Big Sleep

[John]

Mark
There is a path down the left side that is pretty cruiser. You need to follow the true left edge of the slab and not the dirty slabs. There is kind of a strip of rocky hillside that splits the clean and dirty slab sections that needs to be located and then followed on its skiers left. There are some sketchy-looking downclimb sections but they are actually reasonable once you have done them before. The correct path lands you right around where Dan's climbs are with zero whacking of bush.

I walk off every time at Big Sleep since the raps suck so bad due to the rope drag on the pulls. Due to the angle and texture, every inch of your ropes is dragging against the slab creating unbearable drag. We rapped Afternoon Nap once and wouldn't do that ever again unless we really had to. One day Josh and Sean did something like four or five routes to the top on Big Sleep which wouldn't happen if they had rapped.

[daniel banquo merrick]

Thanks for posting your thoughts about the route. I'm pleased that you liked it. Post a photo or two if you took any.

I suppose parts of it are a bit runout - more so before I added more bolts on pitch two. It has been awhile since I climbed it and I really don't recall much detail except the first pitch is fun and the huge belay pocket at the top of pitch 3.

The lower grades are always a mystery to me so anything less than 5.6 tends to be "easy" to me which may be unfair to those who rely on my ratings. Since I suck at climbing, Bob tends to rate routes as "greater than Dan" and "Less than Dan." I am too embarrassed to tell you what a greater than Dan rating actually is.

[mungeclimber]

lower grades are hard since inexperienced climbers have no frame of reference and experienced climbers 'range' of grades with which they are experienced seems to settle at 5.6 and up.


Brimstone Stairway at Joshua Tree is a 5.2. It's a ladder, quite literally.
So a real ladder might be 5.0.

A ladder with a slightly smaller rungs might be 5.3 and 5.4 and so on.

With slabby routes I find the difference between 5.0 and 5.4 to be harder to grade. 5.4 seems like real fifth class, e.g. if the exposure made me think twice.

Below that 5.0 to 5.3 is just a degree of slab and features of slab walking/crawling and can almost always be done no-handed on slabs.


I may have a guide to rating low grade climbs there, eh?

[Climberdude]

Dan,

Yes, I know what you mean that it is hard to judge the ratings on easier climbs.  I really liked the climb, particularly since I only had a written description of the climb and not a photograph of where the start was.  I guessed right about where the start was.  I really liked Pitch 4 although it was very runout.  I do not think you should change the climb, but rather it might be good to let people know that Pitch 4 is a heads-up pitch.

Mark

[susan]

I've seen some people really downplay concern for falling on slab. As if you couldn't glide on forever because they see angles easing enough to slow and arrest a fall before too long. Myself, I tend to wonder if the force of a fall gaining momentum combined with the potential loss of control shouldn't push some of these R ratings to X.

[daniel banquo merrick]

I "fell" on a slab once - the cookie sheet. Bob was belaying me on one of his routes while talking to a pretty gal. The rock was covered in a hatch of some kind of little bugs and my feet greased off as I neared a bolt. On my feet, I slid past the last bolt and thought Bob would catch me soon. I slid past another bolt and began to worry. Just as I reached the first bolt above the belay, the rope came tight and I stopped. I'm pretty sure Bob had been giving me a somewhat slack belay.

I stayed on my feet and simply glissaded backwards. I think I was lucky that I didn't hit an edge. It would be like when your skateboard stops and you don't, only going backwards, down a steep slope. I think that a featured slab could be a real meat grinder.

[daniel banquo merrick]

While I'm thinking about it.

I don't have much in the way of plans for the weekend. If anybody wants to see where the route left of Good Sleep goes, let me know.

Or, if anybody wants to camp out and drink beer, that would do also.

Also an unfinished route on QT.

Otherwise, I plan to take my camera and disappear into the back country for a couple days. If anybody wants to do that.

[susan]

Ooh close call there at the Cookie Sheet, Dan.

This weekend we couldn't, unfortunately, but I hope you get a taker. Would be fun.

[mungeclimber]

would, but preoccupied with 108 for the moment.

[NateD]

There were some good stories years ago on ST about basically turning and running down slabs on a fall to avoid the rolling and the road rash. I've slipped on a wet seep and took a 25-30' swinging fall, and ended up kinda running down backwards - just an automatic reaction to keep my feet under me I suppose.

How did your shoes fare in all the sliding, Dan?