NEW SEATTLE VW OPENING TODAY!!!

Are you ready for the BADDEST lead walls in the Pacific Northwest? If so, then you will want to go to the new Seattle VW which opens today at 4pm. I actually took a tour of the facility yesterday and the gym matches the pre-opening buzz everyone is hearing. The bouldering area is nice but is not going to make you forget the SBP. That's a minor quibble as the sole reason to come to this gym is to get your lead on.

Here is a shot of the back wall of the lead area. Notice the tiny and beautiful Laela (Sidney's sister) at the bottom of the photo. (Photo courtesy of me)


The bouldering area is very nice and incorporates the same wall technology as their Tacoma gym. It would have been cool if the bouldering area was bigger but you can't have everything and it's still a great place to boulder.

Sidney getting some bouldering in a day before the grand opening. (Photo courtesy of me)


We will be at the grand opening today even though I know it will be a zoo! Hope to see everyone there!

2011 PORTLAND BOULDER RALLY.

This past December 3rd was the 1st ever Portland Boulder Rally at the newest Circuit Gym in Portland, Oregon. The Circuit has been away from the comp scene for a few years now but made a big splash on their return as this was a huge event. The winner of each "Open" category received $1,400 so they weren't messing around in trying to attract a lot of climbers to the event.

Sidney climbed in the "Open" category of which there were 14 competitors. We made a day trip of it with Cierra and her father, Andy, so the girls climbed in the 2nd session. Being that Sidney is only 12, I know that when she competes in the "Open" categories, there is always the possibility of her running into some reach issues. It's never a complaint, just a fact. The PBR was definitely set with the adults in mind as a majority of the upper point routes had very long reaches. Sidney's scorecard was not her usual strong zone of 5 climbs all bunched together. There were some big gaps between the points of her routes as she attempted a lot of different climbs but kept running into a section of the route that she was not able to reach. She was a bit frustrated but understood that she had to make the best of it and try to maximize her score as best she could.

Sidney extending as far as she could at the 1st Annual Portland Boulder Rally. (Photo courtesy of me)


In the end, Sidney came pretty close to maximizing her score, although there were a couple of routes she possibly could have gotten but she ran out of time. They took the top 6 to Finals and Sidney finished a strong 8th so she was actually pretty happy with her result.

Sidney using ALL of her reach to get this hold. She had to throw with both hands from the hold that her left hand is on, all the way up to where her right hand is with only the right foothold and smearing the left foot. (Photo courtesy of me)


We stayed to watch Finals and were rewarded with watching some excellent climbing. In the end, it was a good thing Sidney did not make Finals because she would have really, really struggled on those routes. She might have surprised herself a bit, but overall she would have had a rough go of it as they were very tough with a lot of reach. The first thing she said to me after Finals were over was that she was glad she DIDN'T make Finals and I agreed with her. If she stays on the same career arc that she is currently on, I would bet she makes a bigger dent in the PBR next year!

2011 SEATTLE BOULDERING CHALLENGE.

The oldest and biggest bouldering comp in the Northwest, the SBC, took place this past November 19th. This was Sidney's 5th year in a row competing at the SBC. Unfortunately, I forgot to take any pictures of her climbing and I have not found any of her on the web. I did take video which I will post on my youTube channel, Chasesidney13, sometime in the near future.

As you hopefully have read in a previous post, last year Sidney qualified in 11th place after the Redpoint round in the Open category. They only took 10 to Finals but because of an injury to Tiffany Melius, she was able to climb in Finals and moved up to 8th place! Her past SBC results have shown a clear arc of getting better every year so I was curious if she could continue to improve this year.

Sidney, as always, started out strong and flashed quite a few high climbs. She then looked around for some higher climbs and worked some projects. With a half hour left in the session, she thought she was good enough to make Finals so we shut it down to rest up and wait for results. It was very hard to gauge her score compared to the other Open competitors as this is not a USA Climbing youth event. A lot of youth compete in it but it is definitely an event geared for adults. With Sidney not even being a teenager, yet, my goal for her is just to improve her Redpoint score every year. If she makes Finals, that's just icing on the cake and gets her more experience. I know the Finals routes are set for the adults and that's the way it should be. Well, Sidney improved again by qualifying for Finals in 7th place this year.

