Photos courtesy of Boulderingcomps.com

America’s only non-sanctioned pro-comp took place August 8th & 9th during the Outdoor Retailer Show in Salt Lake City.

This comp, dubbed the Mammut Bouldering Championships, brought top climbers to the top of the Shilo Inn parking garage for an old time street fight over $10,000 in prize money.

After a stiff and messy qualifying round held at the legendary Front Bouldering gym, the stage was set for Saturday night’s finals round.

So who put this show together? Chief Setters Jason Danforth and Kyle McCabe were given an able crew that included two National setters, Jackie Hueftle and Joel Zerr, plus Crypto-Setter Jason Kehl.

This crew gave it a herculean effort by putting in multiple 20 hour days that included setting sick hard problems, setting redpoint problems and tweaking the finals problems till 6 in the morning. Not to mention a little light construction work for good measure.

First to hit the beautifully sweeping boulders, designed and built by Vertical Solutions, were the 15 final women. On the first problem a nice sequence through the never-before-seen So Ill “Eye Bugger” caused a little confusion, but most women made it through to try the all-out throw to the finish. However when it was over only three girls had the guns to make it to the finish jug.

Young ego’s can be bruised easily, so to help the girls’ confidence the #2 problem was set a bit easier, allowing over half of them to send.

Yet the setters didn’t let them forget that this is a pro comp and not a local meet-n-greet; #3 shut down every suitor with a cool power sequence to a knarly lock-off. Six of the 15 women were stopped at the exact same place causing a spectacular roadblock that the two top females, Alex Puccio and Alex Johnson, would have to plow through if they were to take home the win. While they succeeded in surging through the blockade, they only progressed a few holds higher, leaving the finish hold un-chalked.

This problem and the number of attempts to send it would determine the winner. If Johnson had just stayed on the ground and not given #3 another go, there would have been a tie after they both flashed #4 (a tie that would have, I assume, been broken by the qualifier results). So in the end the winner was Puccio with Johnson in second and Sydney McNair coming in 3rd.

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