham repeated it shortly after. While working the problem, the pair discussed one of the larger questions about bouldering grades. “We are left dumbfounded to realize that the same level in bouldering has been maintained from Fred Nicole, Bernd Zangerl, and Klem Loskot a decade ago until now,” Woods wrote in an Instagram post. “We can either acknowledge what is a level up from the standard of 15 (based off of consensus over the years) or continue climbing V15 for another decade.” Woods and Graham both rated Creature V16, making it just one of a few repeated boulder problems at the grade.

In 2011, Adam Ondra completed the first ascent of Terranova, suggesting a rating of 8c+/V16. He then repeated Christian Gore’s Gioia (8c/V15) shortly after. He compared the two, and believed Gioia should be uprated. “If you were to give this 8c, then the bouldering grades wouldn’t make much sense anymore. You’d have to downgrade all the 8b+ (V14s) and most of the 8c’s (V13s) as well.” Ondra said in an interview at the time. He believed Gore rated the route 8c to “play things safe.” He then suggested Gioia was V16.

“We’ve been climbing V16 for a long time,” Hukkataival said. Hukkatival repeated Gioia but declined to grade the problem. “Everything has not been the same difficulty but everything has been the same number.” Hukkatival suggested that because of the grade stagnation, climbers began reporting how many days, how many hours, how many attempts it took to climb V15. “It was like V15 was the V and the time was the number,” said Hukkataival, suggesting that commonly accepted grades failed to tell the physical difficulty.

After sending some V15s and trying others that he believes were harder than their given grade, like Living Large, a hard highball V15 in South Africa’s Rocklands, and Gioia, Hukkataival felt comfortable suggesting the V17 grade for Burden. “I think Burden of Dreams is harder than the V16s that I know,” he said.

“The hardest climbs in the world will never have an accurate grade,” Hukkataival said. “To have an accurate grade you need multiple people’s opinion on the grade and once multiple people repeat a grade, it’s not the hardest climb in the world.” Hukkataival suggested that grading becomes difficult particularly on cutting-edge first ascents because so much of the battle is figuring out if a problem is even possible. The first ascensionist must then give a rating based purely on the physical factor and ignore the challenges faced with conditions, fall potential, and mental difficulty of the first ascent. Subsequent ascents tell the reality of how difficult a climb is, unbiased by the emotions involved in a first ascent.

Alex Puccio works Vanilla Gorilla (V9) at Camp Dick

There are few people climbing at the upper limits of bouldering. While the number of climbers who have climbed V15 has increased, most lack a diverse resume of grades at the range. “How can you know such a grade with so few participants?” Graham said of rating high-end problems. “It’s like an experiment with six control subjects.” Furthermore, new grade levels are established by first ascents since as upgrading established problems is a rarity. In the next few years, grades will most likely continue to increase. Individual climbers may become “stuck” on a grade for years, and undoubtedly the grade debate will continue. Since all grades are subjective, nothing will ever be V16 for everyone. As Woods said, “We’re not mathematicians over here.”

First published in Climbing 351