UKC

For a while I was confused why some DWS grades displayed an S grade and others did not.

Turns out that to have the option of adding the S grade, the route has to be categorised as a sport route.

To my mind, DWS routes are not sport routes, they're unequipped and therefore trad routes, albeit ones where a French grade makes more sense - but in any case, is it possible to tweak this so that all the DWS routes in the database that are down as trad routes don't have to be re-categorised to display an S grade?

Slightly off topic, but I was thinking recently it would be nice if DWS was a category of climb, as well as a category of ascent. So there are sport routes and trad routes that sometimes receive a DWS ascent (eg Shere Khan (E7 6c)), there are DWS routes that one could conceivably lead (on old bolts or trad gear) (eg Blue Planet (7b+ S2)), there are DWS routes that don't make sense with a rope (eg Once a Dogger (7b+)), finally there are DWS variations, a bit like when aid and free versions differ. (eg Caveman (E6 6b) vs Caveman DWS (7a+ S3)).

tl;dr: I think DWS is both a category of route like 'sport', 'trad' and 'winter' as well as a category of ascent like 'lead', 'top rope' or 'solo'.

Well what about if you DWS a sport route.? 

So it makes more sense as a style of ascent than type of route to me

Then it should obviously be documented as a sport route. The majority of DWS routes however are not sport routes.

Perhaps, but this doesn't solve the issue with the S grade being displayed on UKC.

Hi Andy

This dates from Mike Robertson's Deep Water guide from 2007. Mike decided, with our support, to use the sport grade for DWS routes. His justification is below.

There is such a thing as a trad route with a sport grade in the database which we use in France, Spain and elsewhere for trad routes keeping inline with the local grading system. I would have thought that this is what we should use for the DWS flag but I'll get that checked.

Alan

Mike Robertson on Sport Grades in Deep Water:

Sport Grades - why?

The mixing of various grades in the UK has always caused a high level of confusion, and with good reason. The Brits seem obsessed with making things as complicated as possible! This is especially true in the game of deep water soloing, where historically we've used a combination of three grading systems. These are:

Extremely Severe 'XS' grades - These were often used for deep water solos with many references in the 1996 Climbers' Club Dorset DWS Guide. The XS grade prefixed the hardest English technical move. The problem with the XS grade is that it doesn't tell you how sustained the climbing is; it only tells of how hard the hardest move is.

English grades - (As in E4 6a). These weren't so bad for DWS, but the problem was the 'E' bit of the grade, which all too often denoted the danger element, due to the lack of available wire protection. A further difficulty was that you don't drag a full climbing rack up a deep water solo! A deep water solo just doesn't need this 'E' grade (we thankfully don't have to fumble endlessly with wires), which was why more and more new routes were being put up using the Sport, or 'French' grade.

Sport/French grades - Adopted wholeheartedly for this guide, and universally understood - the World's favourite grade. The sport grade was initially used in DWS for areas such as Dorset's Stair Hole, where the routes were put up as sport routes, then later soloed. The grade quickly picked up momentum within the grading of new DWS routes, especially at venues such as Mallorca's pumpy Diablo. This grade gives an overall impression of difficulty, and fits the DWS genre almost perfectly, although it's not quite as fitting for boulder-problem solos.

This is kinda complicated, on the climb we save the grade.id and the techgrade.id. Depending on the main grade system determines what tech grade is offered.

Trad will get English tech for the techgrade field.
Sport French will offer DWS S grades in the techgrade field.

This is why we can't currently save something like E6 6b S3. The 6b and the S3 are saving to the same climb.techgrade field.

Ideally, pure DWS routes would be set to Trad French and the UI would show S grades but blanket changing then all now would be a bit of a nightmare as all the voting would need to be migrated to the corresponding grades in the other grade systems. As others has pointed out too, it is entirely possible to have DWS only, Trad + DWS and Sport + DWS routes. There's not an easy programmatic way to update these to the correct grade system.

We're going to have an overhaul of the grade system next year. We'll look into this again then. Having 2 grades attached to a single climb isn't off the cards at the moment. There's quite a few Trad + Highball Bouldering in the Peak that would benefit from this.

Sounds good Paul, I appreciate these types of adjustment are potentially a programming nightmare.

I can see the option for two different types of grade for the same route being a useful (if slightly niche) one.

In reply to Alan:

Yes, and that's what how a lot of DWS routes in the UK are currently categorised (rightly I think) - it's just that the S grade can't be displayed on them.