Yukon rock climbers competed in their annual fall rock climbing competition at Porter Creek Secondary School on Sunday, Nov. 10.
The competition marks the last fall competition before the association moves into its new climbing gym next summer, said Climb Yukon president Sara Bradley. The upcoming Yukon Championships competition will still be held at Porter Creek Secondary in February.
Yukon Climb has been operating in the territory since 2008, Bradley said.
The competition was open to both children and adults, with children and youth climbing in the morning and early afternoon. There were multiple courses up the walls for athletes to attempt to climb. Judges kept track of how many courses were completed by a given participant. Judges assigned bonus points for completing courses on the first try. Those who accumulated the most points won a place on the podium for their age group and gender.
The association hosts public climbing as well as youth climbing courses, run by youth coach Gerard Garnier.
The youth team competes outside the territory at least twice a year, and it sent its first competitor to national championships this year, said Bradley.
Garnier said the number of students has tripled since he began. He said the association is now having to turn some people away due to lack of space.
“We're really excited for the new gym to have space for that,” said Garnier.
Bradley told the News the new gym facility, set to open in summer 2025, is “state of the art." There will be two bouldering areas, each with walls around 4.5 metres high, she said. There will also be a top rope wall that will be over 13 metres high and have lead climbing as well.
Membership will have regular, year-round access to the facility, said Bradley. She said it will be interesting to see how the membership will grow with access to a dedicated climbing facility.
“We also would like to be in a position to offer more to our community, and having a dedicated facility will really allow us to do that and provide programming and access to a much larger group of people,” said Bradley. “I think we're just ready, I think we're ready for it.”
The current space is small, and it can be difficult to provide students with enough terrain, novelty and variability, said Garnier.
“Sometimes we'll go to nationals, and there'll be like, a hold that they've never seen before, or a sequence that they've never learned, and it's hard to teach everything in this little space,” said Garnier.
“So for me as a coach, that's the biggest thing, just excited to give them more opportunity to learn.”
Asher Johnson, 15, has been climbing with the youth team for two years. He recently competed at the national level in the sport. He told the News the opportunities offered by the new facility are exciting, especially as he begins competing in lead rope climbing.
During the fall competition itself, Johnson said he felt very strong on the wall. He said that he did all the courses he wanted to achieve, save for one: a route requiring the climber to hang upside down at the start.
“Yeah, that one's hard,” he told the News. “I'll probably come back on the next practice and do it first try. It's usually how it works.”
Contact Talar Stockton at talar.stockton@yukon-news.com
