Climbing competition

On Saturday, Nathan & I took Micah to his first climbing competition! It was down in Colorado Springs and it went really well...

So...for grandparents and those who are curious, here's how it works (as I currently understand it, lol). There are two seasons. The fall is for bouldering (no ropes) and the spring is for sport climbing (ropes). During the season, there are 5-7 local competitions. Climbers go to those to try to qualify for regionals. I don't know yet about how sport climbing season works; but, for bouldering season, climbers must finish in the top 16 at one of the local competitions to qualify. 

I'm not sure if all local competitions run the same way, though I'm guessing they're close. Climbers were given three hours to try to climb whatever routes they chose. Routes were numbered from 1 to 40 in order of difficulty and points were assigned respectively. Judges manned each route and had to sign to log attempts and verify completion of routes. The climber's top five completed routes were added up for his/her total score. There was no penalty for number of attempts. It was pretty chill and, at the end, climbers just had to turn in their scorecards and were able to leave...no waiting around like the end of JOAD (archery) tournaments...as results were almost immediately posted online.

So. Given that Micah only joined Team Ascent last Tuesday, there was only this one local competition left before regionals. He had two practices with the team and then went to the competition on Saturday. (Normally, there would be other team members also competing and a team coach present, but given the distance and the end of the season, no others from Team Ascent were there.) The goal was simply to gain experience with competing, recognizing that we were coming to the season late. Micah managed to have a good time...enjoyed climbing somewhere different, attempted multiple routes, and learned more about how competitions work. And...he placed tenth (woohoo!) so has qualified for regionals next month. Very proud of his hard work and attitude!