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.