Boulder bash

We were at Northern Rocks' Boulder Bash yesterday.

It was the climbing gym's second birthday, and a chance for a big group climbing event.

The idea was that everyone had two and a half hours to climb their best ten climbs (or more, if they wanted), and then add up their points for each climb.

Miya signed up for it (of course!), choosing to miss her Saturday morning music lessons.  Mulan didn't go, preferring to attend her ballet lessons.  Frustratingly, I couldn't climb (elbow is still too sore), so I was Miya's support crew only.

It was an honesty-based system, with everyone marking their own climbs.  Everyone also self-assessed themselves into one of three levels -- beginner, intermediate or advanced.

Intermediate sounded most like Miya, with "You’ve been climbing for a little while, climbing purples and greens, and projecting yellow.  Grade reference V3 – V6".

Miya's been practicing her greens for the past few weeks, and she has six current climbs well practiced (here, here and here).  Then, during Thursday's class she completed two more that she'd been projecting.

So, prior to the start, Miya's ambitious goal was to get all eight of her greens, plus a few purples.

Delightedly, Miya went through each of her greens, ticking them off one by one and doing all eight.

We also found a new green which had been freshly added for the day.  It looked doable, so Miya had a go.  And she got it first try!!  Awesome!

Miya then finished off with four higher-scoring purples.

Her score card was:

(Ignore the circled numbers -- there was a bit of confusion at the beginning with how the climbs were numbered.  It turned out that climbs were labeled with their points value, not their climb number, so our pre-start planning/circling was meaningless.)

It was a great effort, and Miya did even better than we'd hoped.  Miya even came away with a spot prize T-shirt!

We stayed until the end, watching the 22 finalists attempting new unseen climbs.  Wow, they are amazing!

Lots of fun, and a hugely enjoyable day.  (The only downside was that the DJ-hired music was too loud and so exhausting.)