Sonoma State University: The Showdown

Since the inception of CCS in California, Sonoma State University has been an integral part of the Northern California Region's competition circuit. This was the fourth year CCS has come to the wine country, and the fourth time the SSU crew did a bang-up job at hosting their comp.

For those of you who have never made it to the SSU rec. center for climbing competitions, the layout of the climbing gym is not particularly well suited for hosting large groups of people. With that being said, the SSU wall staff did a great job at accommodating the masses safely by having good spotters posted at each section of the wall. Verbal signals were given to keep climbers aware of their surroundings when trying routes that intersected, or had dynamic movements in crowded areas. All in all, despite the crowded area everyone had plenty of time to fill out their scorecards at a reasonable pace.

The gym was speckled with quality problems set by strong locals and staff from the nearby community climbing gym, Vertex. Given the angles of the walls and types of holds the setters had to work with, they did a great job at showcasing what the gym had to offer. Routes in each category were evenly distributed throughout the area so that there was no feeling of segregation between the Beginner, Intermediate, and Open categories. Boulder problems ranged in difficulty from V0 to perhaps V10. The difficult problems were typified by thin handholds and glossy feet on slab traverses, or punchy movements through slopers and pinches to delicate mantle topouts. Easier boulder problems displayed a similar flexible yet powerful style on better holds, and were enjoyed by everyone for their simple quality.

Thanks to the Sonoma State University crew for putting on a great event and starting the 2012 CCS season with a bang! And thank you to all the competitors from across the state who came and crushed.

Here's a link to the results from the comp:
http://usaclimbing.net/rockcomps/comps/event_details.cfm?&id=2652