Björn Pohl - the 9a upgrade of Action Directe

The 9th grade, the legitimacy by Björn Pohl
Published in On the Edge and 8a in 2001
 

The legitimacy of the 9th grade and the necessary subjectivity of rating

In September 1991 the legend Wolfgang Güllich opened Action Directe, at Waldkopf, in the Frankenjura, Germany. Although Güllich actually gave the route a grade of UIAA XI, meaning French 8c+/9a or 5.14c/d, it's now by most climbers considered the benchmark 9a.

Many of the world's top climbers, including Fred Nicole, Ben Moon, Klem Loskot and Chris Sharma, have worked it, for longer or shorter periods, but only two have succeeded. German, Alexander Adler repeated the route in 1995 and Spaniard, Iker Pou did it in 2000, both after titanic efforts, involving highly specialized training and months of working the moves.

When I write this it's been almost nine years since Action Directe was first climbed. Today there are around 27 routes in the world graded 8c+/9a or harder, but only seven have seen repeats. Why is that?

One reason might be that 9a is brutally f***ing hard. No matter how strong you are, you have to work a lot to succeed, and there's still no guarantee. There's also a lot of prestige involved. What if one of the top climbers works a route for a long time, but has to give up...


The subjectivity of rating

What we have to understand is that grades are, will always be, and must be, very subjective. If a route is correctly graded 9a that means there will, and should be, climbers who considers it both 8c+ and 9a+, because; hey, people are different!

If everyone who tries it considers it 9a or harder, the route is a sandbag (the principle it naturally the same for every grade).
The important thing here is that everyone must always grade a route according to what he/she thinks is right. If then the repeaters thinks it easier, or harder, the rating might be changed later. The norm today seems to be that a grade is lowered if one person thinks it should be...