Era Vella should officially be called 8c+

Era Vella is a stunning 45 m line in Margalef that was put up by Chris Sharma in 2010. He called it a soft 9a and the FA was actually done during a warming-up try. Quickly it become the most repeated 9a in the world and based on several comments and personal best, 8a started saying it might be 8c+. In 2015, Jonathan Siegrist did it and said was like an 8c and 8a started to report it as 9a (8c+). Later also Magnus Midtbö and Seb Bouin reported it as 8c+. Interesting is that since Midtbö's ascent in 2015 (c) João Giacchin , only four more guys have done it included Alex Megos last week. Previously, it had been done five times every year. In the big databases it is in fact not considered 9a any longer and that goes also for the Vertical-Life app based and published in cooperation on Dani Andrada guidebook. During the last few years, we have seen some popular hard core routes in the Lleida area beeing down graded in order to fit with the international level. Probably, we will see more down gradings in the area, as a chain reaction, as others that are already contenders of being down graded, now need to be compared with Era Vella being 8c+, although hard for it's grade. Grades are the number one criteria for the media selecting and reporting ascents. Since 2002, 8a has in order to present the most accurate, sometimes commented the grade. In practice, it is not average consensus that change gradings. Instead, it is more like in the Emperor's clothing, somebody speaks out and then later repeaters follow. It should me mentioned that 8a thinks it is just natural that most climbers do not bother giving personal grades and instead focus on just the beauty of the route. On the other hand, the climbing community should be thankful towards the guys sharing their personal view as otherwise we would all climb 9a and we would not understand how hard and give appropriate credit for the first guys doing 9a's more than 25 years ago.