Type any grade — 5.10a, 7a+, V5, VII−, E2 5b — and see it in 22 grading systems: YDS, French, UIAA, British, Ewbank, V-scale, Font, Dankyu, Peak B, Cracow, aid, ice, mixed and alpine. Built from published comparison tables, with honest confidence labels where charts disagree.
22 grading systems6 disciplines100% client-side — nothing leaves your browser
Convert a grade
Auto-detects the system. Ambiguous grades (like 6a — French or British tech?) show every interpretation. Works as a rock climbing grade converter, sport climbing grade converter, bouldering grade converter, bouldering grade calculator and climbing grade calculator in one — routes, boulders, aid, ice, mixed and alpine.
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Tip: capital letter = bouldering Font (7A), lowercase = French route (7a). Bare numbers try Ewbank first — pick your system if several match.
Full comparison tables
Every row of the dataset, side by side — the complete climbing grade equivalents chart (a climbing grade translation table). Dots mark confidence: high — sources agree, medium — interpolated or disputed.
Route climbing grade conversion chart: French, YDS (Yosemite Decimal System), UIAA, British technical + adjectival, Ewbank (Australia/NZ and South Africa), Finnish, Norwegian, Brazilian, Saxon and Polish Kurtyka — every system side by side.
Bouldering grade conversion chart, bouldering grade equivalents and bouldering grade translation: V-scale and bouldering V grade conversion to Fontainebleau (Font), Japanese Dankyu bouldering grade conversion, historic Peak B and Polish Cracow grades — plus indicative bouldering to route grade conversion on every row.
Aid climbing grade reference: A0–A5 and clean C0–C5, with plain-English meaning for each grade.
Water ice (WI) grade reference: WI1–WI7, with plain-English meaning for each grade.
Mixed climbing (M) grade reference: M1–M12 dry-tooling grades, with plain-English meaning for each grade.
Alpine (IFAS) grade reference: F, PD, AD, D, TD, ED, ABO — overall seriousness of an alpine route.
Which system is used where
Traveling to climb? Pick your destination: climbing grade conversion Yosemite / USA (YDS), climbing grade conversion UK (British E-grades), climbing grade conversion Australia (Ewbank) — and 17 more countries below.
Methodology & sources
Grade conversion — also called climbing rating conversion — is curated data, not math. Here is exactly what this tool is built on — and where it refuses to pretend.
Sources cross-checked
Confidence labels
High means every consulted source agrees on the cell. Medium means the value is interpolated between anchor values, the low end where charts are sparse, or the sources genuinely straddle the cell (for example UIAA VII+/VIII− at French 6c). Medium is not a guess — it is the honest range.
Known disputes, shown not hidden
The 5.9–5.10 band: charts published before 2021 usually map 5.9 = 6a and 5.10a = 6a+. The RockFax 2021 table maps 5.9 = 5c and 5.10a = 6a. Both mappings are flagged in the table.
British adjectival grades (E1–E11) describe overall seriousness, so each E-grade spans several French grades. Converting from an E-grade alone shows the hardest row of its span, labeled as such.
Boulder ↔ route cross-mode is indicative by nature — bouldering tests power, routes test endurance. The UIAA/CAI 2016 report states crosswalks are “only ever indicative”. Every cross-mode value here carries that warning.
Peak B is a historic scale; surviving tables differ by about one step. Cracow bouldering follows the Polish convention of grading boulders on the Kurtyka scale, mapped through the route crosswalk.
What this tool does not do
It does not convert aid, ice, mixed or alpine grades into free-climbing grades — those measure different things (danger, steepness, commitment) and no honest table equates them. They are presented as standalone references.
Frequently asked questions
The question-cluster climbers actually type into Google, answered from the tables above.
What is 5.11 in French climbing grades?+
5.11a converts to French 6c, 5.11b to 6c+, and 5.11c/5.11d to 7a. Because YDS splits each number into four sub-grades (a/b/c/d) while French uses roughly three steps per band, the mapping is not perfectly one-to-one at the edges — French 7a covers both 5.11c and 5.11d.
