How climbing grades work: V and Font

What a grade is trying to tell you

A boulder grade is one number, or one short code, that tries to capture how hard a problem is. That is a lot to ask of a single label, and it is worth being clear about what a grade is and is not. It is a rough guide to difficulty, agreed on by the people who have climbed it. It is not a precise measurement, and it says nothing about whether a problem is good, safe, or your particular cup of tea.

For bouldering specifically, two scales dominate. The V-scale, used widely across the United States and in many gyms elsewhere, and the Font scale, named after Fontainebleau in France and common across Europe. You will meet both, sometimes side by side, so it helps to read them fluently.

The V-scale

The V-scale is the simpler of the two to read. It runs from V0 upwards, with no real ceiling, getting harder as the number climbs. V0 is the easiest graded boulder, the sort of thing a fit beginner can manage. V3 or V4 is solid intermediate territory. The numbers carry on into the high teens for the hardest problems ever climbed.

Below V0 you will sometimes see VB, for basic or beginner, used on the very easiest problems set to teach movement. The scale is open-ended, so as harder problems get climbed, higher numbers simply get added.

The Font scale

The Font scale looks more intimidating because it mixes numbers, letters and signs, but the logic is steady once you have it. It runs through grades like 4, 5, 6A, 6B, 6C, 7A and onwards. From 6A up, each number splits into A, B and C, and many of those split further with a + sign, so the full sequence runs 6A, 6A+, 6B, 6B+, 6C, 6C+, 7A and so on.

Roughly speaking, the bottom of the useful range starts around Font 4 to 5 for easier problems, with 6A to 6C covering a lot of intermediate climbing and 7A marking a meaningful milestone for many climbers. The two scales line up approximately, so a Font 6A+ sits somewhere around V3 to V4, but the conversion is never exact and you should treat any chart as a guide rather than gospel.

Why two gyms never quite agree

Here is the thing nobody tells beginners clearly enough: grades are subjective, and they drift. The same number can feel wildly different between two gyms down the road from each other, and that is normal.

A few reasons for it:

• Setters are human. A problem is graded by whoever set it and the people who repeat it. Personal strengths leak in. A setter with strong fingers may undergrade crimpy problems and overgrade slopey ones.
• Style matters. A V4 that suits your body, all reachy moves on good edges, can feel easier than a V2 full of slopers you hate. Grades average across styles, but you are one specific climber.
• Gyms calibrate differently. Some gyms grade softly to keep newcomers happy, others grade stiffly. Outdoor rock, where the grade has settled over many ascents, is often less forgiving than plastic.

So if you flash a V5 one day and fall off a V3 the next, you are not broken. You have just met the spread that lives inside every grade.

How to actually use grades

Treat grades as a loose map, not a scoreboard. They are useful for choosing what to try, for spotting whether you are improving over time, and for talking to other climbers. They are far less useful as a measure of your worth.

The healthiest approach is to chase good movement and problems you enjoy, and let the grades creep up as a side effect. Keep a record of what you climb and where, because a grade only means something in the context of the gym or crag it came from. Over months, a logbook smooths out the day-to-day noise and shows the real trend, which is the only grade conversation worth having with yourself.