Graduação de vias.

Grading scales for routes and bouldering.   Climbing scales have been developed in different areas throughout the world both for bouldering and sport climbing. Today, some seven main, and many lesser, scales are still in use, although they are normally converted to the French system, which is the oldest and internationally most accepted system. One distinction between the scales is that the French system differentiates the climbing difficulty with more steps than the other scales. In bouldering, for example, the French (Fontainebleau) scale has six levels, from 6a to 6c+, compared to the V-scale with only three steps for this important level in bouldering. In order to compare and grade certain levels of difficulty, sometimes half grades are needed for translating other grading scales to the French scale. In the table below, the number of steps for certain difficulty levels are shown, for different scales.   Steps/Levels French UIAA Australian Brittish - Rope Scandin. USA - Rope USA - Boulder 6a - 6c+ 6 4.5 5 3 4,5 7 3,5 7a - 7c+ 6 5 5 3 4,5 6 5 8a - 8c+ 6 5 6 3 4,5 6 6   Comparing the relative difficulty for doing boulders and routes.   Based on the scorecard, we can see that the grade gap between routes and boulders has been reduced during the last year. Previously, climbers thought that there should be 3 steps between a route and a boulder to make them equallt hard for the population. Bouldering is still in rapid development and climbers are getting stronger and stronger. It seems like an 8a = 8b, nowadays.     Grades for routes and boulders are not supposed to be compared but it's never the less very interesting with a comparison. The easiest way to analyze the differences of the two scales is by measuring what the climbing community are able to perform in routes / boulders. Based on empirical studies, it seems like it's as difficult to do a 6c boulder as a 7a+ route, which means that three steps should be added. However, as we are comparing easier difficulty levels, the discrepancy of the scales increases, i.e. a 6a boulder would probably be going for 6c routes (4 steps added). On the other hand, as we are going up in the scale, an 8a boulder for example, it seems like adding 2 steps would be appropriate for reaching the same difficulty level for the community.   This non-linear conformity between route and boulder grades is confirmed.   www.8a.nu