2008 SCS Rope Season

After the high of making US Team in Bouldering, Sidney went back to work at the discipline she wasn't sure how much she liked, Sport (ropes) climbing. From the beginning, Sidney loved bouldering but was kind of ho-hum about Sport climbing so I wasn't sure how well she'd do. She was now officially joined on team by her brother who finally got tired of just watching everyone else climb (much like Sidney got tired of watching everyone else skate at the beginning of our skate park adventures).

Chase got worked over pretty good by Sydney, the Everett team coach, those first few practices. Enough that he strained some muscles and missed the first comp at Stone Gardens in which Sidney finished in 2nd place. The next comp was at VW Everett and Chase did very well for his first rope comp finishing in 5th place. Sidney finished in 1st place for the very first time so that was special for her. Next was Edgeworks in Tacoma where Chase placed 6th and Sidney was 1st again. The last local comp was at Clubsport where Chase finished in 8th and Sidney was 2nd this time.

Both times that Sidney finished 2nd, the first place finisher was a very nice girl named Siena who was not at the comps where Sidney placed 1st. The comps were very close but Siena just edged out Sidney both times. This set the stage for a very good Regional comp at our very own Seattle VW. Chase did well in placing 7th. He got the last invite for Divisionals in Sport and qualified for Speed, too. Sidney and Siena both flashed all 3 routes which set up a Superfinal! Both girls climbed well but Sidney got quite a bit farther when Siena had a sequencing error halfway up the wall. So, Sidney qualified 1st in both Sport and Speed for Divisionals which was at the Momentum gym in Sandy, Utah.

At Divisionals, Chase ran into a couple of routes in qualifiers that didn't suit his climbing style. Namely routes that required endurance and power moves. He is much stronger now, but at that time he was still building up his strength and endurance. Chase tried his best but didn't make it out of qualifiers, finishing 18th. He did however finish 4th in Speed which gave him an invite to Nationals. Sidney climbed extremely well in placing 2nd in both Sport and Speed. She was barely edged out both times by Grace who is the same age as Sidney. Grace and her family are good, friendly people. I'm sure 10 years from now, Grace and Sidney will still be competing against each other in their friendly rivalry. Chase was a bit bummed about his result but was glad that he was going to Nationals in Speed. Sidney was very happy about her placings, too.

Nationals was in Sunnyvale, California at the Planet Granite gym. It's a nice, big facility where you can see most of the routes well. SCS Nationals are a 3 day event with Sport Qualifiers the first day. Sidney flashed the 1st route but had a problem on the 2nd route. If I remember correctly, you only had 5 minutes to complete each route that day. Sidney had a reach issue right after the start which took her a good 2 minutes to figure out. After getting by that, she didn't realize she was pressed for time and she never looked at the clock. She was only halfway through the route when the timer called for 1 minute left. Needless to say, she double-timed it up the route after that but timed out a little over three quarters up the route. When I met up with her right after that, I could tell she was crushed. She was fighting back tears because she knew she had made a big mistake. I gave her a hug to console her and then we waited for the results. She made Semi-Finals, qualifying 12th out of 18. She would have her work cut out for her but in retrospect, I'm glad that it happened because she really learned from that mistake. The 2nd day was Semi-Finals in Sport and Qualifers in Speed. Sidney did great on her Semis route but made a sequencing mistake with her foot that cost her some points. She moved up, though, qualifying in 8th out of the top 10 Finals spots. She also had two good runs in Speed and qualified 6th out of the 16 who made Semis. Chase tried his best but did not make it out of Qualifiers finishing 24th. Just like at ABS Nationals, Sidney qualified for Finals in 8th position so I took that as a good sign and I was right! She was the 3rd climber out and did awesome, making it 2 holds from the finish. After the other climbers were done and the scores came out, Sidney had finished 3rd! It was unbelievable how close the top 3 climbers were. The top 2 climbers (Grace won on countbacks all the way back to the 2nd qualifier) touched the 2nd to last hold and Sidney pulled to that hold but just missed touching usable surface. Very close. Right after that, Sidney had two Speed Semi runs. She was consistent and qualified for Finals in 6th out of 8 spots. In her Finals runs, she improved her time by a total of 4 seconds and finished in 5th place! So the final tally was that she finished 3rd in Sport and 5th in Speed. For US Team results, which are an aggregate score of ALL routes climbed for the comp, she finished 8th in Sport (4 spots out) and 5th in Speed (1 spot out). Both kids had a great time that weekend and did great! I was very proud of them but I was also glad the season was over because it was loooooong!

I'm a writer?

Hey everyone. I have an announcement. I have a new post writing online articles for the Seattle Examiner as the Seattle Skateboarding Examiner! I'm still in the process of getting my accounts set-up and such but I will let you all know when my first article comes out. I'll have more info soon. Later!

