How to Rate a Rock Climbing Wall

Video Transcript

"My name is Kim Millikan we are with The National Ability Center Climbing Wall and we are talking about the Rating System for Adaptive Climbing. The Rating System for Adaptive Climbing is exactly the same as the rating for climbing in general and like I said we just use different techniques, different skills, different equipment, but it is climbing and we follow the same rating system. If we are "bouldering" we do not have a rope tied in or if we are in Europe they have a different rating system than we use, it is a V one, two, three, four, five and up and that would be "bouldering". For climbing on a "top rope" or climbing on a "lead rope " if you are outside, it starts at five, five which is really I have seen five four climbs out there for beginning Belair's and beginning lead rope climbers. But five, five is really where you need a rope and that is where you start. Five-eight, five-nine, five-ten, five-ten A, B, C, D and then they start breaking it down that way. Five-fourteen is pretty much professional level and it goes, five-five, five-six, seven, eight, nine, ten, through fifteen and five-fifteen is very rare. That is the complexity of the climb in many ways, it is the, there are so many factors, it could be, it is definitely more complex, it may require a lot more complex muscles and technique to get there, it may be incredibly over hanging and it may require hitting each hole and getting off of each hole very quickly. Five-five is almost like a ladder, where you would walk up, it is not going to require to much thought, although there are some brilliant five-fives that some people have put up that do require thought, so there is no generalization about it being more complex or less complex. But it is radically easier."