Nationals

Fun. If Nationals had to be summed up into one word it would be fun. My sister, mom and I all went to Boulder Colorado for ABS 10 Nationals. We flew in on Friday and went to pick up our open finals tickets and to watch open qualifiers. Hannah from the Circuit was competing but the qualifiers were hard, really hard. They also changed up the scoring. You only get points for sending the problem or reaching the halfway point hold. Slip off the finish jug you do as well as the person who only got to the halfway hold. Also a lot of people ended the day with zeros. The next day Saturday, is when youth qualifiers were happening. Lisa was in the second session and I was in the third. Lisa did awesome in the qualifiers sending the first two, then one hold away on the third one, and one hold away on the fourth one. She qualified sixth and went on to compete in finals on Sunday. Me on the other hand, flashed the first and the second problem, tried to dyno the third one and got 3/4 of the route. The fourth one was slopey and precise but i managed to get 3/4 of the route done. The first five competitors or so in my category flashed all the problems. I took 15th out of 34. That day I was bummed because I was hoping to qualify for finals since last year I was one away from qualifying. Then we watched open finals and we managed some sick seats and it was a blast watching these climbers send so hard.
Then on Sunday, Lisa went into iso and we all watched as she flashed the first one, almost flashed the second one, forgot the heel hook on the third, and gave her all on the fourth one. When the dust settled she took 12th in finals which is very awesome for a part time climber in nationals. After finals, Lisa, Me, Eric, Zan, Slaten, Paul, Zac, and Sarah all went to Flagstaff Mt. in a caravan of rental cars. First stop was the monkey traverse area to warm up and send some high sketchy V1s and a cool V3/4 in a hidden alcove. After exploring we moved to Cloud Shadow and tried some of the test pieces there. Eric and I went to work on Trice V12. We could stick the pocket, get the heel on and were going for the shitty left hand crimp. I also gave the Lower End Traverse V9 a couple goes and got halfway through it. We had to leave to go watch Zan and Lisa at awards so we reluctantly left and got there to to late, oops! Then Eric, Zan Me and Lisa returned to the boulders and we went up to the North overhang where some dude showed us some sic problem and the V10, There Will Be Blood. The problem to the left of the V10 was a cool V9 with crappy feet because the huge rail was off. Zan managed to get halfway through this a couple times and I managed to get half way once. Then we decided to use the rail and the problem was a cool V5 with perfect incut granite crimps on a steep wall with a hard top out and down climb. After climbing we all went and got pizza and then when hot tubing/swimming/huge water fight. Then got up at four the next morning to catch the flight back to Portland.
All in all Nationals was a blast after qualifiers. There is nothing better than climbing outside in the sun (shirtless in Feb.!!!!!) with cool friends discussing the days problems and just having fun on hard problems. Then relaxing in the pool afterwards. Can't wait to get back out to Leavenworth and also bring Eric, Zan and Matt and see what damage they can do. Hopefully this weekend a Little Si trip is in the works. Lots of photos coming too.