Carabiners, New Bedford, MA 10/25

Although we had to cancel our outdoor climbing plans due to the serious rain storm approaching, we made the most of the day by attending a not-so-local competition.

Ben, Luke and I made the long drive down to New Bedford for the Carabiner's comp. The 12 hour day was well worth it, as we all come home with victories, great prizes, and a fun day together.

Ben climbed very strong, finishing 1st in the Advanced category and with the 3rd highest score of the day. Luke took 1st place in his Youth B category and I took 1st in the Intermediate category.

The gym was enormous and was showcasing their brand new feature, a 14 foot boulder, which added about 1200-1300 new square feet of climbing surface to the gym.

Next weekend, back to CT for the Stone Age competition.

CT Rock Gym comp

The team made the 3 hour trip down to New Haven on the 18th and had a pretty decent showing at the ABS Bouldering Comp.
JP took 3rd place in the Intermediate category, even sending one of the Advanced problems.
In the Advanced category, Ben took 3rd, Luke 4th and I was 5th.
JP was very pleased with his showing. Ben, Luke and I were wishing for a few problems that we could have worked on. For all three of us, the problems that we sent were on the first or second try and those that we couldn't send seemed many steps above us, not just one or two, or they were too painful to work on for many tries.

This weekend we will make the most of the remaining fall weather and climb outdoors at MacKenzie Ponds in the Northern Adirondacks. And on the 1st we'll head back to CT for a competition at Stone Age in Manchester.

9 Corners - Columbus Day

Ben and I took Steve, our new ropes course ultra-volunteer, out to 9 Corners Lake for some bouldering. As usual, I forgot my camera. However, we had a send-fest out there, rolling through about 15-20 problems.
I sent 13, up to a V4 in the Cave area. Ben also sent 13, including one of his projects from the summer, a V4 'Power of Belief'. Steve enjoyed his first visit to 9 Corners and sent a few V3s.

We've got an indoor competition in CT this weekend and will probably head outdoors again on the 25th. May be hitting up Snowy Mountain Boulders.

Opening ABS comp - Gravity Vault, NJ

This weekend we attended the opening American Bouldering Series competition for this area. It was a juniors only competitions, so I didn't get to attempt the routes along with the guys, which was kind of disappointing. I think some of them like to try to beat me ;-) and sometimes they succeed.
Anyway, it was a learning experience for two of the guys, as they burned themselves out attempting many difficult routes and only completed 2 or 3 routes (instead of the required 5).
Only one of our guys climbed to his potential and had energy for the entire 3.5 hours of climbing. He took 6th place in his age group, a good start to the season for him.
The gym was excellent and the routes were good as well.
They are definitely excited to redeem themselves at the next comp, which is in CT on the 18th. Hopefully they'll have learned from their mistakes and get some points on their cards before trying to push their limits.