Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Ring of Fire and Dominion Riverrock!


            The past two weekends have been two of the most fun and exciting weekends, well, ever. The first was Dominion Riverrock, which Dalan Faulkner, Danyelle Faulkner, Josh Levin and I all stayed at Riley Varner's house for. The competition was one of the best competitions I've ever been to.
The Wall!
 
 
          The wall, thanks to Brent Quensenberry, was an amazing thing to look at both for climbers and non-climbers alike. The route setters did a phenomenal job of setting crowd pleasing routes that were also fun to climb.

Backlight Photography
Josh Levin and I waiting to climb Qualifier #1!
 



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Qualifier #2

 
Backlight Photography
Qualifier #2
           I ended up placing sixth after finals, which I was definitely pleased with (females had a SUCH a hard category!) but of course I'm hoping next year will go even better! That part of the comp was Friday and Saturday, on Sunday we had the speed bouldering competition. This was unlike any other thing I've ever competed in, but was a ton of fun. It ended up being speed campusing though! This was interesting because it made people who don’t typically speed climb more interested in competing. I ended up placing second to Megan Martin!

Backlight Photography
Speed climbing/campusing!
 
            Overall the comp was a great experience and I'm definitely going back next year! Not onl was it a great competition with good friends and competitors, but the festival was super fun too! There were dogs all over the place and tons of things to watch, like BMX, slacklining, and dogs doing long jump into water!   

Yeah, we were psyched.


Five Ten represent!


Pugs are the best.

            I flew back from Richmond on Monday morning, and I was back at the airport on the next Friday to go back to the east coast, but this time, Boston! Shane Messer had been talking about this huge competition he was organizing ever since Singapore last August. He told me that I should go because it was going to be amazing, and oh, my god, this comp was sick. I decided last minute to go and I'm so psyched that I did. It was a different format than I had ever seen before, we had three routes to do in 3 hours, and it didn't matter when we climbed each one. From there they narrowed down male and female open categories to 9 people for finals. All the finalists walked and stood in front of the huge tarp they had covering the finals routes and, after introducing us, they dropped the tarp and all the athletes previewed.

Photo: Jennie Jariel
All the finalists!

           Our route was super cool, it started on the left side of the wall and traversed over the roof section to the right, the men's route did the opposite (started right and went left). After preview we went back into iso. We were taken out one at a time to go climb! The feeling of climbing alone in front of a huge crowd like there was is really hard to explain, but it's a ton of fun. Of course, Shane's fantastic jokes kept the crowd amused... :) When I climbed the route I made a few dumb mistakes here and there (which I always seem to end up doing..) but I still made it past the roof section to where the climb began traversing left again. I also found a SWEET rest in the middle of the roof with a bomber kneebar!

Screenshot from the louder than 11 highlights video!!
Check it out: http://vimeo.com/67185712
yup, that's the kneebar. So sick.
 

             I ended up in fourth place behind Sasha DiGulian, Delaney Miller, and Chelsea Rude. For feeling like I'm not in the best of rope shape, I'm really happy with how the results turned out! The other finalists also did an amazing job, with other youth athletes Claire Buhrfeind coming in 5th, Grace McKeehan in 8th and Katie Lamb in 9th. The female category was once again super tough, but the men's category was even more stacked. I think this competition was even more competitive than SCS open nationals was to make finals. Some super strong guys and girls didn't make finals who definitely could’ve done really well. Then there's Kai (13 year old bad-ass) who was in first place going into finals against big names like Daniel Woods, Vasya Vorotnikov, and Jon Cardwell. He's such an awesome kid, I can't wait to see what else he does! Central rock gym Hadley put on an amazing event that I hope to compete in next year again! 
Another screenshot from the LT11 highlights video!
Riley, Dominic, and I all looking psyched for the comp to start.

          The next day nearly all the competitors went and climbed at the new Central Rock Gym in Watertown, which was incredible. First of all we had a TON of the strongest climbers in the country all projecting together and secondly, the gym was AMAZING. They had incredible bouldering angles, super tall sport routes, super well set routes and boulders, and even a to-be speed wall! I hope I can get back there again sometime soon. But for right now, it's time to get psyched for the Vail bouldering World Cup!!