THE LIST OF SKATEPARKS YET TO DOCUMENT

This is the list of parks we still have to document. A few of these parks the kids have already skated at many times like Kent and Seattle's Lower Woodland. For various reasons, though, I haven't documented them. If anyone knows of a park that is not on this list or THE LIST, please e-mail me or comment on this post with the lowdown. Thanks!

1. Bellevue (Highlands @ BVSP)
2. Bremerton (Navy Base - Anyone have clearance to get us on the base?)
3. Fairfield
4. Forks
5. Friday Harbor
6. Kent (East Hill)
7. Liberty Lake
8. Long Beach (Closed as of 05/18/09 - Someone let me know if it ever re-opens!)
9. Lopez Island
10. McCleary (This one is iffy on if an actual S.P. exists)
11. Morton (This one is also iffy)
12. Seattle (East Marginal - Always a work in progress.)
13. Seattle (Lower Woodland)
14. Seattle (SeaSk8 Redux)
15. Silverdale (Island Lake)
16. Spokane (Hillyard)
17. Spokane (Spokane Valley YMCA)
18. Tacoma (Fort Lewis - Again, we need clearance!)
19. Walla Walla (320 Tausick Way)
20. Yakima (1109 E. Maple St.)

THE LIST

I thought it would be a good idea to post our list of skateparks we have been to and documented. That way anyone who visits this site and knows of any we've missed could alert me of its' whereabouts. A couple of things first. If there is no designation after the city then that means it was in Washington. If there are two or more skateparks in a particular city, the specific location will be in parenthesis. Also, some parks are actually on the list multiple times because they have either been totally remodeled or expanded. Those will be designated with an R/M. So here is the list.

1. Mount Vernon
2. Bellingham
3. Marysville
4. Granite Falls
5. Auburn (Brannan Park)
6. Kent (Lions Park)
7. Kent (West Fenwick Park)
8. Sumner
9. Auburn (Lakeland Hills)
10. Bonney Lake
11. Bothell
12. Oak Harbor
13. Anacortes
14. Burlington
15. Woodinville
16. Kirkland
17. Redmond
18. Renton (Liberty Park)
19. Puyallup
20. Milton
21. Sequim
22. Stanwood
23. Mill Creek
24. Snohomish
25. Everett (Walter Hall Park)
26. Seattle (Seattle Center-SEASK8)
27. Shoreline
28. Federal Way
29. Mukilteo
30. Des Moines
31. Bellevue (BVSP)
32. Arlington
33. Renton (Skatebarn West)
34. Tacoma (Thrill Zone)
35. Gig Harbor
36. Sedro-Woolley
37. Carnation
38. Monroe
39. Wenatchee (Pioneer Park)
40. Lake Chelan
41. Mercer Island
42. North Bend
43. Moses Lake
44. Spokane (UTF)
45. Renton (Skatebarn West - R/M)
46. Issaquah
47. Kingston
48. Bainbridge Island
49. Poulsbo
50. Silverdale
51. SeaTac
52. Burien
53. Seattle (Innerspace)
54. Lakewood (Kiwanis Park)
55. University Place
56. Lynnwood
57. Lake Chelan (R/M)
58. Wenatchee (Revolution)
59. Leavenworth
60. Tukwila
61. Kenmore
62. Portland (Dept. of Skateboarding), OR
63. Maple Valley
64. Covington
65. Buckley
66. Enumclaw
67. Bellevue (Lakemont)
68. Seattle (East Marginal)
69. Seattle (Ballard)
70. Tacoma (Stewart Heights)
71. Tacoma (Heidelberg)
72. Spanaway
73. Orting
74. Ellensburg
75. Quincy
76. Ephrata
77. Soap Lake
78. Lacey
79. Olympia (Friendly Grove)
80. Olympia (Yauger Park)
81. Yelm
82. Eatonville
83. Langley
84. Port Townsend
85. Port Angeles
86. Seattle (East Marginal - R/M)
87. Centralia
88. Raymond
89. Aberdeen
90. Shelton
91. Bremerton
92. Blaine
93. Chilliwack (Clilliwack Landing), B.C., CA
94. Chilliwack (Watson Glen), B.C., CA
95. Abbotsford (Mouat), B.C., CA
96. Abbotsford (Yale), B.C., CA
97. Bellevue (Crossroads)
98. Sammamish
99. Edmonds
100. Cle Elum
101. Wilson Creek
102. Grand Coulee
103. Airway Heights
104. Deer Park
105. Chewelah
106. Colville
107. Kettle Falls
108. Omak
109. Newport
110. Cusick
111. Orcas Island
112. Castle Rock
113. Longview
114. Woodland
115. Portland (Burnside), OR
116. Vancouver (Swift Park)
117. Ridgefield
118. Battle Ground
119. Bend, OR
120. Redmond, OR
121. Madras, OR
122. Black Diamond
123. Duvall
124. Camas
125. Stevenson
126. Portland (Holly Farm), OR
127. St. Helens, OR
128. Yakima (Chesterly Park)
129. Prosser
130. Benton City
131. Kennewick (S. Dayton St.)
132. Richland
133. Connell
134. Colfax
135. Pullman
136. Moscow, ID
137. Lewiston, ID
138. Clarkston
139. Walla Walla
140. Kennewick (Columbia Park)
141. Herriman, UT
142. Medical Lake
143. Coeur d'Alene, ID
144. Post Falls, ID
145. Lyle
146. Goldendale
147. Bothell (R/M)
148. Vancouver (East)
149. Tonasket
150. Concrete
151. Bellingham (R/M)
152. Everett (Wiggums Hollow Park)
153. Brier
154. Selah
155. Sultan
156. Tacoma (Norpoint)
157. Tacoma (McKinley Park)
158. Lakewood (Harry Todd Park)
159. Lynden (The Skate)

