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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. This tends to be even more subjective that traditional grades, but lends itself well to the mixte routes of the Alps. Mixte routes tend to be climbed in mountain boots, wearing crampons much of the time and with one or two ice axes.
F (facile): Easy, most anyone could do it with not much special training, but a little fitness.
PD (peu difficile): Not that hard. Be able to rock climb up to 5.4 in mountain boots and be comfortable climbing rock, snow and ice in crampons, and fit to go climb for 4-6 hours
AD (assez difficile): Fairly hard. Be experienced in alpine climbing up to 5.6 in mountain boots, for 5-8 hours.
D (difficile): Hard. Requires, a few years of solid technical alpine experience and high fitness level.
TD (tres difficile): Very hard. Years of training technically and physically, but you could do it if you dedicated yourself to your goal.
ED (extremement difficile): Extremely hard. Requires lots of dedication and long periods of climbing (i.e no job).
ABO (abominable-abominable): No job or family or very very disciplined over many years.
