The My Summit Log T-Scale: what T1 to T5 mean
It grades ground, in dry summer conditions, in daylight. Everything else — wet rock, wind, cloud, snow, darkness — makes it worse, and the modifiers say by how much.
These grades are provisional, pending review by a qualified Mountain Leader, a Winter Mountain Leader and a guide.
Two grades, not one
The summit grade is the hardest ground on the easiest reasonable line to the top. The featured route grade is the classic harder line, where one exists. Where there is no easier line, the two grades are the same.
Helvellyn is a T1 walk from Wythburn and a T4 scramble by Striding Edge. A single number would either scare a walker off the easy line, or send someone onto the edge unprepared. Both numbers are needed.
The grades
| Grade | Name | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| T1 | Walking | Paths, tracks, no hands. You will not use your hands. |
| T2 | Mountain walking | Rough, steep, pathless in places. A hand out for balance but there is no scrambling. Navigation matters. |
| T3 | Hands out of pockets | Easy scrambling, some exposure. Hands used to move upward. A slip is usually a tumble rather than a fall. |
| T4 | Real scrambling | Sustained, exposed, consequences. Sustained Grade 1 to Grade 2 scrambling. A slip has severe or fatal consequences. Read the scrambling grade alongside a T4. |
| T5 | Climbing | Rope, harness and the skills to use them. Rock-climbing ground, or Grade 3 where protection is the only reasonable answer. |
The modifiers
Four letters, each rated 1 to 3, sit beside the T-grade. A modifier that is not printed has not been flagged. They always appear in the order X, N, R, W.
X — Exposure
- X1. Steep ground, but a slip means a slide rather than a fall.
- X2. Significant drops close to the line of travel. A slip would be serious.
- X3. Sustained, severe exposure on both sides. A slip is fatal.
N — Navigation
- N1. Path all the way or an obvious ridge.
- N2. Pathless sections; a compass bearing needed in cloud.
- N3. Serious navigation. Featureless ground, dangerous descent options, or magnetic rock.
R — Remoteness
- R1. Within a couple of hours of a road and a phone signal.
- R2. Half a day from the nearest road. Little or no signal.
- R3. Genuinely remote. An overnight, a boat, or a river crossing.
W — Winter step-up
- W1. Normal winter escalation. Axe and crampons for the tops; the route is recognisably the same.
- W2. Becomes a genuine winter mountaineering route.
- W3. Fundamentally changes into a serious winter mountaineering proposition.
How to read a grade
Blencathra — summit T2 X1 N2 W2; featured route Sharp Edge T4 X3 W3. You can walk up Blencathra. You cannot walk up Sharp Edge.
Not official
The T-Scale is a My Summit Log framework, not a recognised national standard like the British scrambling or rock-climbing grades. It should be read as a planning aid rather than an authority. It is unrelated to the Swiss Alpine Club’s T1–T6 hiking scale, despite the shared letter. Do not read a T-grade here as an SAC grade, or the reverse.
Hills that are not individually listed in the book are not given a grade in the app. We never invent a T1 or T2 for an ungraded hill. See Why are only some hills graded? below.
Why are only some hills graded?
The book does not give an individual grade to every hill. It is a guide with grades for the summits and routes “where the ground asks something of you”, and it gives “a technical grade for the peaks that need one”. Height, as the book says, tells you almost nothing about difficulty.
Around 200 of the 282 Munros are not listed individually in the grade tables. Those tables cover every mainland Munro whose summit grade goes above T2, those where the summit is easy but the classic route is not, and the T2 summits whose modifiers should change your planning. Every Cuillin summit is graded individually. Of the rest, the book says that everything not listed carries a summit grade of T1 or T2. That is not a criticism; several of the finest days in Scotland are pure T2.
The same approach is used in the Lake District, which gives grades for the Wainwrights and Lakeland Hewitts that need one, and for the routes that change the grade completely. The other 190 Wainwrights are not listed individually, and are likewise described as T1 or T2. Only the Corbetts and Grahams “worth the grade” appear in the tables. Of England’s hills outside the Lake District, the book says that with very few exceptions they are T1 or T2, and that the grade is almost never the problem — weather, peat and navigation are.
T2 does not mean easy. In the book’s words, it means the ground will not stop you — the weather, the distance and the navigation might. The technical grades describe the terrain in dry summer daylight. Winter, wet rock, wind, cloud and darkness can change what the route is.
The app never guesses a grade. Because the book does not say, for each unlisted hill, whether it is T1 or T2, those hills are not given a number here. “Not graded” means only that no individual grade has been published in the app. It does not mean the hill is easy, and it does not mean it is safe in poor weather or in winter.
These grades are provisional, pending review by a qualified Mountain Leader, a Winter Mountain Leader and a guide. Further individual grades may be added as that review is done. A small number of printed grades are being held back because the book gives more than one figure and the difference has not yet been resolved. Those hills are also shown as not graded until the question is settled.
A word about safety
These grades are provisional, pending review by a qualified Mountain Leader, a Winter Mountain Leader and a guide.
T-Scale grades are My Summit Log's own opinion of the ground in dry summer conditions, in daylight. They are not an official grading system and not a route description. Wet rock, wind, cloud, snow, ice and darkness make any route harder, and in winter some become serious mountaineering routes. Check current conditions, carry a map and compass, and use your own judgement. If the ground in front of you disagrees with the grade, believe the ground.
Grades are for dry summer daylight only. What the T-Scale means
From the book
The Summit Lists: Bagging Britain's Peaks, curated by Stuart Thornhill, published by 66 Adventure Ltd, first edition, December 2026. Further details are at mysummitlog.co.uk.
Hill data © Database of British and Irish Hills v18.5, CC BY 4.0. T-Scale grades © 66 Adventure Ltd.
Spotted a grade that doesn’t match the ground? Tell us.