Summer 2012 so far!

This June, for the first time in my climbing career, I won Divisionals for Sport and Speed climbing. It was very gratifying to earn the Southwest titles on the year I was most prepared for that competition. Leading up to that weekend I had a lot more time with 4 fewer finals in school (thank god for AP's) and a dedicated climbing partner with my sister back in time- thanks Em!
Unfortunately I have no pictures, but I did earn a pink medal! (after they ran out of blue).

Then it was off to training camp. There is simply no better place to train for rock climbing- in America, at least- than Stone Summit in Atlanta. As in years past, I was pushed to work harder all the time by the other campers, among them some of the best climbers of my age group in the United States. This year, however, I was also inspired by the talents of the next generation. Mirko, Drew, Dylan, Natalia, and others were crushing routes I hadn't thought possible six years ago. I resolved to compete in more Adult comps while they're still too young to blow the rest of us away.

photo: Scot Jenerik

Next was the comp. Two things that stood out about my sixteenth Youth National Championships were amazing routesetting and the clutch performances in quali and semis that seem to be becoming my signature. First the routesetting: along with some awesome dynamic moves on the older guys' routes, they set up a brilliant pulley system to make possible an unprecedented Youth D Final in the roof. Wow. Here's a move I appreciated on our Final:

photos:Sydney McNair

Now for my own performance. In sport climbing, 17th made Semis. After the first round, I was 17th. 11 made finals. After Semis, I was 11th. Speed climbing was much the same, and I made finals with less than 0.2 seconds to spare. They run categories in backwards order of placement, so needless to say I did a lot of climbing first in the later rounds. 

Unfortunately the magic ran out for Finals, and I ended up fifth in Speed and tenth in Sport. Although my dogged efforts to qualify for Worlds in Sport for the first time since 2008 fell short, I received a second-round invitation for Speed and will be representing the US in Singapore this August.

 When my category came out for speed awards, we decided to have some fun. 

photo: Bob Lockhart

At the conclusion of Awards I was presented with the North Face Young Gun award for service, long-term achievement, leadership, and sportsmanship in competitive climbing. It felt unbelievable to stand up there with the amazing Alex Fritz and prodigious Dylan Barks, to have Josh Levin hand me the trophy, and to join a group of recipients that includes some of the most talented and respected young climbers in USAClimbing history.

 photo: Bob Lockhart

It's a good thing there wasn't an acceptance speech expected of me (I was feeling a bit shell-shocked), but if there was I'd have to thank my mom, Evolv, my sister, my friends who pushed me to work harder, my numerous coaches and mentors, and of course USAC and TNF.

 

photo: Bob Lockhart

When I got home my goals included staying in shape, not getting injured, and climbing outside as much as possible. I have been successful on all three counts, if you don't count the gym-hopping Josh and I did in Reno to train speed climbing.

Working the top of Lateralus 5.14a for a California Climber shoot in Malibu.

Josh and I took a road trip to Reno for speed training and were greeted with amazing hospitality from everyone at Commrow, as well as the Wang family who let us stay at their house. Thanks so much to Eric, Brian, and everyone else who timed, taped, belayed, and/or put up with us (and our weird training schedule) last week.

As a side note, Commrow has much more than speed climbing- they have a great bouldering area, a slackline, America's only 15m IFSC speed wall, and the tallest artificial climbing wall in the world. That wall stretches two pitches and over 200 feet above the streets of downtown Reno- a great and exciting way to end a day of climbing.

A good speed run with my new 15m beta. Almost lost it on the dyno!

Josh Levin managing to crush the 15m with a GoPro on his head. As a side note, Josh won his 10th consecutive Speed title this year at Nationals. He's probably the best competitive speed climber in American history, and an inspiration to climb with.

On our last day in Reno we checked out Donner Summit's Star Wall in the afternoon. What an awesome crag!

  photo: Josh's GoPro

Thanks for reading! (or skimming through the pictures)

Speed timers!

A few days ago my friend Chauncey (http://www.twindolphintiming.com/blog/) contacted me with exciting news- America's first commercially available speed climbing timers. As a show of thanks to her and the people that made this happen, I want to talk a little about what this technology has done for the sport of speed climbing. At my first rope climbing nationals in 2005, few people took speed climbing seriously. Though electronic timing systems were starting to be used, they were notoriously unreliable and lacked critical functions such as an on-the-ground reset, false start switches, and screens displaying the climbers' times. Coaches advised the kids to "double-tap" the buttons to make sure the time stopped on their run. Appeals were rampant, blaming technical failures -often for good reason, but the classic "missed the button" cases got through too- and bogging down the competition. It was no wonder that many kids never tried speed, and fewer watched it. Speed climbing lacked its primary attractive factor- it simply wasn't entertaining to watch. The speed event has come a long way in the past seven years, but there have been bumps in the road. At one adult nationals, the timing system broke down for speed finals so they used the old standard- cowbells and stopwatches. In the final heat, two guys raced for a National Champion title, and the stopwatches reported a winner that had clearly lost both head-to-head races. USAC, with few other options, called it a tie. A year or two later at the world championships, it seemed like the IFSC had found a solution: adapted swimming timers. As those competitors whose slaps did not stop the clock realized, however, those sensor pads should probably be left underwater. With those days behind us, however, I feel great optimism for the future of speed climbing. The amazingly accurate, impressively reliable laser timers now used have launched the speed event to levels of popularity and competitiveness not thought possible in the stopwatch era. National and international records are now set and broken before roaring crowds. Large screens help spectators follow tight races from across the packed gym. Olympic dreams and standardized routes push competitors to train tirelessly to chip away at their times. And finally, when the race is up and the climbers hang breathlessly, we can be sure of who is our victor.