As I expected, there were 4 Finals routes and they were TOUGH! The first route had a bunch of really big holds that Sidney is not a fan of, yet, but she flashed the route with no problems. The second route she climbed well and got two holds from the top on her first try but did the wrong beta for her and fell. Her second try she used the correct beta but was not able to execute the move, fell and then decided not to try it again as time was short. She thinks she could have made the route if she did the correct beta her first try instead of her second. The third route no competitor came even close to making with Sidney getting to around where everyone else was falling. The fourth route gave her all kinds of trouble as the beta was really hard for her to read and she was hurt by her lack of height. All in all, she climbed really well and finished in 9th place for Finals, a couple of spots back from where she started. However, she got some more experience climbing really HARD problems in front of a big crowd so it was a very positive night.

Here is a really cool warped view of the event. (Photo courtesy of Stone Gardens)


These are Sidney's results for the past 5 years which really shows her improvement.
2007 - Age 8 - Redpoint score was 65th out of 76 female competitors.
2008 - Age 9 - 48th out of 90.
2009 - Age 10 - 22nd out of 77.
2010 - Age 11 - 11th out of 96 - Qualified for Finals and finished 8th.
2011 - Age 12 - 7th out of 100 - Finished 9th after Finals.
2012 - Age 13 - ????????

Looking forward to next year!

VERTICAL WORLD - REDMOND.

The last local of the season for our region was on November 12th at the Redmond Vertical World gym. It had been 3 years since they last held a local there so it was very nostalgic to be back for another comp, especially knowing that they will be re-modeling the bouldering area soon. There were over 80 climbers for the comp but they had two separate sessions (male and female) so they were really laid back. Everyone had plenty of time to get in all the climbs that they wanted to try.

Unfortunately, Melina and Makenna were sick and couldn't climb with Sidney and Cierra. Lia Messinger, from Portland, made the trip up and climbed with the girls so that was a cool surprise. It was sort of like a VW team comp as almost 50 of the 80+ competitors were on the VW team. Let's just say that there was a higher concentration of red than usual. To illustrate this, in Sidney's FYC category, there were 14 climbers and 11 of them were on the VW team. For the entire region, there are 17 climber's in Sidney's category and 14 are on the VW team. Wow.

Like I stated earlier, it was a really laid back comp. It was easily the most relaxed comp I have been to. Sidney crushed it and won her category by a healthy margin. Lia and Cierra were pretty even but Lia snagged 1 big climb that was the difference as Lia took 2nd and Cierra came in 3rd.

Sidney going horizontal on a hard route. (Photo courtesy of Lisa Grannell)


It's going to be a Battle Royale at Divisionals when all these girls (Sidney, Melina, Cierra and Lia) duke it out for the invites to Nationals. It actually will be a great preview of Nationals. I say this because if you look at last year's ABS Nationals results for FYC and omit all the girls that aged up to FYB, all 4 girls would be in the top 6. Here is what I mean. 1st-Aged Up, 2nd-A/U, 3rd-A/U, 4th-Grace Kane, 5th-Sidney, 6th-A/U, 7th-Melina, 8th-Lia, 9th-A/U, 10th-A/U, 11th-A/U, 12th-A/U, 13th-Piper Boudart and 14th-Cierra. Cierra has improved tremendously since last year and it shows as Melina, Lia and Cierra's climbing scores have basically been the same all season. Throw in strong veteran climbers Olivia Brumwell, Olivia Durant, Dakota Angeli, Jenna Wang and a strong group of first year "C" girls, it means whoever gets an invite to Nationals will have earned it. I would bet that any "C" girl who gets an invite from our Division will do well at Nationals. It certainly will be exciting to watch.

FGD11!

Full Gravity Day 11 was on November 5th at the Spire Climbing Center in Bozeman, Montana. We love to road trip to one comp every bouldering season and this one has now become our annual trip. Our road trip "crew" consists of the Culmbacks (Craig, Janelle and Kayla), Sequoia Meyer, Di, Sidney and myself. We came upon this comp solely because our good friend, Kayla Erickson, wanted us to come visit her last year. We enjoyed it so much, we are now always looking to road trip to a comp every season (Bouldering & Sport).

