8A = 8b and 8B+ = 8c+/9a

The grade steps of boulders and routes are different. The 8B+ and 8C grades are wider in comparison to the top route grades. The maximum grades are 8C+ and 9b+ and five grades lower, 8A and 8c, during the last month, 369 boulders compared to 40 routes were recorded. The major reason for this is that we have seen a grade deflation in the upper boulder scale, i.e. almost no grade progress in bouldering for the last ten years, at the same time as we maybe have fives times as many 8A boulderers. For routes, we have seen a slow but steady grade inflation for the last 25 years when Hubble was considered 8c+ and Action Directe 8c+/9a. Most of the top boulders have confirmed it but they have said they did not want to start adding grades before being 100 % sure. This can be seen as a reaction that almost all the first added grades up to 8C were later brutally down graded. The picture tries to compare the grade difficulties between routes and boulders. Numbers of ascents recorded last month 8C - 9b: 2 - 0 8B+ / 9a+: 7 / 1 8B / 9a: 46 / 8 8A+ / 8c+: 117 / 21 8A / 8c: 369 / 40 7C+ / 8b+ 62