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| The massive pile of holds and volumes |
Setting
I arrived for the second day of setting really early.
Flannery (Head Setter for the Heist) had texted me that setting was pushed back until about 9:30 am, but I was already up. I felt like getting to the gym early couldn't hurt. I could take pictures and start figuring out how hard or soft the routes might be. I actually hadn't realized that the grades up at that time hadn't been checked since they hadn't yet finished forerunning everything that had been set that day. I sat around taking random photos and tried to be somewhat artsy fartsy. I took a lot of photos until
Shane (Head Setter for Central Rock Gyms) showed up and told me I could start setting if I wanted to. I got super excited about setting and I think I set 7 or 8 routes that day which is a bit more than I'm usually used to.
At the CAVE we can usually fit 20-30 routes, so resetting 8 routes is a huge change. For me, the setting process for the comp went as follows. First I set a bunch of things I thought would be really cool. Then, realizing the wall that I was on was really close to being done, I decided to finish it off. I realized later that I probably shouldn't have done that (it reduces the variety of routes in that wall area). I finished setting the rest of the routes on that wall on the second day I set which was actually the last day I put completely new stuff up. The last two days, Thursday and Friday, were mostly forerunning and tweaking. Despite my decision to set mostly in one specific portion of the wall, I actually did get to set a decent variety probably due to the number I bothered to set.
I set Problem #1 the ladderiest ladder of all ladders. I hope everyone who climbed got up it if they wanted to because it was a 5.5 and my goal was to get everyone up it. We still called it a V0. I also set an actual V0 nearby it got slightly modified as I still have no idea how big kids are. I really need to work on that. In addition to that, I was able to set two V1s, one V2, two V3s, one V4, two V5s, and a V9 with help from Flannery and Shane. Unfortunately, the problem got broken by pretty much everyone in the open category.
Wait, wait, wait. I have one more awesome photo of the guys putting one of the huge volumes up for the finals route...and you have to see it. Shane and Matt look like mad scientists and it's great.
The Qualifying Round
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| Alex Puccio warming up on my V5. |
I was so psyched to see people climb my routes. I stationed myself in the back figuring that the pros would get to my V9 pretty early on. I rushed back there early enough to get to see Alex Puccio warming up on my V5. I'm pretty proud of myself for setting a problem that she wanted to climb. I heard she climbed most of the problems that day just for fun, but it's still pretty cool that my route caught her eyes. Before the end of the qualifying round I got to ask Alex what she thought of my problem. Even though a lot of tweaking occurred from what I originally set, the idea was still there, but the holds were much better. I originally selected crimps for the whole route and that difficulty was described to me as what I would set if Paul Robinson wanted to climb something really hard.
Here are some pictures of people climbing some of the routes I set. I'm going to assign them the following names though CRG may have since renamed them. Kale smoothie, Vanilla Frosting, Poppyseed Muffin. I may have been slightly hungry while naming them.
V5 - Green
V3 - White
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| V3 - Black |
Here are some pictures of the some of the pros (Ashima and Delaney) climbing the hard stuff.
Finals
If you didn't know already, Ashima won. Also the point differences between each of the pros were crazy. Some of the differences were as little as ten points which is pretty much a single attempt. Here you go, enjoy some pictures. They let the setters get some awesome seats, so I took a lot of pictures.
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| Meagan Martin on the first boulder of finals |
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| Ashima Shiraishi destroying boulder #2 of finals |
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| Alex, Ashima, Angie, Lizzie, Flannery |
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| Angie on the Finals route |
After the comp ended, I somehow convinced people to take a picture together. I really don't know how I ended up in the middle. Also I'd just like to note that after years of my relatives insisting that I pose for pictures, I do it pretty naturally..one leg straight, one leg slightly bent with one foot angled. I'm glad this picture worked out because at some point right before, I was convinced that photoshopping everyone in would be easier and probably funnier considering that I have no photoshop skillz.
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| Most of the Ladies of the Heist |
I had an awesome time setting for the Heist and I hope to do it again next year. I hope all the ladies who competed had a fun time climbing the routes. Thank you to everyone who helped out, everyone who competed, and to Central Rock Gym for letting me help set for the comp in the first place.
