Walk up to a Chinese sport crag and the tags read like a French guidebook: 5c, 6a+, 7b. The French grading system is the default for bolted sport climbing across China, Yangshuo included, and the numbers run continuously from easy verticals into the stratosphere — no separate tiers, just a scale that keeps going as the rock steepens.
The French system
The system grades the whole pitch — sustained difficulty, not the single crux. A 6a that rests at 5c for half the length and bumps to 6b for three moves comes out at 6a, which is why French grades sometimes feel soft on paper and hard in the forearms. Letters divide each number: 6a, 6a+, 6b, 6b+, and so on. Everything is about red-point climbing on bolts, with protection where the bolts are, which is a different sport from trad and graded differently on purpose.
Converting from elsewhere
If you climb YDS, the rough conversion runs mid-5.10s at about 6b — but conversions are hints, not physics. Style matters more: steep gym climbing does not automatically translate to the vertical friction of limestone slabs, and neither prepares you for reading bolt lines on strange rock. The honest approach is to flash a couple of grades below your home benchmark on day one, let the local style reveal itself, then move up.
The sandbag question
Every crag has its reputation, and Yangshuo’s is mild: grades are generally fair, established over decades by visiting climbers comparing notes, with the usual local variance at the older sectors. The reliable cure for sandbag anxiety is a local guide who knows which line at which grade climbs to its number — which is most of what a guided week actually buys.
Choosing lines honestly
The useful rule for a climbing trip: pick the grade you can climb many times, not the grade you can climb once. A week of volume two grades below your ceiling makes you a better climber; one heroic afternoon does not. Our climbing week is built on exactly that logic, and the guide’s job is to keep the session count high and the ego injuries at zero.
Where this leads
Learning to lead
The Yangshuo climbing week
The karst capital