What is 5.10a in French grade?+
5.10a converts to French 6a in the RockFax (2021) comparison table this converter is built on. Note that many older charts shift the whole 5.9–5.10 band one step harder (5.9 = 6a, 5.10a = 6a+). Rows in the disputed band carry a medium-confidence label so you can see exactly where sources disagree.
What is 7a in YDS?+
French 7a is approximately YDS 5.11c to 5.11d. It sits between French 6c+ (5.11b) and 7a+ (5.12a) on the conversion table.
How do bouldering V grades convert to Font grades?+
On roped routes, most beginners start around YDS 5.7–5.9 (French 5a–5c, British S–HVS). In bouldering, VB to V2 (Font 3 to 5+) is the typical beginner range. Grades are personal and crag-dependent — climb what is fun rather than chasing a number.
What is the average climbing grade?+
There is no official average, but regular gym climbers most commonly report climbing around V3–V5 in bouldering and 5.10–5.11 (French 6a+–6c+) on routes. Outdoor grades usually feel stiffer than gym grades at the same number.
What is the hardest climbing grade in the world?+
The hardest climbing grade in the world — the highest climbing grade confirmed so far — is 9c on routes: first climbed by Adam Ondra on Silence in Norway (2017), later repeated on DNA and B.I.G., the hardest grade in rock climbing to date. The hardest boulder problem grade is V17 / Font 9A (Burden of Dreams, 2023). Both scales are open-ended, so harder grades remain possible.
Can bouldering grades be converted to route grades?+
Only roughly. Bouldering measures short, powerful sequences while routes add endurance, so any boulder-to-route crosswalk is indicative — the UIAA/CAI 2016 report says so explicitly. As a rough guide: V4 ≈ 5.12a / 7a+, V8 ≈ 5.13a / 7c+, V12 ≈ 5.14b / 8c. This tool labels every cross-mode conversion as approximate.
What do British E1, E2, E3 grades mean?+
The adjectival grade (M, D, VD … up to E11) rates the overall seriousness of a trad route — danger, protection quality and exposure — not just physical difficulty. It is always paired with a technical grade for the hardest single move, written like “E2 5b”: a serious E2 route whose crux is British tech 5b.
What is the Ewbank grading system?+
The Ewbank system, used in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, grades a route with a single open-ended number (currently up to 39) instead of numbers plus letters. South Africa uses the same numbers but grades slightly stiffer than Australia — this converter keeps them as two separate columns.
What is the Japanese Dankyu bouldering system?+
Japan's bouldering scale works like martial-arts belts: it counts down from 10-kyu (easiest) to 1-kyu, then climbs the dan grades from 1-dan upward (currently to 7-dan). Roughly: 1-kyu ≈ V5, 1-dan ≈ V7, 3-dan ≈ V10, 5-dan ≈ V14.
What is the Peak B bouldering grade?+
The Peak B-grade is a historic bouldering scale from England's Peak District that used B1, B2, B3 and so on. It runs roughly one step softer than the V-scale (V8 ≈ B9). V and Font grades have replaced it in modern guidebooks, but B-grades still appear in older ones.
What do aid climbing grades A0–A5 mean?+
Aid grades rate climbing where you pull on gear rather than the rock. A0 means occasional aid on fixed gear; A5 means nothing on the pitch would hold a real fall. The C-scale (C0–C5) is the same difficulty ladder climbed “clean” — with removable gear only, no hammer or pitons.
What are WI and M climbing grades?+
WI1–WI7 grade water ice by steepness, technicality and seriousness, from low-angle ice to sustained, marginal vertical pillars. M1–M12 grade mixed climbing — dry-tooling on rock and thin ice — up to hugely overhanging gymnastic terrain. Neither scale converts to free-climbing grades, so this tool presents them as separate reference tables.
Why do grade conversion charts disagree with each other?+
No single authority defines conversions — grades are community consensus, and every crag has its own sandbag. Charts also age: the RockFax 2021 table shifted the 5.9–5.10 band one step versus older charts, which is why two converters can disagree. Instead of pretending grades are exact, this tool shows a confidence label on every row and notes the known disputes.
Is my data sent anywhere when I use this converter?+
No. This converter runs entirely in your browser: the grade tables are embedded in the page and nothing you type is sent to any server. Your grades never leave your device.
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