Sidney, Sequoia and Kayla clowning around the night before the comp. (Photo courtesy of Kayla Erickson)


Last year, Sidney made "Open" finals and this year we were hoping to double that number with Sequoia climbing in "Open", too. The first session were all the youth categories and Little Kayla was climbing during this time. It was a team effort as we narrowed down a lot of routes that fit her climbing style and she crushed it by scoring 750 points more than last year! In the end, she came in 2nd in her category, narrowly finishing behind 1st place by a flash bonus of 25 points. More impressive was that she had the 2nd highest score of ALL the youth females at the comp. Nice!

Kayla crushing one of her many routes! (Photo courtesy of Kayla Erickson)


Hanging out that 1st session gave Sid and Sequoia a chance to scout routes for the "Open" redpoint round. By the time the session started they were eager to get climbing. Sidney started fast and never looked back as she got 4 of her top 6 climbs in the first half of the session. With a half hour left, all 6 of her top scores were 1,050 or higher with a total score of 6,650 points. This was 250 points higher than last year so she packed it in and we waited to see who made Finals. Sequoia climbed great throughout the session and ended up with 5,950 points which was a whopping 1,000 points higher than her score last year! That exact score was also the cutoff for making Finals last year so I thought she had a great chance to make Finals this year.

We hung out and watched the "Barrel Riding" event while waiting for the scores. Sidney, Kayla and Di all gave it a whirl with Sidney having probably the longest run of everyone and Di having the best fall (she was okay) right on her head!

Sidney riding the "Barrel Bull" for 8 seconds! (Photo courtesy of Kayla Culmback)


Halfway through, they announced the Finals competitors and guess who was in the 5th spot? Sequoia! Portland's very own Hanna Copper was in the 4th spot with Bozeman's best young climber, Inge Perkins in 3rd. Sidney qualified 2nd and Missoula's Molly Rennie qualified 1st. Only 75 points separated 1st through 3rd place so it was very tight going into finals.

The format they use for Finals is different than most other comps. Once the climber starts their route, a running clock of 90 seconds begins. If you fall, you can attempt as many climbs in that 90 seconds. You can take as long as you want to finish a climb as long as it starts in those 90 seconds. In a nutshell, your best attempt better be your 1st attempt because you're not going to get higher than your 1st attempt unless you bombed it early.

Sequoia was the first female to come out for Finals. I'm sure she was really nervous climbing in front of such a big crowd but she didn't show it. The first route was almost entirely on the 45 degree wall. Sequoia climbed great until just past the halfway point when she could not make this big, power throw to a slight sloper. She gave it another go but without the proper rest time she did not do any better.

Sequoia on Problem #1 right before her high point. (Photo courtesy of Kayla Erickson)


Hanna came out next and fell at the same spot as Sequoia. Inge was 3rd out and got past that to the crux, which was a slight left hand crossover to a small crimp/pinch. She snagged it and held on for a good second. I thought she was going to be able to hold it but she fell and that ended up being her best attempt. Sidney came out and then cruised to the crux and held it pretty easily. She then cruised to the top for the only flash of problem #1 as Molly came off at the same spot as Inge. I have to admit that this problem was tailor made for Sidney's strengths and she made it look easy.

Sidney getting past the crux on Problem #1. (Photo courtesy of Kayla Erickson)


Problem #2 immediately went into a corner and there was a long reach to the hold on the other wall. Sequoia is the same height as Sidney but her wingspan is a good 3 inches shorter than Sidney's. That made a big difference as Sequioa tried a few different ways to get across but in the end, she could not. She still had a big smile for the crowd and she got a lot of applause. Hanna made it just past the halfway point before falling. Inge came out and just crushed the route, resting at the kneebar for a good 30 seconds before finishing up her flash. After seeing Sequoia struggle, I was just a bit worried that Sidney might have trouble with the start but she was fine and she also crushed the route with a flash. Molly looked strong and flashed the route, too. All the ladies climbed extremely well and gave the crowd a great show!

Sidney, just past the kneebar, flashing Final #2. (Photo courtesy of Ty Morrison-Heath)


Since they combine the scores from the redpoint round and Finals, it was not a given that Sidney had won but I was pretty sure she had pulled it out. All we could do was hang out and wait. After a short while, they announced the scores and Sidney did indeed come in 1st and won $200. Sequoia kicked some booty all day and finished in 5th place. Great job girls!

