The British E scale is anything but easy to understand for outsiders. Two trad specialists, Pete Whittaker and Tom Randall, recently made a successful and entertaining attempt to explain the controversial rating system.
The British rating scale is unique in many ways. It only applies to trad routes in the UK, the risk of a route does not necessarily increase with increasing E number and the technical value that is additionally stated has nothing to do with the French difficulty levels. Who else is supposed to see through this?
The E grade is a combination of the physical challenge and risk of a route. The technical grade is a bouldering grade that describes the most difficult part.
Tom randall
Pete Whittaker and Tom Randall have taken on the herculean task of shedding light on this very issue. In our opinion, they managed to do this quite well. If you also want to better understand how to interpret the E scale, then you should definitely watch the video above.
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Credits: Cover picture wideboyz