Youth Comp at Climber's Rock

Yesterday's Elevation Under-20 Youth comp at Climber's Rock was a blast. I spent the morning as a volunteer belayer, wanting to help out and also learn about how these comps work. I had only been at bouldering comps before, so it was great to learn about both how a roped comp works, and to see the kids climb. I had a lot of fun, and am looking forward to having these running in our gym next year.

There were 7 routes to climb in a flash format (which means each competitor only got one chance to climb each route). The score was based on the top 3 climbs, with points awarded for progress from hold to hold on each climb. There were 50 climbers, ranging from the Under-11 (and some were well under 11!) to the 18/19 year olds.

I was belaying on climb D, right in the middle of the range of difficulty. As the comp got started, our climb saw some of the stronger climbers, for whom that climb was a warm-up. Later on we got the kids moving over after doing some of the easier climbs, and at the end we had some of the younger kids giving it a try. The older kids were leading, while the younger ones were on top rope, so they kept me pretty busy switching back & forth between the ropes & belay devices between climbers! It was intense! I felt a little pressure when belaying the lead climbers, because I wanted to make sure I fed slack quickly at every clip so as not to impede the progress of a climber and cause a technical to be called (and a few of them went up really quickly!). I think I did OK. There were lots of falls of course, which is different from my usual lead climbing sessions; two of them were pretty exciting, but no one got hurt at all.

I was very impressed by the calibre of the climbers, and by the spirit of the group. The parents were all well-behaved as well! There were large showings from Climber's Rock and Boulderz (snazzy shirts, Andrew!), and climbers from several other gyms, including at least one who came from Quebec for the comp. James and Maria Richardson did a great job hosting the event, Aaron Eden did a fine job as Head Routesetter, and Tim Vince and Jeff Whattam ran a tight ship as head judges.

We will definitely be joining the party by hosting youth comps once our gym is up and running. Seeing the excitement and talent of all those kids, from the tiny ones to the nearly grown-ups, was really inspiring and fun.