Last weekend we held our annual interschools climbing competition, and it was a great weekend!
Every year, we invite all of the local schools to come along for a weekend of competitive climbing in North Devon for children aged 7 and above. We always have a great turnout for our climbing comps, and we love seeing the friendly, supportive atmosphere of budding young climbers giving it their all whilst climbing on competition routes.
This year, though, there was an added element of excitement for our interschools climbing contest, due to the fact that we now have our very own new, state-of-the-art bouldering centre in North Devon right on site! The new bouldering room opened up a whole world of new opportunities for exciting routes to challenge our competitors of all ages and levels.
Here’s a little bit about what we got up to this weekend at the Rock and Rapid Adventures Interschools Competition 2019.
In the lead-up to our interschools comp, we had schools of all sizes from around North Devon entering teams, as well as a couple of climbing clubs who accommodate children from the smallest schools that were unable to bring a team. Many of the teams have visited us before on school climbing sessions or school residential trips.
We ran the competition in two sections. On Saturday we had the primary schools competition, and on Sunday we held a competition for secondary schools.
The climbers were organised into categories based on age and gender. On each day, we held two rounds of top roping and two rounds of bouldering, with a break in between for lunch. The way we decided to score the routes was that, on each ‘problem’ (climb), the top hold was worth 100 points, with each hold down worth three points less successively. Touching a hold equals one point, matching both hands on a hand equals 2 points, and using a hold and moving to the next hold was worth 3 points.
So how did our interschool North Devon climbing competition go?
On Saturday, we kicked off our interschools competition with our primary contest. Children from year 3 to year 6 competed from all over the local area. Saturday was very busy – we had well over 80 entrants compete, and it was great to see so many young climbers keen to try out their skills on the wall.
There were also lots of parents in attendance, with a fantastic, supportive attitude, where everyone was cheering each other along throughout the day. Everyone climbed incredibly well – and had a lot of fun – on both the roped walls and in the bouldering room.
Ultimately, the winners of our primary interschools climbing competition were the Kids’ Adventure Company. At the end of the day, we announced these results and gave out the trophies to the triumphant team.
Sunday saw over 50 entrants enter into our secondary interschools competition. The day had a somewhat more competitive atmosphere (although still friendly, of course!) with the schools working more as teams. There were more teachers in attendance today, too, who worked with the climbers, encouraging competitors to try their best on each route.
There was a very high level of climbing on the Sunday, which really impressed us, and we really enjoyed seeing everyone push themselves to get the best results possible.
Overall, West Buckland School came out victorious – but really everyone was a winner because every participant climbed so well! Trophies were exchanged and everyone was congratulated, before heading home for a well-earned rest.
What’s next?
We really hope that our interschools climbing competition left everyone who participated feeling inspired to keep developing their climbing. This isn’t the end – we are currently planning more kids’ climbing competitions for the coming months, and we are also currently training members of our kids’ club for our new youth squad, which will be selected in January!
If your child has heard about the climbing competition and fancies giving climbing or bouldering a go, why not sign up for our one-off fast-track NICAS Level One course, starting this Sunday 24th November? We run regular NICAS Level One courses, which are the nationally-accredited first stage to learning climbing as a young person, and are also the pre-requisite to joining our kids’ club.
However, with this course, you child could gain their certificate by Christmas, and then join our kids’ club in January, ready to progress through the NICAS levels and eventually maybe even enter our youth squad to compete in even more climbing competitions!
For more information on our kids’ club, NICAS courses, youth squad or future climbing competitions, feel free to contact us today on 01769 309 003! Many climbing courses are also bookable online here.