Last weekend I happened to hear about a pretty fantastic thing that happens every semester here at the University of Guelph; the climbing competition! Fourth year is an awful time full of labwork, projects, and tests, and PROJECTS with very little time for bikes, or climbing, or other fun things that I enjoy, but I got warning on Monday that Saturday is the day of the climbing competition.Climbing competitions take place in the climbing gyms, and there are certain "routes" where you climb up the whole wall, or "boulders" where you aren't tied in and you only climb so high that are ranked based on their difficulty. The objective is to complete 5 bouldering problems and 5 routes that add up to the highest total number of points out of the other competitors.
Having climbed a grand total of about 4 times this semester, I figured this would be a great way to relieve some school tension and make up for lost time! I entered the competition in the top-ranked division (didn't want to be a sand-bagger again, my friends still wont let it go that the last time I did that I won), showed up dressed as a dinosaur with a tye-dye shirt, and I climbed well! Though I had the T-Rex hat on, and sunglasses on top of him to intimidate the competition (I can't grow a manly beard like the rest of the climbers seem to be able to), I was nowhere near even half as good as the other guys in my category, but I am quite happy with the way that I performed and had the best time ever!
The climbing gym is full of great, supportive, and incredibly nice people! Fellow competitors cheer each other on and give beta (the climbing word for info on how to conquer a problem properly). There are no harsh people or harsh feelings at these competitions, and I totally suggest that anybody who hasn't found this gem on campus get there right away!
Check out the stop motion video here, picture taken from a GoPro camera every two seconds, starting from the setup of the gym. This is probably the coolest thing that I've seen in a while! I pop in around 3:50, climb up a spot near the camera at 4:30, 6:49 (for a little while), 7:55, and a few more spots so check it out!
stop-motion of the climbing comp
No comments:
Post a Comment