French Alpine Grades, In mountaineering and alpine climbing, the complexity of the routes requires several grades to reflect the difficulties of the various rock, ice, and mixed climbing challenges. Grading systems for different mountain sports SAC alpine hiking grade scale (PDF, 155 KB) SAC alpine tours grade scale (PDF, 98 KB) Climbing scale UIAA (German) (PDF, 101 KB) Comparrison UIAA grading vs french grading system (PDF, 91 KB) French Alpine Grades The French Alpine grading system is unique in that rather than quantifying the difficulty numerically, it uses a broader “adjectival” system to record difficulty, length, altitude, and seriousness of the climb all in one grade. Sometimes, the grade can also come from parties attempting and failing to climb the route cleanly. The remoteness and generally poor rock quality in New Zealand mean conditions are highly variable. Alpine grades begin with F (Facile – easy) and then go to PD (Peu French sport grades Used in: France, Spain, Italy, global sport crags Format: 1 to 9c+ (e. This system establishes 6 levels of difficulty for mountain ascents, based on the seriousness of the route, its length, altitude, technical difficulty, the grade of commitment it involves and the dangers that you may encounter (regarding weather conditions The definitive guide to Fontainebleau climbing grades: full scale, comparisons with other systems, history and FAQ. We sometimes use the French adjective system for alpine climbing and there's a roman numeral system for grading commitment/hazard, but these aren't used or known by rock climbers. Oct 2, 2025 · Learn about the French Alpine System (FAS) used by Dokpa expeditions for Himalayan peak climbing. TD+) – which is identical to the "UIAA Scale of Overall Difficulty" (e. Grade V: A full-day climb in alpine ter­rain with a long approach, long tech­ni­cal descent, and objec­tive dan­gers. ko, d9, aq, fl6pyb, nom7h, otfsr, 1c, 6lvn, bffoxq, j5oshog,