Sidney looking happy while holding her winner's check! (Photo courtesy of me)


We celebrated by going to Arby's! It was late and not a lot was open. Then we woke up early Sunday morning and drove the 11+ hours home but it was worth it as we all had the best time on this trip.

Thanks to the road trip "crew" and thanks for a great time FGD11!

The road trip "crew" doing our annual futon picture! (Photo courtesy of Kayla Erickson)

2011 EDGEWORKS HALLOWEEN BLACKLIGHT COMP!

Our region's annual Halloween Blacklight comp was this past 29th at Edgeworks Climbing Gym. There are really only two opinions that people have of this comp, they either hate it or they love it. Sidney and I are in the "love it" camp but I can understand why some people don't like it. Mainly because it's different to climb in the dark and it can get pretty warm in the gym with everything having to be sealed up so it will stay dark. It's tradition that she always wears a costume. One year she wore all black and was covered with neon painted climbing holds. It looked like part of the wall was climbing the routes.

Sidney dressed as a climbing wall in 2008. (Photo courtesy of Sydney McNair)


Last year, she paid homage to Vertical World Head Coach, Tyson. She was hesitant to look bald but did it anyway. It took some work to get her bald wig to look good but it was worth it. Her costume ended up looking great and it got a lot of laughs.

Sidney dressed as Tyson. (Photo courtesy of unknown)


This year, her and Melina went as the Dynamic Duo, Batman & Robin.

Batman (Sidney) & Robin (Melina) showing off their huge muscles. (Photo courtesy of me)


Sidney always does well at this comp and this year was no exception. There were close to 140 youth competitors in her session which made it very crowded with long lines. This put a premium on flashing your routes to get good scores and Sidney is great at that. An hour into the comp she had already bagged 5 solid routes so she was cruising and she actually flashed her highest route in the last 20 minutes of the session. In the end, Sidney had the highest score of all the Female youth competitors and by a healthy margin. To top it all off, she won a 5 pack of Petzl Ange quickdraws in the raffle. Score!

Even after climbing for 3 hours, Sidney and Melina had the energy to fight crime! Their alter egos, Batman & Robin, took down the Joker (Makenna) and the Riddler (Cierra) in the gym parking lot.

HOLY V7, BATMAN! WHAM! BAM! POW! (Photo courtesy of Robyn Graham)


Good once again triumphs over evil! Alas, the Joker and the Riddler later escaped from prison AGAIN and are believed to be hiding out in Poulsbo, WA.

2011 NORTHWEST BOULDERFEST!

The 1st Annual Northwest Boulderfest commenced this past October 15th at the Seattle Bouldering Project. For those that don't know the SBP, it is billed as the world's largest bouldering gym but best of all, it is a mile from my house. They had a USAC local comp during the first session and then an adult comp for the next two sessions.

They let all ages compete in the Open categories so Sidney, Melina and Cierra climbed in the 2nd session with all the adults. It was a redpoint format with the top 10 going to Onsight Finals later that night. Having been to the 1st session to keep score, I had an idea what climbs Sidney should start on. Since I was scoring the first session, I wouldn't be able to talk to her until at least an hour and half into her session. I told her she should start on this nice 770 and then turned her loose. Well, when I saw her a long while later, she had a pleasant surprise for me. I looked at her card and her 1st 5 climbs were all over 800! I asked her why she didn't start on the 770 and she said it looked too easy so she went and found something else to start on. The session soon ended and we went and got some Thai food in the parking lot to wait for scores. When they posted, we saw that there were 18 women in the open category. Cierra finished 16th, Melina finished 14th and Sidney qualified for Finals in 5th place. All the girls were happy with how they climbed. I took Sid home to get some rest before Finals.

There were 4 problems in Finals and they were TOUGH! All ten ladies flashed the 1st problem. Sidney climbed well and used all of her reach to tie for the 3rd highest point on the 2nd problem. She ran into a bit of a reach issue on the 3rd problem but still finished middle of the pack on that one. She was pumped by the time she reached the 4th problem and tied with 2 other women for low point on that one. In the end, Sidney finished in 8th place but climbed really, really well overall. To illustrate how close all the climbers were, places 4th through 8th were all separated by one hold as the final scores were 57, 56, 55, 54 and 53. Every time Sidney makes a Final, she gains valuable experience and this one was no different. We talked about a couple mistakes she made and possibly limiting some of her attempts to save energy, so she will be a better climb for it. All in all, everyone had a great time. The gym is so big that the parents can watch all the climbers which is a rarity at most gyms. If you have a chance to watch a comp at the SBP, I highly recommend it. Thanks SBP for a fun comp!

