On November 5, 2010 I competed in my first rock climbing competition. The Crankin’ Competition is a series of three rock climbing competitions that take place every year at the Rocknasium in Davis, California. Climbers from near and far gather at the gym to get their hands on over 50 brand new climbing routes and boulder problems.
The rules? Everything is on-sight, meaning you must climb a problem cleanly and successfully with no prior knowledge of the problem. Harder problems earn you more points and the total number of points you can earn on a problem decreases with each attempt.
Competitions can be nerve-wracking as there are so many people attempting to climb at the same time throughout the gym with tons of spectators watching and cheering on climbers. The competitions are tons of fun; we all climb in a friendly yet competitive way and then socialize over food while waiting for scores to be tallied and winners announced.
At the first competition on November 5, 2010 I competed at a recreational level and ended up in 5th place in my division. Since then I’ve been training a lot more, especially with top-roping, for the second competition, which was focused on top-roping (whereas the first competition was focused on bouldering). All of the training and hours at the gym paid off as I competed on January 14, 2011 and came in 1st place, earning a cash prize and entry into a raffle for climbing gear that will take place at the final competition.
I will be gearing up in the next month or two for the final competition on March 11, 2011!