Rain City Send-fest

If you've been climbing long enough you will stumble upon certain people with unbelievable finger/contact strength. Those who can hang on to the smallest of holds and fall solely due to technical errors. Saturday, I was in a car with two prime examples of this phenomenon. Andrew Hou and Kevin. Saturday was the annual UW Rain City Send, a college only comp. It was broken up into two sessions and Andrew and I were in the first. I didn't know what to expect since the comp was set by college setters and I was basing my perception off of Evergreen(no disrespect Micah) so I wasn't prepared for the awesome routes! I only cheated on two of them, doing it with Jimmy Beta. I spent the good part of the Red Point qualifiers sending the hardest problems except for the one, 890(hardest), which probably could go down in a couple days. Meanwhile Andrew was busy crushing all the moderates, thin techy problems on slightly overhanging walls. Next up was Kevin who has only been climbing for two years and this was his first comp. I first met him in the gym when he was crushing my V5s and V6s! So after a little persuasion he decided to help represent SPSCC. He did great for his first comp, getting close on a lot of V7s and running out of time to complete a fourth problem(I placed 2nd to dead last my first comp!).
So when the dust settled I came out on top and was set to go first in finals. The first problem startted with low hands, a high foot, then a super cross-over behind the head. I finally managed the first move on my 2nd go and then got stumped on the third and fourth moves not making it to the bonus hold! ZERO points! I was like 'f***, i just lost the comp in 5 f****n' mins'. (So, finals were Euro style where halfway through the route, there will be a 'bonus' hold worth 1 point and a finish hold worth 2 points) Next up were Brian froom central and Jake from a community college and both managed to get to the bonus hold. Now for final prob#2, I reset mentally and gave it a good go. The problem was my style and after a brutal one arm lock off dyno to an overhanging pinch, iron cross a 5 foot span, and then duke it out heelhooking slopers. Well I came within 2 holds of the finish. OK. now I felt like I stood a chance. 1o antagonizing minutes later no one else stuck the dyno to the pinch. O.K, so now we each have touched one bonus hold, but the second one was worth more! Win! All in all an awesome small comp with just some minor glitches in the final. (final routes should get harder as you go to eliminate people and make for a better show, not ridiculous hard starts). This comp and Darth Vader have re-amped my psych for bouldering so I have no clue as to whether it'll be little si or Leavenworth for future trips. Either way its going to be a fun packed summer with a road trip in the works. Mostly vacation with a little Yosemite hopefully. One last shout out to Community Colleges!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1st and 3rd in open and ex-community college 1st in Intermediate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

See ya on the rocks...