Hardest sport route for the grade

[Andrew]

Yea, annie the inhalator felt really hard to me.

[Andrew]

Bullfighter is easy for the grade

[dustonian]

sumthin' musta broke!

[JR]

Code Red. Something must have broke!!

[TradMike]

Possum Lips did have a hold break off it shortly after it was put up that made it a lot harder

[SCIN]

That is the point of the thread, or so I thought... Routes out there that feel like the grade is sandbagged. If the grade is incorrect, why isn't it changed? So, to me it sounds like Tecumseh's Curse is a great choice until the grade truly reflects the difficulty of the climb... You got any pull for fixing that?

Tecumseh's Curse will be corrected. A sandbag is normally with a letter grade, not 3. 2 to 3 letter grades is a fuckup, not a sandbag.

[shuffleboardfan]

5.9- Ridin' the Short Buzz @ Chica Bonita
5.9 It's a Beautiful Life @ Pistol Ridge and Threat Level Blue @ What About Bob
5.9+ Darwin Loves You @ Volunteer Wall
.10a Fast Food Christian's @ Left Flank, oh wait, you don't count the first move; nevermind, it's easy.
.10a Monkey Bars @ the Playground (then A.W.O.L and Defy)
.10c Karmic Retribution @ Inner Sanctum (then Annie the Annihilator @ Indy Wall)

My hands are sweating just thinking about Karmic retribution. I was glad to see the new guidebook upgraded it to a 10d!

Also it's been a while since I've been on it, but I think I remember Darwin being funky too. Of course I think anything graded 9+ typically means it's just too goofy/manky to be a pure 9 or 10a. Between most grades the progression of difficulty seems pretty natural, but it seems there is some blackhole of funkiness that falls in between solid 5.9 climbs and those graded 10a.

I'd also like to purpose (and am fully prepared to get flamed for it) that both Roadside Attraction ,and Diamond in the Crack, are sandbagged as well. Although both of them are awesome, they also both have some spooky, tough moves on em. ...of course my bias could come from the fact that they are both multipitch, trad climbs, which maybe I just suck at. I wonder if anyone else felt the same way about them though.*

*I know a couple of "5.10 trad leaders" from out east agreed with us about Roadside. They did it after us and had a rough time on it. Made me feel better at least.

[pkananen]

What? Neither Roadside nor Diamond in the Crack are multipitch. I'd just count the first "pitch" of Diamond as part of the approach. I'd say Roadside is spot on rating-wise, I could maybe see Diamond in the Crack being a number grade harder. But most any Day route could be a number grade harder.

[Andrew]

I am a bad crack climber, and I did not find roadside or diamond hard for the grade.

[jenbongo]

Don't get me started on trad ratings. This was supposed to be a sport thread. But since you mentioned it, I would agree RA is a little stout, maybe an 8, but not as bad as Vision at Global village. No way that is a 7. I thought Diamond in the Crack felt like 5.6; maybe I lead the easy pitch. I did do both of those routes as 2 pitches. (Rope drag was bad enough on Diamond, and lack of #2 cams on RA.) I would complain about almost every trad rating until I just started comparing them to other trad routes. I still think the trad ratings at the Red are generally more stout than the sport ratings, but I've come to accept it. Still, RA is comparable to many 8s I've been on, like Whiteout. And Vision is harder than all the 8s.