2014 Vertical Endeavors

Saturday March 15 was the open house competition at Vertical Endeavors in Warrenville. I was competing in Open this year. I knew all the climbers that were competing in women's open because they were all part of USA Climbing. I was looking at the routes before hand and noticed some of our routes didn't look quite as difficult as the points that were given to them. Everyone started climbing and I went to the lowest point route and gave it a shot. I didn't finish the route and didn't get any points for it because it was a red point format. Red point means you only get points if you complete the route. So I re-thought my plan and started looking at some of the harder routes because they truly looked a little bit easier than what they were saying. I tried a couple of the harder routes and finished one. I started to get alittle bit frustrated with the fact I wasn't completing routes so I started working on boulder problems. The boulder problems were onsight. So you get points for every hold you touched. I got a few points out of the bouldering problems but did not finish any for they were a bit out of my ability. I tried the hardest problem on our list and made it more than halfway up on it. It gave me a boost so I went back and tried some of the other routes. Before I got on my next route I was talking with some of the other girls and they were mentioning how they have only been able to complete one route or just one boulder problems. Hearing them say that made me feel better because it was just me falling in everything. All the girls started working together on trying to complete on of the harder routes and some were really close. It was about 15 minutes before the day was over and most of the women in open had called it a day for qualifications. In the end it came down to who got further on the bouldering problem. I was very happy with how I did because some of the girls that I competed against do better on that type of format and still got shutdown. They announced results and I took 6th place out a 7 girls, only separated by 200 points between all girls. We stayed and watched finals for all categories. The route I would have climbed didn't look at that difficult till about 15 feet from the finish. Every climber made it about the same hold for the most part, so placements didn't really change. It was a really fun day and I was excited to have one of my friends tag along and see how climbing competitions work.

All the photos and videos are posted on my Facebook, Flickr and YouTube accounts. I would like to say a big thanks to FiveTen, BlueWater Ropes, KASK Helmets, Rock Candy Holds and Kiasers Pizza and Pub.