VARP and route evaluation

Community

Hello to everybody!

Welcome to another unstructured confession. This time it will be about our election road evaluation, both on bouldering and on sports shoes and traditional shoes. As you may have noticed, we use the French Sport scale for the rope and the American (Hueco) "Cap" scale for the boulder on our TOPO. So let me answer an oft-repeated question - why?

Divoká Šárka, Duben, Stock
April, Divoka Sárka

Backstory

We started climbing inside on Bonk Place and on BigWall. Two halls where they have a really different approach to climbing (from A to Z). There we were introduced to the UIAA scale, the sports scale, crayons and clams.

When we then moved outside for the COVID, we collided hard with the UIAA on the rope used by the CHS and Lezec. Two databases that left us with mixed feelings of excitement and dismay. Some time later, we got our hands on a guide to Šárka from Valmar, who had already decided everything.

Rope

The answer to the question why we use the French evaluation of ropeways is simple. It makes the most sense to us. But that wouldn't be fun, so I'll continue. Apart from the fact that the UIAA is unsympathetic to us, we chose the French system because it is the most well-known and understood in the world. Our goal is to make climbing accessible to everyone. That's why we chose a scale where we all know what what means. 6a-6c are a solid average. 7a-c are for advanced, 8a-c are really challenging and 9a-c are for gods.

Boulder

Boulder was a bit more judgmental when it came to road evaluation. Part of what drove us was "simplicity" and clarity. It is clear to everyone that V1 is easier than V2, that than V3 and so on up to V17. Along with that, we have one more childish reason for our choice of the "V" scale.

The already mentioned Valmarovo Pdf on Šárka served as a basic point of departure for our own top, for which we owe him endless thanks. However, its rating is not always 100 % appropriate. This is both in the difficulties and in the "correctness" of the method used. In order to avoid evaluating boulders with combinations that do not exist (5A+, 5B+, etc.), we decided on a neutral option – V1, V2, V3 …. .

Epilogue

In short and well – we are picky. But we certainly don't want to push you towards one or another style or, even worse, condemn you for which method you use. Well, it's a pretty small thing. That's why we try to make our guides accessible to everyone, and we put both of them on the roads - V3 (6A), 6a (VI+).

That's it for road evaluation. I hope I answered the question well enough. On Friday, you can finally look forward to the next - and it looks like the final - TOPO from Šárka.

Climbing Good luck!
Janus

Jan "Jánus" Kulhánek, Jan Novák, Doing Topos na Borovce