ABS 13 REGIONALS!

ABS 13 Regionals was earlier last month on December 10th. Last year at Regionals, we had almost 170 competitors. This year, because of the region realignment, we only had a little bit over 90 climbers. This made for a less chaotic comp, especially since it was held at the Tacoma Vertical Club once again. Sidney's category (FYC) was the biggest at 16 climbers with the format being the usual 3 routes for Qualifiers and 3 routes for Finals.

Sidney was later in the running order for Qualifiers so I was able to watch her best friends and teammates (Melina, Cierra & Makenna) climb. What I noticed in watching them climb was that the routesetting was extremely tough this year. They were taking no prisoners! Sidney came out and flashed Qualifier # 1 but barely half of her group made the route which shows how hard they were setting right out of the gate.

Sidney was one of only 3 girls, the others being Melina and Cierra, to make Qualifier # 2 and they all flashed it. If you watch the video of this climb on our youTube channel, Chasesidney13, you'll be amazed at how effortless she climbs the route. She makes it look much easier than it is.

Sidney on the final hold of Qualifier # 2 as her feet never come off the route. (Photo courtesy of me)


Sidney and Melina were the only girls to make Qualifier # 3 with Sid flashing it and MC making it on her 2nd attempt. Cierra almost flashed it but made a sequencing error that caused her to fall at the top and she couldn't make it on her 2nd attempt.

Showing off the guns on Qualifier # 3 as she flashes the route. (Photo courtesy of me)


Going into Finals, Makenna was in 7th with 1 Top and 36 points. Cierra was in 3rd with 2 Tops, 46 points and 2 flashes. Melina was in 2nd with 3 Tops, 49 points and 2 flashes. Sidney was 1st with 3 flashes. To illustrate how hard the setting was for Qualifiers, going into Finals for all 10 categories, there was the possibility of only 1 Superfinal. That is called separation!

Sidney flashed Final # 1 but it was a toughie as only 4 (Sid, MC, Cierra & Miriam) of the 12 finalists made the problem and they were all flashes. The sequencing was very specific with a couple of strength moves thrown in so I could see how some of the girls would have problems with it.

Textbook climbing by Sidney on Final # 1. (Photo courtesy of me)


More girls found success on Final # 2 as half of the Finalists made the route with Sidney, Melina and Cierra being the only ones to flash it. It was a short but sweet route that had one big move. The key was to be able to make a big crossover with your right hand near the top of the route.

Sidney at the big crossover move on Final # 2. (Photo courtesy of me)


Being as Sidney was right after Melina in the climbing order, she knew what Melina would have gotten on each climb before she was to climb. It makes her a little nervous but she deals with it well. On Final # 3, Cierra fell 3 times at the crux and did not make the route. Because of that bobble, Cierra finished in 4th place with Miriam squeaking by her for 3rd. That's the nature of the new scoring changes as you can climb better than someone else for most of the comp but if you make one mistake, it can cost you placings. Melina looked strong and easily flashed Final # 3 which put some pressure on Sidney as she would have to flash the route, too, in order to finish in 1st place. Sidney looked just as strong as MC and flashed the route. In fact, she finished with a flourish by skipping the 2nd to last hold and going for the finish in typical Sidney fashion. Only Sidney and Melina made Final # 3.

Sidney at the crux on Final # 3. (Photo courtesy of me)


In the end, Makenna qualified in the 8th and final spot for invites to Divisionals (Great job!). Cierra finished in 4th place. She was pretty bummed about her placing but it was a great learning experience for her nonetheless. Miriam, an up and coming first year C girl climbed very strong and finished in 3rd place. Melina was in 2nd place and Sidney finished in 1st place. Sidney was one of only 2 climbers (the other was Gavin Dixon) for the entire comp that flashed all 6 routes. Melina was right there by climbing all 6 routes with 1 fall. That's all that separated Sidney from her, 1 fall! Close. Divisionals is in two weeks and like I've said before, the FYC competition is going to be a doozy. I can't wait!!

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.