Frank Slide Is Alberta’s Bouldering Hot Spot

The Frank Slide near Crowsnest Pass in Alberta has been a hotbed of activity over the last few years for bouldering. In 2015, there’s been a number of new hard problems sent.

Over 100 years ago, the north face of Turtle Mountain collapsed and covered the valley floor with thousands of limestone boulders. The Frank Slide’ rock is sharp and clean with textured edges that provide some amazing climbing opportunities.

Established problems are scattered throughout and development is ongoing.

Josh Bylsma is a Red Deer-based climber who’s been climbing at the Frank Slide for some time. He’s also one of the leading new-routers. “In terms of high-quality problems I’ve put up, the ones worth mentioning would be: The Shield V10, Once Upon a Time in the West V8/9, Apollo 11 V10, The Renaissance V9, Height Restrictions V2 highball, Bad Wold V3 and Hulkamaniac Left V,” Bylsma told Gripped.

He suggested the best problems in Frank overall are Railway Slab V0 highball, Little Hulkamaniac V2 highball, Chicken Little Arete V2, Frankenstein V4ish slab, Aftermath V5, Relentless V5/6, The Communist V6/7, Submarine V6, Rising Tithes V7/8, Nintendo 69 V9, Railway V9/10 and The Shield Apollo 11.”

The real driving forces behind the Slide have been Lethbridge climbers Kyle Marco, Evan Erickson, Trent Hoover, and Mark Derksen. “That crew has put up literally hundreds of problems each,” said Bylsma. “Morgan Dunnet is an extremely strong climber form Fernie who put up one of Frank’s hardest problems, Cognitive Dissonance V10 and has repeated a number of other hard problems.”