Hocking College Climbing Competition

The 5th annual Hocking College Climbing Competition took place on Saturday March 1st, 2008. Preparation started the Wednesday before by the Outdoor Pursuit staff. The route setters were Tim Rice, Joel Yott, Mark Hofmeister, Tim Osterfeld, and Shay Rosser. There were three placements, beginner, intermediate, and advanced as well as a pull up comp and dyno comp. On March 1st the O.P. staff who were working or climbing came in and finished setting up shop for the competition. At about 9:00am climbers started to trickle through the doors with excitement on their face. As more and more climbers and on lookers arrived the noise level increased and you could just see the electricity from the amount of energy that was in the room. 10:45 rolled around and Joel got everyones attention and read the rule list off. Then it was time to see who was the lucky person that got to go first. One by one names were written down by the three judges, Joel, Tim, and Shay. At last at 11 o'clock am the climbing competition finally began. The first event to take place was the climbing. The noise level once again grew as fellow climbers and on lookers were cheering on their friends and family. When every one had climbed every route in their grouping it was time to move on to the pull up competition and the dyno competition. More cheering on and yelling happened as people tried their strength at the hang board. Lastly was the dyno comp. This was interesting because there were so many people at the base of the wall attempting and sticking these insane explosions of power. After 30 minuets of screaming to stick a dyno everyone turned their paper in for a quick score count. The entire competition results are as follows.









CLILMBING:

Adcanced:
Men:
1st Tyler Hanak
2ndTodd Wenkam
3rd Eric Dahlstrom

Women:
1st Jamie Rice
2nd Courtney Grimm

Intermediate:
Men:
1st Lewis Aden
2nd Elliot Marquet
3rd Zach Hart

Women:
1st Abie Loebich


Beginner:
Men:
1st Erick Fisher
2nd Kevin Maille
3rd Dustin Whyte

Women:
1st Lauren Mahfey
2nd Jill Dershaw
3rd Julia Schnider


PULL UP: Brought to you by The Pedaler and Packer
Men:
Tyler Hanak
Zach Hart
Elliot Marquet

Women:
Jaime Rice
Abie Loebich
Courtney Grimm


DYNO: Brought to you by Wild Mercantile, Ltd.
Men:
Tyler Hanak

Women:
Abie Loebich

Well done to all the climbers and a special thanks to the Sponsors of Hocking Colleges 5th Annual Climbing Competition.
Sponsor's:

Wild Mercantile, Ltd
The Pedaler and Packer
So Ill Holds
Project Holds
Revolution Holds
Kuhl Clothing
Mountain Hardwear
Rocky Boots
Joshua Tree Products
Benchmade Knives
Solution Rock Gym
Papa John's
Ramono's Pizza
Lowe Alpine
Krogers of Nelsonville
Rock and Ice Magazine
Sterling Rope
Walmart of Athens
Tammy's Country Kitchen
Asolo
Nicros Climbing
Moose Jaw
O'bettys
Bagel Street Deli
The Coffee Cup Restaurant
Pizza Hut
Hocking College Book Store

What an Event! - By "The Hoff"

On Saturday March 1^st, 26 individuals from the surrounding Athens area came to show off their climbing talents and abilities. What a day it was! As the climbers began to show up, stretch and study their routes, the hard working Outdoor Pursuits staff was making last minute checks to make sure that they were ready to put on the best Climbing Competition Hocking college has ever seen. The advanced climbers begun climbing their warm up route as the intermediate and beginner climbers continued studying the routes and began stretching to climb the best and hardest they have ever climbed.

The climbing competition was very exciting. Climbers were pulling down on holds and twisting their bodies into crazy positions, to successfully get through a move. Wow! Some of the moves that the climbers were doing were making participants hurt just watching. It was an awesome event. The competition was very tight for each division making it very interesting and exciting to watch each climber try to get farther than the other. The climbing on that Saturday was really rad! As the climbing slowly starting coming to an end people began to compete in the chin up competition. You get one go, how many can you get. This was definitely exciting seeing people push them self to get just one more chin up in, to maybe win the event. The adrenaline was definitely pumping during this event.

As all of the divisions began wrapping up their last climbs and the chin up was coming to an end the O.P staff began tallying up the scores to find out who were the winners in each division. The beginner division ended up having a tied for third making a climb off, which was a cool twist to the competition.

The Numbers have been added the places have been decided and it was time to give away the prizes. As the winners began receiving their prizes the look on their face was awesome. The prizes for the competition I do have to say were really, really sweet. They came climbed their hardest and for some walked home with free, sweet gear. What a great event. After all the prizes were handed out, their was still one more competition that we had in store for the climbers.

The dyno Comp!! The climbers were ready, excited, and pumped to through their bodies as high and sideways as possible to grab a big hold and hold on for dear life. What an event! This was very exciting and crazy to watch. Some of the climbers were able to stick some very hard dyno’s that as a staff member didn’t expect anyone to get. Peoples bodies were all flying everywhere but you know inn a safe manner though. What a day! After handing out the dyno prizes people begun to show their gratitude of the event with plenty of thank you responses, coming from climbers and spectators together. Everyone seemed satisfied and so did I. What a great day and successful Climbing Competition that in my opinion will go down in the books as one of the best the school has seen!