Sidney flashing problem #1. (Photo courtesy of Justin Pettit)

Sidney using all of her reach to get past the volume on problem #2. (Photo courtesy of Justin Pettit)

WHAT DID ONE ROOSTER SAY TO THE OTHER?

The first comp of the ABS13 season is in a few days at the Seattle Bouldering Project and Sidney is excited to start climbing. Until then, here is a picture I love of Sidney and Melina at Archie McPhee's in Wallingford. Can you tell who is who?

The girls LOVE Archie McPhee's!! (Photo courtesy of me)

2ND ANNUAL TACOMA THROWDOWN!!

All right. The 2011/2012 climbing season has begun! I'm really hoping to keep the kids' blogs up to date this year so I can avoid having to write a huge end of the year re-cap of everything that happened. So, here's hoping this is the first of many entries this year.

I'm going to start by saying that I cannot believe that Sidney is starting her 5th year of competitive climbing already. It has just flown by. The reality check is that she has 7 more years of eligibility in youth climbing if she continues to do it.

So, in our region, the first USAC comp is still a month away but last Saturday was the 2nd Annual Tacoma Throwdown at the Tacoma Vertical Club. Sid competed in the Open category. I was not there for most of the session but showed up during the last hour to do the scoring. By that time, Sidney said she was maxed out and wanted to be done. We did our little dance and in the end she kept climbing and snagged her highest climb of the comp on her last eligible try. It turned out that she really needed it because she came in 3rd place and won $150 but only edged out 4th place by 10 points! Let that be a lesson to all you climbers out there. If you have time, there is always the possibility to improve your score. Not giving up was the difference between winning $150 and nothing. Pretty much what separated the top 4 women climbers was 1 route. That's all that separated them, so it was very close. Sid was stoked to win some dough but more importantly, she learned a valuable lesson about competing. Oh, I forgot that she loved her HUGE check, too. It was a great day all around.

(Photo courtesy of Tacoma Vertical Club)

2011 USAC CLIMBING SEASON REVIEW.

It's been 6 months since our last post but we're back!  Sidney just recently ended the 2011 climbing season on a very good note so let's review what happened this past year. 

This season, after 3 years, Sidney finally aged out of the "D" category and was a 1st year "C".  This year had the potential to knock her around a bit since she would be competing against older girls again.  She more than held her own and was really happy with her season.

Bouldering - Sidney climbed in two locals (Vertical World and Edgeworks) and finished in 1st place in both.  We also went on a road trip with some Bellingham YMCA friends to the FGDX comp in Bozeman, Montana.  We had a blast! Sidney competed in the Open category and after the Redpoint round was in 1st place going into Finals.  Climbing against Idaho and Montana's finest, she made a mental mistake but still rebounded to finish in 2nd place and win $100!  She was stoked but more importantly, she gained a lot of experience climbing in front of a big crowd.  It definitely helped her when she climbed, two weeks later, in the biggest bouldering comp in our area, the Seattle Bouldering Challenge.  Climbing in the Open category again, after the Redpoint round, she snagged the last Finals spot in 11th place.  In front of a huge crowd, she climbed great and moved up 3 spots to finish in 8th place.  An awesome showing for an 11 year old girl!  Regionals was at Tacoma VW and Sidney crushed at the comp.  She was the only "C" climber, boy or girl, to make all 6 routes (3 Qualifiers, 3 Finals) on the day!  Nationals was in Boulder, Colorado. She had a hiccup on a slab route during qualifiers that made her mad but she was still tied for 6th going into Semifinals. She then made a sequencing mistake on the 2nd Semifinal route that cost her after all was said and done. Still, she qualified for Finals in 5th place and had the highest score on the 3rd (and final) route. She climbed great in Finals and tied for the 3rd highest total of the day but it was not enough to bump her ahead of Grace Kane for 4th place and the final U.S. Team spot. The difference was by less than a point which shows how close these comps get at the National level. Sidney was really bummed but I think it made her work harder in getting ready for the Sport and Speed climbing seasons. Of the top 6 placings, 4 were 2nd year "C" girls so Grace and Sidney had terrific showings!

