The Week That Wasn’t Crazy.

Hey Everyone,

Well that was nice – A pretty standard week here in route-setting land! Hayden and Matt are both gone to Italy for Youth Worlds (Hayden to crush, and Matt to coach) so let’s start this one of by sending them some good luck and encouragement!! With that kind of time off they both better be all kinds of “inspired” when they get back….

New purple on the Pillar and Yellow on the arch – both 11c!

Kyle and I got to work setting a whole host of new stuff for you guys! Almost all the new routes this week are red, and since most of our red holds are juggy this means a lot of new routes that are 5.10a and below!!!

New 5.8 on The Auto-Belay

This 5.8 on the Auto-Belay is a particularly interesting one – I set it with the theme of “leg power” so the holds are all really big, like 5.6 big – but the majority of the moves require you to walk your feet up high, and then stand up straight for the next hold. A great route for building your leg strength if you’re just getting into the sport, or for warming up your big muscles if you’re getting ready for a red-point burn!

New 5.10a on Archway!

New 5.10a in the Chimney!

We also re-set the “Less steep” with 12 new problems V0-V7! We used a brand new volume configuration and a whole bunch of fresh holds from Metolius!! I am pretty happy with the new set on this wall, a lot of fun problems with some different movement! Highlights are definitely Kyle’s White V2 and my Green V5!

Kyle setting some problems!

Super psyched on the new holds we got from Metolius! Thank Jim Sandford the next time you see him!

Also this week the setting program scored some new toys!! We got a new tool chest too help us keep everything organized, and move it all around easier – as well as confirmation that hold orders from both Kilter and Friction have shipped!!

The Gods bought us a fancy tool chest so we can work more efficiently!! Thanks Dan & Colby!

Luigi from Friction Climbing sent me this picture of our upcoming order! We have some currently un-released stuff coming our way 😀

Next week is going to be a fun one!! Guest Setter Tristan Ploughman will be spending a few days at Climb Base5, setting both routes and problems! Tristan is one of my closest friends and one of the best commercial setters in the country! He is currently based in the gym-less, cattle-ridden, “town” of Red Deer so I am sure he has a lot of pent up creativity!

I will also be visiting The Hive Vancouver to guest set for their T.N.T. event on Monday night. I worked an event with Dustin and Andreas (the Head, and Assistant Head Setters for The Hive) at True North Climbing about 4/5 years ago and had a blast – I am really excited about getting a chance to work with these guys again, in a new city, at a different gym!

Thanks for reading!

Open Team Selection Camp!

Hey Everyone,

This week at Climb Base5 we hosted our first “Open Team Selection Camp” – The purpose of this camp was to bring together B.C.’s top competition climbers and select the top 5 men and top 5 women to represent our gym in this years Local and National competition circuits!

Hannah Block on a Women’s Slab problem – Photo: Kyle Rurak

Andrew Wilson, Matt, Hayden and I got together pretty early on Friday night and started preparing to set for the Open Selection Camp. We needed to set an entire “Qualification” and “Finals” round as if it was a real comp. We set 8 Men’s and 8 Women’s problems that tested a wide variety of movement patterns and skills.

Scott Williams getting funky – Photo: Kyle Rurak

For setting competition it’s really important to make sure that no one style of movement dominates the set of problems. For this camp we tried a different way of thinking about the difficulty of the problems, we ditched the V-Grades and thought in terms of “Intensity”, “Complexity” and “Risk”. We first heard about this concept from Montreal based route setter Tonde Katiyo, and then had it further explained by Adam Pustelnik at the IFSC World Climbing Camp.

To roughly understand the 3 terms…

Intensity: How physically hard something is, how small are the holds? or how big are the moves? are the feet really terrible? Essentially anything that requires raw strength to be successful.

Maria Celkova on an “Intensity Problem” – Photo: Kyle Rurak

Complexity: How difficult something is to do the first time. This could be a very technical boulder, or something very sequence dependent, maybe a series of moves that are almost impossible to conceive from the ground.

Simon Parton on a “Complexity” problem – Photo: Kyle Rurak

Risk: How committing a move is – The classic example would be a jumping move, but even something with a hard to read sequence can be “Risky” if your not sure which way to climb it. We are really testing peoples abilities to make a plan (the right plan…) and then stick to it!

Elina Avrimova on a “Risk” problem – Photo: Kyle Rurak

What’s cool about using this format is that it really makes you think about what your trying to achieve with the problem, instead of  setting something that is just “hard”, your trying to build a very specific test, ideally level-ing the playing field so that the most well rounded climber  wins the event!

All that said, this was a selection camp… not a sanctioned competition… so we had a lot more freedom to really spice up the problems and give these guys some really weird and abstract movements – the problems had 360 spin moves, a multitude of different jumps and running moves, a wide variety of weird mantels and push moves, volume standing, horrifyingly bad foot holds and even a dynamic inside flag… whatever the hell that is.

