Youth Divisionals

This past weekend many of the kids from Hidden Peak competeted at the 2011 SCS Divisional Championship, held at Planet Rock in Ann Arbor Michigan.  Hidden Peak brought 12 climbers to the competition for both Speed and Sport disciplines.  For a few of the kids this was their first Divisionals and for others it was just another walk in the park.  Both Dave and did everything we could to keep the younger kids calm and composed in isolation as many of them were excited and were bouncing off the walks. 
On day one the day was broken up into a morning and afternoon session to help shorten wait times in isolation (in the old days isolation could last as long as 6 hours).  Most of our younger kids categories were in the morning and the older kids were in the afternoon.  Every category had their preview time and then each kid was brought out one at a time to climb their routes (two for the first day and 1 for the second day).  The first route typically is a warm up and then the second route is what separates the field. 
A few of our younger kids were eliminated on day one but many of them moved on to day two.  It is upsetting for the kids that did not make it to day 2 because all of the kids train so hard and really want to do well at these events.  Some of the kids made mental errors that cost them, others climbed flawlessly but got pumped out before they could get high enough to qualify for day two. 

On day two all of the kids climbed beautifully and all of them that qualified for day two made it to Nationals.  While warming up in isolation that morning all of the kids were extremely nervous as they knew that they needed to do really well if they wanted to move on to Nationals.  I had to make sure that they all were completely warmed up before heading out to climb as there was only one route for them to climb and it was hard!  They were given one shot (onsight) to climb as high as they could.  Many of the Peakers had exciting falls that made the crowd ooooo and aahhhh.  In the end all of the kids left Ann Arbor with a smile on their face as they all had good times and good climbs with friends and competitors alike.