Grade (bouldering) - The Hueco Scale

The Hueco Scale

The "V" Scale, devised by John 'Vermin' Sherman at Hueco Tanks State Historic Site in the 1990s, is the most widely used system in North America. Although open-ended, the "V" system currently covers a range from V0 to V16. At the easier end of the scale, some use the designation "VB" (sometimes said to designate "basic" or "beginner") for problems easier than a V0. Particularly at the lower end of the scale, the grades are sometimes postfixed with "+" (harder) or "-" (easier) to further distinguish the difficulty range within a single grade. Next-wave ascents harder than the current set of top-end problems will hypothetically continue to increase numbers in the scale.

The scale is similar to many other systems in that it does not take danger or fear into account. Problems are rated based solely on the physical challenge involved. This implies that problems have the same grade on the V-scale on toprope as they would have when bouldered. Due to this limitation, guidebooks will often separately indicate when problems are dangerous for various reasons, for example, using the term 'highball' to indicate unusually tall boulders. If the terrain underneath the problem is especially problematic (rocky, unusually steep, or for any other reason), the 'landing' of the problem will frequently be noted. Some world-class climbers encourage the use of the British E scale in cases where these dangers affect the difficulty of problems.

Conceptually, the "V" Scale is the bouldering equivalent of the earlier Australian (Ewbank) grading system for climbing - both have the advantages of not predefining an upper limit on difficulty measurement (as happened with the original Yosemite Decimal System), nor of having artificial divisions within the range of grades (as is the case with most other grading systems that use designations such as "a", "b", "c", "d", "+", "-" etc. within a single "grade").