Ayesha Khan trying a very technical problem – Photo: Kyle Rurak

Over the course of the weekend the athletes did an entire “Qualification” and  “Final” round as well as hours of session-ing on the comp problems to dial in the movements they struggled on during the mock comp. Andrew and Matt also did a bunch of obstacle course work, fitness tests and “General Weirdness” – which was in short… a bunch of crazy german stuff….

It was really cool to be able to host something like this at Climb Base5, a lot of our coaching and setting staff are pretty rooted in the competition scene and are really thankful to be in a place where we can have fun with these programs and work on developing the skills that really get us psyched!

The Crew – Photo: Kyle Rurak

Oh Wait…

Did we also mention that we also filled in the cave and left steep, set 4 routes and are back in to add more routes and problems on tonight??

Busy week at Climb Base5!! Make sure you come in and check out all our latest handy work!

THE LAST TAPE ROUTE IS DOWN!

Thanks For Reading!!

Youth Camp Setting, New Blue Routes, and New Beginner Routes.

Hey Everyone,

This week and next week are both going to be a little weird for the setting program at Base5. This week the gym is hosting a Youth Competition Camp; This camp is a 4 day development camp for the up and coming athletes in the Youth C and D divisions (the little guys). The camp is being run by Matt Johnson and Andrew Wilson and is one of the only programs of its kind, for that age group, in the country.

What this meant for us, this week, was that we had to build 4 routes, and 2 boulder circuits (7 problems) for the the Youth C categories to train on for the week!

Over the course of Saturday and Sunday Matt and I divided the work, and each set 2 routes for the Youth C camp. We wanted a varied selection of terrain and styles, and had to do this without it hindering our regular turnover… aannddd all the routes had to be climbable by kids as young as 9 and as short as… uhhh.. Really short.

Matt’s two routes were the 5.11d on the Turret, and the 5.12b on the Left Side of the Main Event. Both the routes are really sequence-y and technical, and will be really tricky if you are over 5’7″. The 11d features consistent and strategically challenging movement on good handholds with sloping feet, the steep section at the top features a hard cross between good holds and the last 2/3 moves are not so bad. The 12b is a really nice line up the left dihedral of the Main Event. The start of the route is technical and insecure, balance-y climbing leads to the first steep section of the route where good holds lead you to a crux at the lip. Pull the lip and climb the “less steep” section too a good rest, tension-y moves make for an exciting ending! The Blue/Black holds are in up top!! They are mostly blue…?

The two routes I set for the camp where the 5.11b on the ABC and the 5.12c on the right side of the Main Event. The 11b is a slabby, technical, sequence-y piece of climbing that I built to confuse the kids and force them to use their feet. the top is very delicate and requires strong legs and good balance. It won’t feel the grade until you send it… Kind of like the last blue 11b on that wall. The 12c is a very consistent, resistance climb. Open handed, sloping holds take you up the vert where position based moves on In-cut pinches and crimps leads you through the steep. The sequence is obvious, but the body positions need to be right or you will waste energy. I gave a marginal rest right at the lip before the head wall – its not a great shake but it is worth taking. The final head wall section is the crux of the route, okay pinches, and bad crimps with movement that really makes you pull with your feet lead to a heart break finish at the chains. Bring yer kleenex kids…

So that all happened… And we set two 4 problem boulder circuits for the Youth C camp as well…

Andrew (The Swedish Chef) Wilson, Matt, and I built 7 problems (group A and B are sharing the slab, for anyone doing math at home). The idea was to replicate a varied set of problems like they would encounter in a competition. The problems can be found on the Left Steep, The Cave, The Alcove, The ABC Slab, and The Pillar. I worked with Andrew and Matt and we came up with a plan that would feature problems from V2-V6 and would feature four main “styles” or “feels”… Such as,
– Complex/Lower body movement
– Intense/Footwork
– Jumping/Mantelling
– Risk/Balance

It was really cool to work with Matt and Andrew on this project and I think we built a cool set of problems and routes – Youth C and D is by far the hardest division to set for, there is a lot of variance in size, skill, power, technique and strategy, and its hard to know what they feel… Im curious to see how they do, and I am also wondering what the member will think of the routes set for little frames!

Whats even more amazing… is that somehow while all that was happening Kyle and Hayden set 6 other routes… Kyle added a 5.7,5.9,5.10b and a 5.10d in various locations throughout the gym (check the fancy new route map on the side of the gym!) Hayden also added a 5.8 and 5.10a on the short walls in the front! The 10a is a really interesting, balance-y route!

The Bouldering areas that are thinned out for the camp (left steep and cave) will remain thinned out until Monday Next week… We have the Adult Performance Team Selection camp next weekend and we will be building a whole new set of problems for them as well…

Thanks for reading!

P.S. Sometimes when we all really busy we only have time for mis-lit IPhone photos and don’t have the “Resources” to film our “Big Budget Beta Busters” – So there you go… some photos of some walls and holds… at least you got new routes 🙂