If you’ve been climbing a few times, you’ve probably noticed that two climbs with the same grade can feel worlds apart. One 5.10 flows, the next one shuts you down at the crux. So I dug into how climbing routes are graded, indoors and out, and why the number on the tag is only part of the story.
How are climbing routes graded? In the YDS and V-scale systems, the hardest single move on the route sets the grade, while the British and French systems lean more on the cumulative difficulty of the whole climb. On top of the technical side, the YDS, V-scale, and British systems also fold in a subjective read of how the climb “feels.”
Even the French system, which sticks closest to the technical moves, can feel harder or easier from one route to the next at the same grade. That’s usually down to the strengths and weaknesses of whoever set the grade and which techniques they’re best at when they decide what number to hang on the climb.
How Climbing Routes Are Graded Outdoors
Outdoors, climbs get graded by the first few people up the route, or by whoever bolts it. Grades often shift by popular opinion before they ever land in a guidebook. Here’s how it usually plays out, step by step.
- A climber sends the route and compares it to other climbs they’ve done that needed similar techniques.
- They decide what grade they think it is. Say they’ve done a 5.10 before and this new route felt about the same, they’ll probably log it as a 5.10 too. If one move felt a touch harder than anything on that older climb, they might call it a 5.10a or 5.10b.
- They record their grade in a climbing database like Mountain Project, or they just post it to a forum like Reddit.
- Other climbers do the same, so you end up with a few different grades on record and usually a good argument about which one’s right.
- Someone building a guidebook reviews the databases and the discussion threads and picks a grade for the book. Often they lean on their own experience on the route too.
- The guidebook gets published.
- Climbers use the guidebook, and most of them go with its grade when they talk about the climb with other people.
- Sometimes a new edition comes out with updated grades, maybe from popular opinion or because a hold broke, and the new number circulates until it settles or shifts again.
So even with a lot of thought going into it, you can see the grade still ends up somewhat subjective. If you’re weighing how outdoor climbs compare to gym climbs across the board, our breakdown of indoor vs outdoor climbing goes deeper on where the two split.
To cut down on that subjectivity, some climbers pay closer attention to which techniques a route demands or how many hard moves it packs in. Outdoors, though, the environment throws in extra difficulty that’s tough to pin down. Here are a few things climbers look at when they’re sizing up how hard a route is:
- The length of the climb
- How weathered the handholds and footholds are
- How long the climb takes
- How hard the safety gear is to place or clip
- How dangerous a fall could be
- The incline of the wall
How Indoor Climbing Routes Are Graded
Instead of a crowd of climbers debating what a route should be, indoor grades come down to one person: the setter who built it. If you want the inside view on that craft, we talked shop in this interview with Team USA chief route setter Mike Bockino.
The trouble is, grading in route setting is nowhere near “well established.”
A handful of books on setting have come out over the last ten years or so, but even those rarely spell out which moves count as which difficulty.
Because of that, the skills and techniques tied to a given grade tend to shift from gym to gym. Every gym has its own setters, and every setter brings their own experience and their own read on how hard a move really is.
Still, there are a few key techniques setters reach for when they’re building a route to a target difficulty.
Techniques Considered By Route Setters
Setters will work a few of these techniques into most routes. What changes is how hard they make each one, depending on the grade they’re aiming for.
When a setter wants a climb to be tougher, they’ll use their own feel for how hard a move is and dial the route up. Usually that means adding more technical moves, or making the move that uses a given technique more demanding.
Here are a few techniques setters use to push a grade up or down. If any of the terms are new to you, our bouldering and sport climbing glossary has the rest.
- Foot placement: Where the setter wants you to put your feet.
- Route reading: How obvious the sequence looks when you read the route from the ground.
- Balance: How many balance-dependent moves there are and how hard they are to hold.
- Strength on overhangs: The angle your body works at while you’re climbing.
- Flexibility: How flexible you need to be to reach the next hold or make the next move.
- Underclings: Placed one way, they let you set your body up to leverage them. Placed another way, they’re awkward to use and crank up the difficulty.
- Layback: A move where you push away from the hold with your feet so you can leverage a handhold in a pulling position.
- Smearing: Using your feet flat against the wall when there aren’t any footholds.
Why The Same Grade Feels Different From Place To Place
Because grades are subjective by nature, it’s normal to feel the difficulty shift when you travel from one area to another. The group of climbers who first sent a route and pinned a grade on it all had their own strengths and weaknesses.
A route that suits their strengths will feel easier to them than one that leans on techniques they haven’t drilled much. If you’re specifically comparing gym and crag bouldering, is bouldering outdoors harder than indoors covers that side of it.
So it’s common to notice a real difference in how a grade feels when you climb in one area versus another.
Same goes indoors. The setter who built a route to a target grade has their own experience and their own opinion on how hard a climb is. That’s why every gym feels a little different at the same level, unless they share setters.
You’ll even feel the difference between setters in the same gym. Sometimes I’ll check who set a route, since gyms often credit the setter, so I can compare between them. And yeah, I’ve got my favorite setters, people I’ve never met who set routes I always enjoy.
Grades will always wobble a bit, so the fastest way to feel more solid at your level is to sharpen the exact moves that push a grade up. Send Edition sends one short climbing drill a week, about 15 minutes each, and it’s free. Grab the weekly drills here if you want to make more grades feel easy.
Related Questions
What Are The Different Types Of Climbing Grades?
There are plenty of climbing grade systems around the world. Here’s a quick rundown of the most common ones:
- Yosemite Decimal System (YDS) – USA
- V-Grade – USA
- French Scale (Fs) – France
- British Scale – Great Britain, Ireland
- International Climbing and Mountaineering Association (ICAA) – Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary
- Brazilian Scale – Brazil
- Ewbank – Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa
Is Bouldering Indoors Less Difficult Than Outdoor Climbing?
Climbing outdoors usually throws more at you than climbing indoors, so a lot of climbers feel outdoor bouldering is harder. You’re more likely to get hurt in an outdoor fall, so the fear of falling weighs heavier, which makes the mental side tougher and the bouldering harder as a result.
Frequently asked questions
Do all grading systems use the hardest move?
No. The YDS and the V-scale grade a climb by its single hardest move, so one brutal crux can set the whole grade. The British and French systems lean more on cumulative difficulty, so a long route full of sustained but easier moves can still earn a high grade.
What’s the difference between the V-scale and the YDS?
Both are American systems. The V-scale grades boulder problems (V0 and up), while the YDS grades roped routes with the 5.x format, running from about 5.0 to 5.15 with a to d letter grades once you hit 5.10 and above. You’ll see the V-scale at the bouldering wall and the YDS on roped climbs.
Who decides an outdoor route’s grade?
It starts with the first climbers up the route or whoever bolts it. From there, other climbers log their own grades in databases like Mountain Project and argue it out, and a guidebook author eventually picks a grade for the book. Grades can still change in later editions if opinion shifts or a hold breaks.
Why do the same grades feel different at different gyms?
Because indoor grades come from individual setters, and setting has no well-established grading standard. Each gym has its own setters with their own experience and their own read on how hard a move is, so the same grade can feel different from one gym to the next, and even between setters in the same gym.
How do I make a grade feel easier?
Grades wobble by area and by setter, so the reliable fix is sharpening the specific techniques that push a grade up, like footwork, balance, and reading sequences. Short, regular drills on those moves make more climbs at your level feel within reach.
New to climbing?
Route grades are one half of a system that confuses everyone at first. The Climbing for Beginners guide answers the rest of the first month questions in one place, from what to wear to what the grades mean.
