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The numbers are now broken

January 5th, 2009

I completed a 5.10(-) rock route today, at the rock climbing gym.  Woo!  It’s a new personal best!

I told Rhiannon I was trying to move from 5.9 routes to 5.10 routes, and she asked me, “Aren’t you trying to do sixes, then?”

I seem to have left numeric consistency behind, but it isn’t my fault.  See, the local gym uses the Yosemitie Decimal System, which grades the difficulty of climbing trails.  When they first set the YDS up, they decided that the number before the decimal would refer to the class of climb, and the trailing number represents the difficulty of that climb, in that class.  So, a 1.x would be a bike trail, 2.x would be a hiking trail  …  A 5.x is a rock traversal requiring ropes for saftey.

What I think happened was that they graded all the trails they could find using this system, with 5.1 being easiest and 5.9 being hardest.  Subsequently, they found harder trails, and the term 5.9 had to cover them all, so they… incremented. That’s just a guess, though.

I think they’ve established 5.14 courses, or somesuch.

Anyway, wooo!  I think I’m going to reward myself by getting some climbing pants.  They’re stretchy, with a reinforced crotch.

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