BOZEMAN!!!!

We are here at the competition and having a blast! I am working on homework upstairs here at the gym and thought that I would give you a little post while I had some time.

Craig, Ryan, & Chema (this is a boy's name he's a friend of Nate's) showed up last night around 5 o'clock and met up with Corey at Sticks(FYI:this is a climbing gym in Rexburg called Sticks and Stones. Corey lives here when he's not at school or at home). Jared and Jessica showed up around 3pm, I think, and went to Sticks with Corey also. We all went to dinner at BIG Jud's, a local eatery, and enjoyed the 1 lb of beef burger affectionately called the BIG JUD. Then we went home and watched a climbing video, which is the usual for a competition weekend, and they stayed up til midnight talking about climbing, also typical for a climbing weekend.

We left Rexburg around 8:30 and headed off to Bozeman, Montana; a climbing down with a college problem (just kidding). We arrived sometime after my nap and before the competition so that everyone could register and headed to The CO-OP, a funky little/LARGE grocery store that has organic everything and some really cool stuff. People grabbed food and we headed back to the comp right before it started at 1pm.

They apparently climb for 4 hours and get ranked according to their top 5 climbs and their point values(I may need to retract my statement if I find out other wise). They stand "in line" by putting their place cards in a pile and whoever is one top goes first. The gym is full of tons of climbers and techno music, it's actually really cool. Corey is right when he says that the energy here is amazing because it really is. Imagine being on that hyper high you get every once in a while; usually from staying up too late with friends, where you are silly and just so full of energy you don't know what to do with yourself. Now imagine adding techno music to it and having it last for four HOURS!!! If you can imagine that then you can get close to the feeling of the Bozeman competition.

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Five hours later...
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After everyone climbed 'til they were too tired to move. They then started the Dyno competition and the slack line competition while we waited for them to tally the scores. Craig made the top five and went on to finals. Finals are done by isolation, which means that all of the participants are not allowed in the room where the routes are. They come in as a group and have 3 minutes to look at the route, touch the starting holds and decide how to attempt it. It was actually really funny because all of the guys that were in the finals were friends and they were all giving each other tips, when in the real world they wouldn't. Craig made it up the first route but only part way up the second. His friend, Mike McClure, topped out both routes and won the open category over all.

After the competition was over we headed to Arby's for dinner and then started our 4 hour drive home. It was wet and icy and we didn't get home until 2 o'clock in the morning. Yay for really long road trips. And we get to do it all again next year.