In “Defense” of Slash Grades—I Think?

A few weeks ago, during one of of the rare sunny, high-50s days we’ve had amidst major bouts of snow and cold this winter, my friend Dean and I put down our projects at a newer wall high in the Flatirons, Colorado, tucked up on the hillside above the green crease of Skunk Canyon. The climbs were two versions of the same route, which is one of the more bizarre climbs I’ve done. 

For the full version, Hellbound, which I was trying, you start in a slot that’s too wide to boulder comfortably, clip three bolts, then join the “stand start” at the lip where both climbs round a crux bulge on thin crimps. If you come from the cave, you must put a lot of logistical energy (and straight-up energy) into making the crux clips, since you’re right above an ankle-breaker platform. If you do the stand start—Heaven and Hell, Dean’s project that day—you can start with a high bolt pre-clipped and sprint through the boulder problem.

The sunlight came in at a low, southerly angle, bathing the vibrant-green rock in golden light, flooding the gully with warmth before disappearing behind Green Mountain and plunging the wall into icy shadows. Dean topped out, clipping the chains on Heaven and Hell’s upper slab, as the sun-shadow meridian crept up the wall. It couldn’t have been a more perfect outing, and another round of shitty weather blew in just one day later to coat the Flatirons in snow and ice.

***

Now that Dean and I had two new climbs, we needed to rate them. We debated various grades for both routes on the steep hike out, jumping over boulders and logs, slipping on muddy switchbacks and scree-covered slabs. In the end we settled on 5.13c for Hellbound and 5.13a for Heaven and Hell, at least as starting points, as subjective guesses, which is all a grade ever can be—it’s just a feeling until a consensus emerges. Then, in the weeks that followed, Hellbound saw an onsight by the local strongman Vasya Vorotnikov as well as two rapid redpoints, one of them by Dean. We debated the grade some more, given that new beta had been found and how quickly the route was getting repeated: 5.13c? 5.13b? 5.13b/c?

“Dude, I hate slash grades,” Dean told me, on a return trip to the wall. “No 5.13b/c.”

“You hate slash grades?” I asked. “Really.”

“Yeah—too ambiguous.”

“How about just 5.13 then?”

“Sure, I can live with that.” And so it was that we updated Hellbound’s grade to 5.13—which encompasses 5.13b, 5.13b/c, and 5.13c—on Mountain Project. The grade seemed as good as anywhere to start, at least until there are a few more repeats. And it seemed to reflect the total possible range of difficulty, since the route could certainly either be hard 5.13b or soft 5.13c, especially since height (leg length) confers a certain advantage on which crimps you use, in which order, at the crux.

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