About
I created this project to have a convenient way to track and compare climbing sessions. I wanted a points system that could account for the varying difficulty of climbs.
The points system I used was inspired by Hans Florine, who wrote about the system he used in his book On the Nose: A Lifelong Obsession with Yosemite's Most Iconic Climb. Hans Florine holds the record for the number of ascents of Yosemite Valley's El Cap and is known for holding the speed record on The Nose 8 different times. It's an excellent read, and Hans also narrates an audiobook version - which I highly recommend!
Hans scored 10 points for a 10a and 50 points for a 12a. He then equated climbing The Nose to 1,500 points and would aim to do this in 3 hours, which was needed to attempt a record on the nose. He also scored points for pushups, situps, and pullups.
I used these data points to fit a function to the data. In experimenting with the system, I found that the length of the climb mattered. At my local gym, there are two different heights, and without adjusting for the height, climbing the shorter wall led to a disproportionate higher score. As such, I set 15m as the baseline as the average climb height - which, I hope, will be in the right ballpark for most climbing gyms and climbs. For bouldering, the default is set to 4m and it doesn't factor in the height - the height for boulder problems is just to help track total height climbed.
Any feedback or suggestions are welcome. You can reach me at sendsville@gmail.com.
Thank you. Happy climbing!