March 11, 2022
Area 51 was the first documented climbing area in the Land of Confusion. The Area 51 slab project is longest standing unsent project in Nova Scotia climbing history! Nearly every climber in Nova Scotia history has attempted this line at some point. Ben Smith came the closest, with the vision of going left instead of right, and cleaned the high holds that would eventually be the method.The climb is exceedingly rare and high quality for a slab. Tall, beautiful, with big holds, and big moves. The crux sequence of using the sidepull as a gaston to cross is bananas. How hard is it? Well, that deserves it's own paragraph. Slab is notoriously difficult to grade, that's why the joke is they are all V4 🙃. I've sent every single other slab problem in Nova Scotia, with second ascents on the hardest and scariest. Surface Detail is drastically harder than any other slab, and is the longest standing unsent project in NS history. The flip side is that slab is notoriously morpho. For me personally, it was around V11, but I was very scrunchy in the crux. I think shorter climbers may have an easier time. Only time and repeats will tell. Now that the beta is known, someone could come along who fits the crux perfectly and run it as a warm-up. I wouldn't be surprised if the final grade is anywhere from V8 - V11.