Wyoming boasts some of the best opportunities for outdoor sports and recreation. With only 5.8 people per square mile and breathtaking topography, it is no wonder so many students come to UW explicitly for its synonymy with access to outdoor sports.
The university has embraced these unique advantages by sponsoring events like the monthly Friday Night Bouldering Series, the last of which was held, despite its name, this past Saturday.
Bouldering is quickly becoming a popular sport on the international stage — sport climbing is being considered for the 2020 Olympics. It is a trial of the body and the mind: a combination of puzzling through how to climb a route and the physical tribulation of actually doing it.
“I really like the rush I get when climbing, especially lead climbing when the bolts are far away from each other. You’re always on the edge,” Nathan Hough, the competition manager for the FNBS, said. “I love that great feeling when you finish a route that you know is at your limit.”
The Bouldering Series is a friendly climbing competition held to compare rock climbing skills with other climbers with the same amount of experience. The categories are broken up into Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced (or Open).
“Routes are rated according to difficulty,” Hough explained. “Harder routes get you more points. Each climber is given a score card and they keep track of how many times they fall when climbing a route. After they’re done, two bystanders sign their card before they turn them in. We then take the climber’s 5 highest scoring routes and subtract the number of falls, -10 points per fall, and then add up the points.”
The difficulty of the routes are determined ahead of time by Hough, who grades them on the V-scale which is an officially accepted rating for national competitions.
“Besides grading the routes, I just make sure all the routes are well set, that they are climbable and not dangerous. I also keep track of scoring,” he said.
Last weekend’s Bouldering Competition was a little different this month, as the Advanced category was changed to Open, which is even more difficult than Advanced, Hough said. The highest ranking route on Saturday was a V-9, and the hope was the added challenge would encourage more climbers in the Open category.
“There were no women and there weren’t many men, only like 4 or 5, in the Open category,” Hough said, “We were expecting more.”
The Intermediate and Beginner categories had much better showings and participants were able to win raffled items from local sponsors Atmosphere Mountainworks, Cross-Country Connections, the Wyoming Conservation Corps and Blue Sun.
“Everyone got a raffle ticket when they registered and they could all win chalk bags or gift cards or other prizes,” Hough said, “The top 3 places in each category, men and women, also got a t-shirt.”
The Bouldering Series takes a lot of work to put together Hough said, and he appreciates the help he gets from the other workers and volunteers.
“I couldn’t do what I do without the other setters, especially Haley,” he said.
