by Mick Ryan Adrian Berry On Dave Macleod´s blogspot Dave comments on the grade of Blind Vision. “Blind Vision is definitely easier than If Six was Nine (which I have done the moves on during a 30 min session). It´s also easier than the Scottish E9s and I?d say it felt like 2 grades easier than Rhapsody but it´s harder than Breathless and Divided Years (both E8s!).”UKClimbing.com asked the first ascensionist of Blind Vision, Adrian Berry, what he thought of Dave´s repeat of his route? I´m very pleased that Dave has done this route. Knowing that other people enjoy doing them is part of the attraction of new-routing. If anyone is in a position to down-grade, it´s Dave. From his blog, it sounds like grades in the Lakes and Scotland are being applied rather more harshly than they are in the Peak. I´ve not done any of them, socan only grade relative to local routes. Ifyou really want to see harsh grading, look at the crazy ´Hard Grit´ granite routes in Northern Italy – to climb E8 out there you need to be able to seriously run it out on 8a+ – not 7c! It will be interesting to see howDave gets on with Equillibrium, which I always considered to be of asimilar level (not that I´ve tried it though!), though maybe a bit more reachy. Lastly, I think that the grade is heavily influenced by the gear on thetop wall – I had a WC Zero 2 with just two cams working, which I didn´texpect to hold a fall – not sure if Dave found better protection (lookeddifferent in the photo), but that would make a real difference – and getting thegear right is all a part of the game! Dave´s comment about there being lots of climbers in Sheffield who*could* climb these hard trad routes is interesting. The hardest thing aboutdoing routes like BV is the actually getting out there and doing them,in this respect, Sheffield is turning into a backwater!
