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The 10 year annivarsairy 8a yearbook will include a historical part and Alexander Huber who is the only climber with a performance foot in both the old school and the new age, as well ass in sport and big wall, will answer some questions. Here is part of what he says has been a bad development: The down gradings and the credibility of ascents.
"And it was up to 1995 that „Action Directe“ was considered to be 8c+. Since
then grading became confuse and predominantly it had been created by the
proposal of the grade 9b. Ben Moon still was there and he tried to convince
the community that the proposal of the grade 9b is destructive as there
hasn´t been even a confirmed 9a in the world. But the discipline was lost
with a lasting effect. Beginning with 1995, the grading became softer, and
softer, and softer… It slowly began with the change of the grade of “Action
Directe” from 8c+ to 9a. Today, “Action Directe” is the most famous of all
the 9a-routes and therefore it is the reference for that grade. The funny
thing is that today “Action Directe”, which had been 8c+ originally, is one
of the hardest 9a-routes in the world!!! It just shows, how far the
overgrading went over the years – I guess that 90% of the modern
high-end-routes are heavily overgraded if you compare these routes with the
benchmark-route “Action Directe”.
Regarding my personal climbing track record, the softening of the grading
had some effects: Most of my first ascents of the years got upgraded and
amongst all the others “Weiße Rose” from 8c+ to 9a/9a+ and “Open Air” from
9a to 9a+. Thanks to today´s softer grading, “Open Air” or maybe even “Weiße
Rose” became the first confirmed route of the grade 9a+. When I see the news, then “Jumbo Love” is considered to be the most
difficult sportclimb today. And well, this assumption is reasonable! We know
the skills of Sharma, which he demonstrated with ascents of “Realisation”,
“La Rambla”, “Es Pontas”, “Golpe del Estado”, “Neanderthal”, ….. The funny
thing is that, when I look through all the magazines, above “Jumbo Love” are
still registered the routes “Chilam Balam” and “Akira”!??!?! As if the
performance of Sharma would be kindergaden-like!!! Would only have to put
into consideration, how long was the road for Chris Sharma to get into
position to climb a route like “Jumbo Love”. And we have to put into
consideration how strong Sharma is compared to others!!! Through the
demonstration of his skills through countless ascents he created his
credibility, which is so necessary in the climbing community as we don´t
want to have judges approving ascents! And Chris Sharma well deserves this
credibility. He worked hard in order to get it! In contrast, others are not
willing to be open and transparent enough so that we could believe them. As
we do not have referees and judges, climbing has to come along with
transparency and credibility. To trust blindly the correctness of the human
being is stupid – we should have learned this from history. Climbing is a
sport with no judges, no referees, no independent body governing who did
what and how. Climbing works on the basis of trust and credibility. I would
wish that the future of climbing sees again such strong characters and
opinion leader as it had been Wolfgang Güllich and Ben Moon. It would be
very, very important for our small climbing world. For that reason I am
happy to see Adam Ondra, which is not only a super-strong climber. He has a
broader vision for climbing and he very well could be leading the climbing
into a promising future."
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