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Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

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star vs no star 26-Mar-2007 At 7:16:40 PM Onsight

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I'd say... stars are subjective and basically consider quality as well as the overall experience of climbing it. Things like position/exposure, rock, consistancy/sustainedness should probably factor more than the approach.

>I always thought the "3 stars for the crag" was rubbish.
Agreed. We went somewhat up the wrong path with the Bluies 3rd Edition guidebook where stars were given "for the crag", when of course not every crag has a three star route. We had also indicated which the better crags were, but it doesn't work like that in practice. We've fixed it in the new guidebook (which is now at the printers).

The other thing I'd say about stars is that they should be "for that style" of climbing, otherwise it becomes way too subjective. For example we gave Landslide Chimney 3 stars because we're reliably informed that if you're into long loose chimneys (and apparently some people are) then it really is a mega experience. I'd be happy to take photos of someone on that route, but for climbing constitutes a nightmare in my personal book...

The other things we found in producing this new Bluies guidebook, is that whilst you have 1, 2 and 3 star routes (for good, very good, excellent/classic – or whatever - respectively) in most parts of the country, we found this woefully inadequate for indicating the range of experiences you’re likely to get up here in the Bluies. So we added the 4 star rating for “ultra-classic” and 5 stars, meaning “mind-blowing phantasmagorical mega-classic”.

Sounds like some people might take a bit of getting used to the five star system. If so I’d say give it a go and you’ll probably get used to it. I’ve found it a pretty good system when used it elsewhere.

Cheers.