Sierra examples of european commitment grades?

Regional discussion and conditions reports for the Golden State. Please post partners requests and trip plans in the California Climbing Partners forum.
no avatar
pjc30943

 
Posts: 520
Joined: Sun Feb 01, 2004 2:26 pm
Thanked: 5 times in 4 posts

Sierra examples of european commitment grades?

by pjc30943 » Sat Mar 07, 2015 8:04 pm

I'm looking to head to climb in europe for the first time this summer (to chamonix), and have been curious about some of the route ratings: leading at HVS or HS, (Hard Very Severe, Very Severe), etc.
I realize these european ratings are similar to the commitment grade for YDS (grade III, IV, etc); how do these compare?

Could someone give examples of climbs in the sierra that correspond to leading at VS or HVS? And with mountaineering grades of D or AD?

The climbing itself for many of these chamonix routes seem to be ~5.5-5.7 YDS for HVS or VS, so I'm looking for verification on whether this is accurate by comparing to climbs that i know around here.

User Avatar
asmrz

 
Posts: 1097
Joined: Mon Sep 16, 2002 7:52 am
Thanked: 248 times in 157 posts

Re: Sierra examples of european commitment grades?

by asmrz » Mon Mar 09, 2015 6:02 pm

Since nobody replied to this so far, let me take a stub at it.

I have no experience with Chamonix ratings.

I climbed in Scotland, on the Isle of Sky, Sea Cliffs in England, Snowdonia and Lake District. My feeling about the easier ratings in Britain is, that they are on the harder side of the grade. Their S, VS, HVS, feel just a bit harder than similar ratings in the Sierra. These ratings are loosely comparable to 5.6, 5.7/5.8 and 5.9 to 5.9+ in the Sierra.

The "S" rating, would most likely fit East Face of Whitney, the N and NE ridges on Lone Pine, Swiss Arete on Mt Sill or the SE Buttress on Cathedral Peak.

VS could be applied to Clyde Minaret, Moon Goddess Arete on Temple Crag or The North Arete of Bear Creek Spire.

HVS could be aproximated on Twilight Pillar of Norman Clyde, Sun Ribbon Arete on Temple Crag or East Buttress of Mt Irvine.

Hope this helps to stimulate some responses from others.

Cheers, Alois.

User Avatar
DukeJH

 
Posts: 694
Joined: Fri Nov 01, 2002 11:12 am
Thanked: 50 times in 41 posts

Re: Sierra examples of european commitment grades?

by DukeJH » Tue Mar 10, 2015 7:52 pm

The best cross reference I could find is http://www.alpinist.com/p/online/grades.

A previous discussion started to get into this issue at http://www.summitpost.org/phpBB3/list-of-mountains-by-grade-or-class-t63428.html but didn't discuss Sierra peaks.

Ideally you'll find somebody with heavy experience in both Europe and the Sierra but I don't know who those people would be. They are vastly different playgrounds.

Good luck.

User Avatar
JHH60

 
Posts: 1244
Joined: Tue Oct 21, 2008 6:59 pm
Thanked: 111 times in 91 posts

Re: Sierra examples of european commitment grades?

by JHH60 » Tue Mar 10, 2015 9:50 pm

Cosley and Houston's book "Alpine Climbing: Techniques to Get you Higher" Appendix C provides more or less what you are looking for, and gives example French alpine ratings for a number of familiar North American climbs (Sierra, Tetons, Cascades, Canadian Rockies). These include technical difficulty (5b, 6a, etc), seriousness (I-VII), and overall difficulty (F, PD, AD, etc.). Unfortunately they don't list adjectival ratings (HVS, etc.) but maybe the other ratings would be useful to you for calibration purposes.

User Avatar
sierraman

 
Posts: 219
Joined: Tue Jul 31, 2007 4:40 am
Thanked: 41 times in 30 posts

Re: Sierra examples of european commitment grades?

by sierraman » Wed Mar 11, 2015 2:33 am

One summer a while back I spent 6 weeks climbing around Chamonix and Zermatt using an English language guidebook published in the UK. Even after 6 weeks it was still difficult to evaluate the guidebook ratings based on my Sierra experience. One problem is the mountains are so much bigger and the weather is so much worse in the Alps than in California. There is not much overlap between the easier Alp climbs and the harder Sierra climbs in terms of commitment. I would recommend you pick out 1 or 2 moderate climbs to start . Hopefully you will have better weather than I did.


Return to California

 


  • Related topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Romain and 0 guests