Photos by: Bob Lockhart and Mike Helt

Silicon Valley may seem like a strange place to find the Americas best youth climbers, but this weekend in Sunnyvale California that’s where 450 ridiculously strong kids flocked to for USA Climbing’s 2008 SCS Youth National Championships.

No other comp on the planet is bigger than the US Youth Nationals so what better place to hold the event than at the huge Planet Granite in Sunnyvale. With walls toping out at around 55 feet and big air potential the national routesetting crew had one of the best venues to take this event to the next level.

And did they ever! The routesetting crew led by Chief Molly Beard put up some of the best routes this country has ever seen. 10 pro-setters from across the country spent a week setting 24 routes ranging from 5.10b to 5.13b that showed this event is no longer a simple national comp.

The routes pushed the so-called limits of what previously has been expected of our youth climbers and the kids responded by crushing those stereotypes. The tiny “D’s” were expected to mantle and to figure out a 100 move route; “B” girls were given a route that forced them to lock it off on the steeps and huck, something that they were previously never exposed to while on a rope; “B” boys were given a jaw dropping route with possibly the craziest finish ever seen at a US comp (no-hold arête griping and dyno for the finish jug or take the big whip); the big boys “A” and “Jr” had to show they had what it takes to get through a wild route which featured knee-bar no-hands rests, dynos, long draws, big falls and gnarly mental exposure.

The Setters

Chief Setter Molly Beard ably led the biggest and most diverse crew through the biggest comp with one of the best results possible. The ultimate goal of any Chief is to have perfect separation and to put on a great show for the spectators and the climbers.

Beard and her crew achieved that in spectacular style. Having almost near separation coming out of semi’s, the finals routes were free to give the audience a show they would not soon forget.

The Assistant Setters, Kevin Branford, Mike Helt, Jacky Hueftle, Jeremy Hardin and Kyle McCabe showed why they are the top setters in the country. They set some of the most creative and spectacular routes these competitors had ever seen.

On the setting crew were also two apprentice setters, Mark Mercer and Joel Zerr showed they are more than capable to set at a national level competition. Not only did they set functional and aesthetic routes but also came to Sunnyvale fit and ready to forerun.

And coming in for their first national event were the interns, John Muse (gym owner, and regional coordinator from Texas) and Luke Bertelsen (owner of Contact Climbing Holds out of Tucson Arizona). These two were put through their paces and proved themselves to be the next generation of routesetters.

They also set the bar for choosing the setting crews for future events. The process will undoubted become more competitive as better and better setters are asked to join the setting crew. This will only improve the final product and as a whole make for a better US Team.

This team took American routesetting to the next level by adding in elements previously deemed inappropriate. But their routes were not just novelty there to please the masses. They were also highly functional and well thought out, achieving almost near perfect separation in semi’s. Leaving the finals routes to provide the show with the added benefit of not having a super final, something that hasn’t’ happened in 5 years.

The routes this crew set were not national quality routes; they were World Cup quality routes. This will inevitably give the US team an advantage when they arrive in Sydney Australia for the Youth World Championships later this August.

Speed or non-speed

So at any comp there are always aspects that are less than perfect and this comp was no different. The most glaring deficiency was the speed portion of the event. In prior nationals speed has been treated like a redheaded stepchild and this year was no different and perhaps worse. (Last years were a huge step above most speed comps.)

The venue chosen for the speed routes was in a miserable corner of the gym where the indoor cracks hang out. The routes themselves were, by most competitor accounts too hard with no flow. This produced some astonishenly slow times and did not prepare them for what is expected at the the World Cup level.

This is also a shame as many competitors in Sunnyvale came only for speed and yet were treated as second-class climbers.

There was much discussion among the setters of how to fix next year’s routes and what role the main crew should play in setting the speed routes. Routesetter.com hopes that USAC will put the forethought and energy into creating a speed competition that is exciting, fun and worthy of the climbers (and spectators) time.

The Takeaway
No matter how successful an event is there are always lessons to be learned. The setting crew of this comp learned that climbers will step up to just about anything one can throw at them.

They also learned all about rope drag. Two routes, big boys and girls finals routes had mad rope drag that was not discovered until well into the competition. The drag on the boys route (the rope was getting caught behind a bolt) was fixed in between categories but required stopping the show and installing a quick tape-n-pad job over the offending bolt. The girls route (which probably needed longer draws or a diferent line) was never fixed.

How could this happen one might ask? Well it’s still being discussed by the setters with no clear answer. But either way I imagine in the future drag will be one of the first things noticed during forerunning.

But in the realm of organizing comps, if rope drag is the biggest concern a crew faces than they did an amazing job. This comp and its crew set a precedent for how future events should be ran and the level of cohesiveness setters should be striving for.  Without a doubt the 2008 SCS Youth National Championships was the best American Nationals in recent memory!

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