Oops, been a while!

It's sinking in how much work I have ahead of me with college essays, training camp, and travel planning, so I will try to catch up on the last few months of climbing with pictures and captions.

photo: Lucas Larson

I competed at adult SCS Nationals for the first time in Sport and Speed. Above is Q1.

photo: Richard Levin

Above is the speed podium. I was very excited and a little shocked to make the Men's US Team for speed and earn an invitation to the World Championships in Paris this September.

photo: Isaac

 I climbed out at Horse Flats for the first time with Isaac Palatt, Itai Axelrad and some other friends from the gym. Above is a short v10 that I sent and Itai managed to flash. What a beast!

photo: Isaac

 Since the conclusion of AP exams I've been training for SCS and climbing out at Malibu Creek a bit more. Above is my attempt to repeat the area's classic Ghetto Blaster, 5.13b. I'm also working on Ghetto Crossing 13c, Brenna 13d, and Lateralus 14a. Pics of the projects should be up soon!

ABS Nationals 2012

Earlier this month I competed at bouldering nationals for youth in Colorado Springs. It was probably the best ABS Nationals I've been to. Contributing aspects included the classy venue, great warmup facility, nice town, and, to cap it all off, a sick highlights video: http://vimeo.com/38334384. I think my Semifinals cheering section is shown under qualifiers, and there might even be a clip of me anonymously falling!
Enough talk; here's the pics:

 left: by Faith Sullivan, right: by Josh Levin

Qualifiers went really well. I finished tied for first with Alex Fritz. Above is the tough Q4 slab.

photo: Bruce Mitchell

Look familiar? This third semifinals route was one of the most exciting problems in my climbing career. I told a friend at school about it and ended up in my school paper. I couldn't have written a better climbing article myself. Thanks David! (link to the article)

Left: Bruce Mitchell, right: Will Roderick

In finals, I unlocked the first problem on vertical terrain and gained some confidence. The second climb was going well until my foot slipped, and I was unable to reach the finishing moves again. The third problem was truly a climb for the powerhouses- namely, Joe Gifford and Michael Orourke. Maybe I could've done it that friday... or if I'd just taken steroids.
Overall, I was happy with an eighth place finish and an awesome weekend. One more surprise awaited me in the awards ceremony.

photo: Jon Barks

I was a finalist for the North Face Young Gun award, along with the amazing Dylan Barks and one of my best friends, Josh Levin. I was honored to be up there and especially happy to be the first to congratulate Josh when he was presented with the award.
I'd like to thank Evolv for being the greatest shoe company in the world. Their posters were everywhere as they've increased their support of USAClimbing and the future of our sport. I feel blessed to experience firsthand their dedication to individual athletes. And finally the Shamans have changed the way I think of climbing shoes. At ABS Nationals in 2009 I remember having to switch shoes upon finding that one of my final routes was a slab. This year, I had my Shamans tightened before turning around, and didn't hesitate to mount and send a slabby, virtually handhold-less Semifinal 1.Thanks Evolv.
And thank YOU for reading!

Here goes!

I've worked hard to stay out of the climbing blog world for a few reasons. Time draining, narcissism, and soporific over-detail are blogging excesses I've seen in too many friends' pages, and seemed worth avoiding. Today I changed my mind. I was out climbing at Horse Flats (pics later! maybe) and my friends Itai and Isaac convinced me that a blog can be a communication device. While facebook photo uploads are easy and acceptable, a status is never enough to tell the story of a comp, and posting about outdoor sends feels like bragging- mostly to people who don't know what you're talking about. On the other hand, trying to talk about a comp or new outdoor projects without any kind of visual aid is ineffective- this hampers not only conversations but also mandatory updates to sponsors. Thus, a discontinuity is established that makes it frustratingly difficult to share climbing experiences. Solution: a blog that uses a narrative of pictures to tell a story. No essays. If you really want to read more, see the links on the right- they have more stories to tell.
Hopefully this will be the longest text post for a long while, measuring by word count. Thanks for reading!