Alpine Climbing Grades

 

How Do You Know When A Climber Is Lying? His Lips Are Moving

 

 

Soon after crawling out of the primordial muck and learning to stand more or less upright, man began to climb. Needing to brag about his accomplishments afterwards at the bar, he invented the first grading system. Today there are a number of grading systems by which modern man (or woman) gauges the technical difficulty of rock and ice climbs, embellishes achievements, and lies to friends. The two most favored by alpinists are the International French Adjectival and the American Ice Grading Systems.

 

Alpine Climbing Grades

Rating the difficulty of alpine climbs is a black art. It requires factoring the many variables affecting the seriousness and technical demands of a route and then distilling it all into one grade; a task made more difficult given that the only constant affecting a given route is change. Alpine climbs are in constant flux, with the difficulty of a route varying widely from season to season, day to day, even hour to hour depending on weather, snow and ice conditions, the quality of the rock, and the severity of your hangover.

The generally accepted system for rating alpine routes is the International French Adjectival System (IFAS). The IFAS comes from the long-standing system used in the Alps, where in addition to a pitch-by-pitch rating, the Frenchies oftentimes also give a rating suggesting the overall difficulty of the climb.

The broad nature of the IFAS takes into account such variables as technical difficulty, quality of the belays, nature of the rock, exposure, objective dangers, etcetera. In addition to the letter combinations of the IFAS, the symbols "+" and "-" are sometimes added to indicate nuances between the grades. Confused yet? Yeah, well.

The International French Adjectival System rates the difficulty of alpine climbs as follows:

F (Facile) — Easy; a straightforward climb; belaying usually unnecessary; simple glacier approach; easy scrambling; little objective danger; you could lead your dog up it

PD (Peu Difficile) — Moderately difficult; a more challenging climb; some belaying and protection necessary; more complex glacier work; harder and/or more exposed scrambling; apparent objective danger; take a friend

AD (Assez Difficile) — Fairly difficult; a moderate, but not strenuous climb; belaying and protection necessary; snow and/or ice up to 45- 50-degrees; ice pitches up to Grade II-III; rock climbing up to 5.6; route may be long and/or high altitude; there's work to be done here

D (Difficile) — Difficult; a long, serious, strenuous climb; snow and/or ice up to 50- 70-degrees; rock climbing harder than 5.7; encourage your partner to take the sharp end

TD (Tres Difficile) — Very difficult; a long, serious, strenuous climb with high objective danger in places; snow and/or ice up to 50– 70-degrees; perhaps ice pitches up to Grade III-IV; rock climbing up to 5.8; wear a diaper to hide your fear

ED (Extreme Difficile) — Extremely difficult; a very serious climb with strenuous rock/ice/mixed climbing and/or exceptional objective danger; ED is often additionally sub-graded 1 through 4 (i.e. ED2); you’re both gonna’ die

 

Ice Climbing Grades

The American Ice Grading System has its roots in the Scottish Winter Grading System. As you might well imagine, the Scots are nuts and don’t know a thing about ice climbing despite the generally held consensus that they invented it. To this day, their idea if “ice climbing” involves drinking whisky until the wee hours, and then, either severely hung-over or in an alcoholic stupor, spending the day in a sleet storm swinging dull tools at clumps of barely frozen grass. Afterwards it's back to the pub for more drinking.

Ice climbing grades are highly variable by region, constantly evolving, and useful only as rough guess as to how a given route might form during an average winter. The WI (Water Ice) designation is applied to seasonal climbs such as waterfalls, while the AI (Alpine Ice) designation is applied to year-round climbs such as high altitude couloirs. The AI and WI designations are pretty much interchangeable, with the general understanding that AI climbs are half a grade in difficulty easier than WI climbs of the same grade. In fact, many times AI routes are no more than steep snow climbs.

The American Ice Grading System rates the difficulty of ice climbs as follows:

WI-1 — Easy slab; possible to walk up ice with the use of crampons, and generally without the need for tools or protection; perhaps occasional short, steeper sections; flat foot technique; imagine a frozen driveway

WI-2 — Easy climbing; a pitch of reasonably consistent 60– 70-degree ice with a few short, steep steps; good protection and belays; easy front-pointing; bring a date you want to impress

WI-3 — More difficult climbing; generally thick and solid 70– 80-degree ice; occasional short, steep sections, but with good rests, protection, and belays; more difficult front-pointing; here’s where you start to get tired

WI-4 — Strenuous climbing; sustained, generally good quality 75– 85-degree ice; satisfactory protection and belays; occasional less vertical section; now you’re tired and scared

WI-5 — Strenuous climbing on a longer route; 85– 90-degree ice; sometimes featureless, but often with areas of chandeliers or difficult bulges; bring a change for that diaper

WI-6 — Very strenuous climbing on a vertical, sometimes overhanging route; sections of thin or highly technical climbing; difficult protection from precarious stances; you guessed it — you’re both gonna’ die

 

Okay, So ... What Does It All Mean?

If you’re still vexed as to how all this applies to you and your experience, don’t fret. In fact, we understand that none other than Sylvester Stallone — that mumbling paradigm of studlyness — didn’t know squat about grading systems before he made that excellent and very realistic movie, Cliffhanger … and look at what a good little climber he turned out to be.

To learn more about how to pull it all together and choose the right expedition, go to Which Expedition For Me?