Ben's First Rock Climbing Competition!

This morning Ben competed in his first Rock Climbing Competition. Held at our gym, he had a great morning! He competed in the Juniors division, ages 6-8. He was well positioned, being tall and lean and having practiced a lot over the last few months. They closed the rock walls last Wednesday, took down all the routes and put up the competition routes on Thursday and Friday. So this morning was the first time anyone saw them. The Junior routes were graduated ... the first two were fairly easy for Ben, but route 3 had some challenges in it where the climber had to climb on two sides of a rock corner, and the holds got further apart.

Here are some pictures of climbs 1, 2 and 3 ...

An excited Ben with his scorecard. Climbers get the score of the rock number of their highest controlled point on the wall. If they get both hands on the top rock of the climb, they get full value for the entire climb (a perfect score).
Celebrating a successful climb on #2 ... at this point, Ben has a perfect score since he climbed to the top of route #1 and route #2.Starting route #3. Note the corner of the rock and the holds on both sides of the corner.

Heading up the wall!

Top of the 3rd climb! A perfect score!

I'll post climb #4 on the next blog. You can see more of these pictures on my Facebook album.