I’ve just returned home from North American Championships. If you didnt already know, the competition was held in Montreal at a gym called <blank>. Truthfully, after seeing a couple of pictures of the gym, I was a little worried that the walls were going to be too short. Now that the competition is over and I had a chance to climb 4 routes I would like to say that this gym is probably the best gym to hold a lead event in Canada. While some of the routes had to to up the sides of the headwall, the longer finals routes were the closest I’ve felt to a European competition. Great job <blank> and route setting staff! Full results of the comp should be up the ifsc-climbing.org site soon. I managed to walk away with first place finish in open men. Along with this title was a cool 2000$ For me, this money will be funding my trip to the World Championships in China this summer. Aside from competing, at the comp, I was also nominated one of the assistant coaches for the Junior National team. While I was at the comp, I was trying to help the team as well as warm up and compete myself. There with me were head coach Andrew Wilson and fellow assistant coach Stacey Weldon. The hardest part about coaching this weekend was the amount of kids from Canada at the competition. With 73 juniors competing across 10 categories, it was impossible to individually warm up every kid. This comp was much different than Worlds for example because instead of 4 competitors in a category of 60 there were 8-10 in a category of 20. I think some people had unreasonable expectations of the coaches and were then a little disappointed. That aside, I felt like every kid got a good warmup and I think team Canada climbed well as a group. During the 3 day event I had to be in isolation at 730 every morning. With the time change I didnt sleep much this weekend. Last night, I got back to Vancouver at 11:00pm only to go home, pack, sleep and them catch a 10:00 bus from downtown. Since I didnt have time to get onto my computer, I’ve done this whole post through wifi on my new iPod touch. Sorry if there are tons of writing errors, I’m still getting used to the digital keyboard. By 11:00 tonight, I’ll be reunited with Jamie Chong and Simon Parton for 11 days of bouldering in Hueco Tanks, Texas.

In a few days I’ll be heading off to Montreal to represent Canada in the North American Championships. Two years ago, the competition was held in Denver and i managed to walk away with a win in the Open Men. On the womens side, Emily Harrington was the winner. The competition also has Junior categories and a handful of Edge Junior Team members are also going. While i’m there, I’ll play part athlete, part coach. The NACC08 will be held at a gym called “deprecated” in Montreal. The link shows just one picture of the lead wall but it looks like with a creative route setter, it could have great potential. One of the biggest problems we face in North America is having competition walls that are much smaller than the walls in Europe. After my 5 day trip to Montreal, I’m headed to Hueco Tanks, El paso with Jamie Chong, Simon Parton, Vikki and Weldon and Sonnie Trotter. I’ll be in Hueco from Dec 9th-Dec 21st, which means 8 or 9 days of solid bouldering! Check back here for photos and trip journals.

As you can see, I’m trying to start up my own website. My good friend Jamie Chong helped me get this started but I’m just learning and this is very new territory for me to be in. I’ve never managed or maintained a website. I’ve started this website because I think it could be a fun tool to share my climbing experiences with the world. This post is kind of a test run but hopefully you’ll be back to see what I’ve been up to.