This coming Saturday, the Tour De Frank Bouldering Festival will take place at Frank Slide near the municipality of Corwsnest. With a ton of great energy and a very enthusiastic community surrounding the bouldering area, this event is surely not to be missed. Before you pack up the car and pick up all you friends, we thought it might be best to check in with Trent Hoover about the festival. Trent was once a major developer in the BC climbing scene and over the past few years has put his roots down in Lethbridge, AB. Here is what Trent had to say about this weekends event.
Hi Trent, thanks for chatting with us. So, what is the deal with Tour De Frank?
Hi Tim! I’m glad to have the opportunity to share about the Tour de Frank! Obviously, there are a lot of similar grassroots events evolving at bouldering areas across Canada and the western USA, including the Calabogie Boulder Bash in Ontario, Rock the Blocs at the Boulderfields in BC, and the Butte Bouldering Bash in the Butte Batholith in Montana. The Tour de Frank grew out of a desire to hold a outdoor bouldering ‘event’ of this type in Frank Slide to promote the area. Years ago, I organized a similar (but much smaller) event near Prince George – we called it the Giscome Rock Revival – and it was a lot of fun. I wanted to bring that same “let’s have a fun day of thrashing our skin at the boulders” experience to Frank Slide. We’ve been trying to grow the event slowly and organically. Last year was our first year running the event, and it was a great learning experience. This year its definitely going to be bigger, and our sponsors (especially Awesome Adventures in Lethbridge, but also Petzl, Flashed, Friction Labs, and Black Diamond) have been very supportive.
For those who have not been out to the Frank Slide bouldering area, can you give us a little history on who found it and who has been actively developing the area?
I love Frank Slide. A lot of people find the endless boulders of The Slide to be very stark, but there’s a severe beauty of the area that I find very appealing. Frank Slide isn’t exactly a “hidden” area, the huge talus field sprawls across the Crowsnest Highway, and is essentially located inside the municipality of Crowsnest. People have climbed at the Slide sporadically for decades (mostly toproping the larger boulders), but bouldering didn’t really get kicked off in the Slide until the late 90s first with visits from handfuls of climbers from Calgary (including Scott Milton and Lev Pinter) and Edmonton (Seth Johnston), and then in a more serious way by a fairly dedicated Lethbridge crew (including Kyle Marco and Evan Erickson). Three years ago I moved to Lethbridge, and in that time there has been a huge explosion in terms of the number of problems and difficulty. Morgan Dunnet, Josh Byslma, Mark Derksen, Kyle Marco, and I have put up hundreds of new lines in the last few years, from V0- to V11. It’s a great time to be climbing in the Slide – as long as you have a local to guide you through the maze. I always say that Frank Slide is the Blue Cheese of Canadian bouldering – it may seem a little intense and over-the-top at first, but once you get used to it, you crave it. The climbing there is relentlessly technical and foot-oriented, a style I really love.
Will the event this weekend run over one day or two days and what does it entail?
This year, the Tour de Frank will be a one-day-only event, with the University of Lethbridge Climbing Club organizing a bit of an after-party at the Slide following the event. In order to accommodate the people coming from out of town to the Slide, we’ll get things rolling at 10:00 with free coffee and muffins (bring your mug!), registration at 10:15, Orientation at 10:45, and the horn will blow at 11:00 to send the climbers off into the Slide! Climbers will have all day to climb problems on a list of 100+ selected lines in one of the areas of the Slide, and when the horn blows in the late afternoon climbers will turn in their cards. Scores will be based on the hardest five problems each climber sent. Though we love the spirit of competition, we are really focused on climbers have a good time at the Slide, getting to know the area, and introducing new climbers to the sport.
How big of a turn out are you guys expecting?
That’s a good question! Because we are trying to grow the event slowly and organically, we were thinking 50 people would be a good turnout for our second year. However, it seems to be blowing up a bit on social media, so there might be a lot more than that! We’ll see!
Any information people need to know about access and camping this weekend?
There will be an information package online for people to read, to direct them to the parking and meeting areas. There is good free camping immediately adjacent to the Slide (contact me via the event page if you want more information), as well as many good hotels and campgrounds very close to the Slide. The event is free, but we ask that you sign a registration sheet / waiver when you show up. The final point I want to make is that in the case of rain, the event will be moved from the Saturday to Sunday, but we’ll make an announcement ahead of time so people are not caught unaware. So far, the weather forecast looks good, perfect fall bouldering weather!
If anyone is curious about the Slide, and want to see photos of the area and read descriptions of many of the new problems, they can check out my blog which is essentially the Frank Slide Bouldering newsletter. More detailed information about the event will be posted there, as well as on the Facebook event page.
Thanks for the info Trent. We hope the event is a real success!!