Sport & Speed - Sidney climbed in two locals (Stoneworks and Edgeworks) and finished in 1st place in both. We loved our Bouldering road trip so much, the same group went to the Scendfest comp in Boise, Idaho. We again had a great time! Sidney competed in the Open category and was first by a wide margin after the Redpoint round. What was cool was that she was able to climb on all of the lead routes. She proceeded to flash the 2nd and 4th through 11th highest rated climbs. It was amazing how well she climbed. My favorite story from that comp is when she came down from flashing the 2nd highest rated climb. While she was untying, one of the older team members from the gym came up to her, shook her hand and said with much enthusiasm, "Thank you for climbing at my gym!" That was a nice moment. We thought the comp was over but they had the same format as the Bozeman comp and Sidney was first going into Finals. She crushed both Finals routes and won $150 for first place! Bonus! Regionals was at Clubsport and Sidney climbed well. On Qualifier 2, she fell on the 2nd to last hold and that ended up being the difference between 1st and 2nd place. Cierra Graham, Melina Costanza and Sidney all flashed the Final route so Sidney placed 2nd to Melina after countbacks to Qualifiers. Not counting National events, that broke Sidney's impressive string of 21 first place finishes in a row at USAC events (Locals, Regionals & Divisionals) in all 3 disciplines. Great job Melina! If someone was going to break that string, she would have wanted it to be her best friend. We didn't have to go to Divisionals so we stayed home and saved some money. Melina and Cierra finished 1st and 2nd, respectively. Way to represent the PNW! Nationals was again in Atlanta, Georgia. In Speed, Sidney's Qualifier time of 7.28 seconds was the 2nd fastest time behind Grace Mckeehan. In Semifinals, her time of 6.77 seconds was again the 2nd fastest but this time she was behind Margarita Marsanova. In Finals, Sidney was in the last pairing so she had the advantage of seeing all the times in front of her and would know what she would have to beat. In the pairing before her, Bethany Eversole put up the fastest time of the comp up to that point with a time of 6.40 seconds. On Sidney's first run, she beat Margarita up the wall with a time of 6.41 seconds. She still had another run but would she miss out on 1st place by .01 seconds?! On her 2nd run, she put it all together and beat Margarita up the wall with a very fast looking run. It took 3 or 4 agonizing seconds before her time flashed on the timer.......6.35 seconds!! Her 2nd Speed National Championship in a row and she was ecstatic! It was high drama and VERY exciting to watch. In Sport, Sidney flashed Q1 and Q2 along with 6 other girls. In Semifinals, she was cruising but fell 2 holds from the top when her foot popped, putting her in 3rd place going into Finals. Afterward, she said she was pumped but felt she should have made the route still. In Finals, Sidney was happy to see they were going to be on the roof! She loves roof routes and climbs them exceptionally well. She crushed the route and tied for high point with Margo Hayes. Not flashing the Semifinal route cost her a chance to do a Super-Final with Margo for the National Championship. In the end, she finished in 3rd place by the slimmest of margins and made U.S. Team. It was a great finish to her first year as a "C" climber. A 5th, 3rd and 1st in all three disciplines at Nationals is a great year. Congrats Sidney!

ABS 12 REGIONALS.

ABS 12 Regionals was a couple of weeks ago at the Vertical Club of Tacoma.  That's code for the Tacoma Vertical World bouldering gym.  It was a very hectic day as close to 170 climbers participated at the Regional.  There were 20 girls in Sidney's category alone.  Sidney climbed extremely well, finishing first in her category (12-13 year old females-FYC).  The boys and girls for that age group climbed the exact same routes and Sidney was the only climber, out of 42, to finish all 6 climbs (3 qualifier and 3 final routes).  She had one fall on the #2 Final route and flashed the other 5.  Two of Sidney's best friends on the team also placed well in the same category.  Melina Costanza finished in 2nd place and Cierra Graham finished in 4th place.  All three received invites to ABS 12 Nationals and will be competing in Boulder, Colorado in 3 weeks time.  For those that would like to see some of the aforementioned climbs, please visit our youTube channel at the following link, http://www.youtube.com/user/Chasesidney13