This morning, whilst having coffee, I decided to satisfy my curiosity by making a list. I know that some people think I take list-making a little too far, especially when it comes to making lists of my current projects. This list, however, had a different purpose.
I have long thought that the grade distribution of the problems at Frank Slide is a little odd. While there are many problems in the V0 to V6 range, there are notably fewer problems in the V7 to V10 range. In fact, the number of problems in each grade drops off steeply above V6, rather than declining gradually as in other large bouldering areas.
So, this morning, I made a list of all the potential hard problems I had seen about The Slide, including an 'eyeball grade estimate' (i.e. a guess as to how hard it might be, based on my not inconsequential climbing experience). To my complete surprise, I listed 32 potential problems mostly in the (likely) V8 - V10 range!
As such, I think I have solved the riddle of the missing hard problems. I haven't done them (nor has anyone elso), but they are there, waiting. Granted, some of these problems are very tall (like the House Cave Project, which is probably nearly 25 feet tall and in the V9-10 range), but many are perfectly reasonable in height, and likely represent some of the best problems that Frank Slide has to offer. Should be a busy summer!
On a related note, here is a short film I made of Kyle Marco climbing his new extremely fun moderate problem, Springblade (V3 or V4). Blogger has done something strange to the video quality, but as long as you don't view it at full-screen size it looks ok. My first real effort, and it shows that I have lots of room for improvement. Enjoy!
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