Abreviations and Notes

Rock Climbing Grades
Mountaineering prides itself on having no written rules: mountaineers, therefore, spend most of their time arguing about their interpretation of the unwritten rules. Nowhere is this more so than in the invariably subjective area of the grading of climbs. Rock is such an irregular medium and climbers come in such a range of shapes and sizes that any grade can only be, at best, a rough indicator of what is to come.

It all began quite sensibly with Victorian climbers describing climbs to their contemporaries with adjectives such as Easy, Moderate or Difficult - the original adjectival grades.

Unfortunately, climbers have a habit of improving down the generations. So, armed with the benefit of their predecessors' knowledge, and the new techniques and equipment advances, the guidebooks were soon full of Very Difficults, Severes, Very Severes, Hard Very Severes and finally Extremely Severes, often subdivided into intermediate shades of difficulty, with nonsense like Mild Hard Very Severe , for example, making a mockery of the English language.

This adjectival grade took all aspects of the climb into account; the difficulty of each move, the number and quality of runners, problems of route-finding and ease of escape, together with all objective dangers (loose rock, rock throwing tourists, wild spiders, hissing snakes on ledges, holly bushes, avalanches, wet/ cold rock and distance from the safety of the cafe and car).

As standards have continued to rise, the extremes were subdivided into numerical E's E1 ,E2 ,E3 ..., an open-ended system which has currently arrived at E10 (some do say a limit). At the same time, there was an increasing demand for the purely technical difficulties of each pitch to be described by a separate manner .
In other words, what's the hardest 'move' I'll have to make? This has now evolved from a system first used to describe climbs on Cloggy (a nice photo) , into a number and a letter sequence, with each numerical grade sub-divided into a band from a to c, in ascending order of difficulty.
Although, theoretically, it should start at 1a ,1b ,1c ,2a ..., very few guidebook writers bother to give numerical grades below 4a (which normally corresponds to about Hard Severe ). Currently the highest grade thought to exist in Britain is 7c/8a . Thus some desperate five-pitch climb might be described as;

ManTrap E4 (5c, 6a, 6a, 5a, 4b)
E4 is an overall, subjective grade taking into account all factors mentioned above, whilst the pure technical difficulty is quoted for each pitch. This helps uneven climbing ability pairs to decide who's going to lead which pitch, although low pitch grades on hard climbs should always be taken with a large pinch of salt. Also, the 5a pitch above might have few or any runners, and still be consistent with the overall grade of E4 .

Unfortunately the application of grades is not uniform throughout the whole of the country - generally the smaller the crag, and the less mountainous the area, the greater the tendency towards an undergrading of technical difficulty.

With the two-tiered grading system now well-established in Britain, it should be possible for climbers to select climbs which match their aspirations and their style. Start off on a route well with in your ability at a new crag to guage the grading, listen to locals, read any warnings about particular climbers and their grading style, height and known 'sandbaggers' e.g "the route of the crag !!" a rather fine example of this is Holyhead mountain's King bee crack at HVS.

Cool-headed outdoor climbers with a death-wish can go for routes with relatively low pitch grades (e.g. VS 4a ) since this implies that the difficulties will be other than technical (no runners, loose rock, difficult route-finding, etc):

easily scared climbing wall bolt monsters can go for routes with a high technical grade and a relatively low overall grade (e.g. HVS 6a ), safe in the knowledge that it will be their muscles, rather than their minds, which will be stressed.

Moderate
Difficult
Very Difficult
Hard Very Difficult
Mild Severe
Severe
Hard Severe
Mild Very Severe
Very Severe
Hard Very Severe
Extremely Severe : E1, E2, E3, E4, E5, E6, E7, E8, E9 E10 ...?

Present day opinion uses a reciprocal adjectival system for coping with failure at a certain grade. Hence failing on a Difficult is E9, whilst it is only Difficult to cope with failure on an Extremely Severe. Simple, eh?

Technical Grades
These are based on the climber's reach, and the system is open ended to cope with ever increasing arm length. The system is also known as the Ape Index. The minimum arm length is therefore 4a and the maximum extension at present is about 7b. Continental sizes are available on certain limestone routes, but détente is fortunately unlikely on gritstone until 1992. However high interest routes have produced...

P Grades
Death potential - Conceived in Yorkshire .
This one you can really get your teeth into and argue about for hours down the pub or Petes Eats or Erics on a rainy day. This one can be linked to artistic impression in flight. Supposedly a closed system, P1, P2, P3, but inherently open ended because someone, somewhere is bound to say they could have died more - remember the E-grades above?

The important thing to note is that P does not stand for protection but Prang Potential. What it really relates to is the consequence of a fall. The grade assumes the climber is very rich and has a full rack of modern protection devices (not bolts allowed, you wimps). The grade like all others does not guarantee the climber's safety or lack of it.
P1
Generally well protected routes with falls likely to only damage egos.

P2
Those bolder routes with sparse protection which may even be deck outs if the fall is relatively short onto a reasonable landing. Good gibber potential with plenty of air time. Could be painful.

P3
Dire consequences. Do not fall off these nasty numbers because you're going to have to be lucky to walk away from a P3 lob. Get full life insurance now.

I'm sure there will be many more moments to expand on the merits of all grading systems down the pub or in the cafe!

Bouldering Grades
Bouldering grades from the three main areas of the world where bouldering has taken a lead are compared below. These can be incorporated at your leisure into the climbing grade conversion chart above using the V-grades and Fontanbleu for an example.

All the above are completely subjective and . . .

researched and compiled from many sources on the Internet and the site owners personal climbing experience.
All the above is subject to the following conflicting conditions and state of mind :- height, weight, foot size, brain capacity, strength, ape index, mind skills, determination, fitness, egging on, spotting, age; the younger tend to be more fearless, foolhardy or have no family or proper job; competitive edge, the will to live, survival skills, tenacity, well you suggest some more adjectives . . .