Petra Cliffs, Nov. 15

As I expected, this competition was incredible. The routes that they set are always a ton of fun and everyone filled up their scorecard pretty quickly. Matt Stoker (a graduated Shiloh's Edge participant) joined us for the trip. I believe that everyone was happy with their performance and the prizes they collected. There were many strong climbers there, both men and women. Ben had a great showing, taking 1st place in the Advanced category. Stoker took 1st in Intermediate and JP was 3rd in Intermediate. I also was pleased with my climbing and finished 7th in the Advanced category.

Rhode Island Rock Gym Nov. 9

Wow! This comp was insane. 130 registered competitors jammed into like a 20x30 foot area. JP, Ben and I waited in line for like 15 minutes each time we wanted to get on a climb. It was very difficult to do well when you couldn't workout the moves on the route. You fall, you're done for another 15 minutes.
JP did really well. Tallying the high score of the three of us and taking 3rd in his Youth B division. I finished second in the Intermediate category and Ben took second in Juniors.
We were pretty disappointed about how the comp was organized and learned a few things to remember when we host a comp at Electric City in January.
Another disappointment came when I brought my disposable camera to be developed and found out that there was only one picture on the roll.

Stone Age comp, Nov. 1

The weather for the day was fairly iffy, so rather than chance getting rained on, we headed for the Stone Age gym competition in CT. We attended the comp at this gym last year and remembered that although the scene was a little to competitive ("the Mothers" situation is how we refer to anxious and stress inducing parents at competitions) they set pretty fun problems.
Being that it was the day after Halloween, the attendance was a little thin, maybe 25-30 competitors. However, as expected, the problems were very fun to work and were varied in style and wall angle, which makes for a great competition.

Luke and JP are both freshmen and are in the Youth B category. They were praying for at least two more competitors in their age group so that full points would be awarded from the ABS (a national ranking system). There did happen to be five in the category at the comp, but only three turned in their score cards, so it was not considered a 'full' category. Both guys found some advanced problems to send as well as some intermediate and finished first and second, respectively. Luke beat JP by just 10 points (the difference of one fall over the course of the afternoon).

I was excited to start the day off with a few sends of some advanced slopper problems. This sparked a great day for me and I went on to win the Advanced category and finish with the third highest score for the day (Open category is above Advanced).

Next weekend, the Rhode Island competition starts early Sunday morning, so we will travel out Saturday night and stay about an hour away, giving us an extra 2-3 hours to sleep.