ABS 9 Bouldering Season

Sidney was now part of the big red machine known as Team Vertical World and she went right to work. It seemed like she was always on the wall during practice. She became fast friends with everyone on the team in Everett and it looked like she found her own niche apart from her brother. Well, that didn't last long. At first, Chase and I would go hang out at the library or do errands and then go have a nice dinner together. That got old for him very fast and after about a month he said he wanted to climb in the gym during practice but not be on team. I thought that was a good idea and got him a membership. Before I know it, he's buddies with everyone on the team, too. He basically was practicing with the team but not on the team. He finally broke down and said he wanted to join the team. By then, it was toward the end of the ABS season and we agreed that he would start officially when the SCS season started. Now my second climber was born. Back to Sidney. Right out of the gate, she did very well at the local comps. 5th place at the opener at the Circuit, 5th place at Edgeworks, 2nd place at Inclimb, 6th place at the SBC and 3rd place at Redmond VW(Chase also competed in this comp and finished 5th). I thought she would do well but this was better than I expected. Regionals was at Clubsport and when she came out of Iso I could tell she was really nervous. She did fine on the first 2 problems but fell at the same spot 4 times on the 3rd problem. After the 4th attempt I figured she was toast but she proved me wrong. She was resting and then the timer announced "1 minute left." As soon as she heard that, she hopped on the wall and went straight to the top. She had issues with the 4th problem but did fine and then we waited for the results. 5th place! A great result for your first Regionals but one spot from an invitation to Nationals. She was a bit down but all right. Later in the week she got a 2nd round invite and I had a big decision to make. Should I send her even though prior results shown that she probably wouldn't do well or spend the money and see what happens? Plus, she was so young that I figured she would have plenty more chances to go. I smile to this day that I made the right decision to take her to Boulder, CO for the big event. I think being nervous at Regionals was a good thing for her because I have not seen her nervous at any comp since. She is very cool under fire. By Nationals, she was looking strong but I wasn't expecting much. I just wanted her to get some experience. The first day was qualifiers and she did very well. There were 30 girls competing with the top 10 making it to Finals. She ended up qualifying 8th (which is good luck as you'll see in a future post) by the hair of her chinny-chin-chin. She actually had the same score as 5 other girls but had no falls. We were giddy that night. Whatever happened the next day we didn't seem to care. She had made finals! The next day she climbed like she had no pressure finishing 3rd to make the podium and US Team. She tied for 2nd place but got 3rd because of falls. She was happy but I don't think she realized what she had accomplished, yet. She'd figure it out soon enough. My favorite moment is the picture I took of her and B-Hops with their team jackets on. B-Hops was a big reason she fell in love with climbing and now they were both members of Team USA. She had come full circle in a very short time.

Born Climbers

Even though Chase was a butterball until he was 1 1/2, he did start walking at 10 1/2 months old. Sidney showed how competitive she was at an early age by walking when she was 8 1/2 months old. When Chase was 7 and Sidney was 5, they would climb on top of playgrounds as high as 8 or 9 feet and jump into my arms. That freaked out quite a few parents. It was Sidney climbing all over the playground with ease that got us to check out the Little Rockers program at the Redmond Vertical World (http://verticalworld.com/content/view/18/36/). Chase initially did not show any interest in climbing, he just wanted to board. So we enrolled Sidney in the program and after the first class the instructors, Josie and none other than B-Hops, said she was already good enough to climb for the team. That definitely gave Sidney an ego boost and she was hooked. She would climb in Little Rockers off and on for a while but we pretty much stuck to skateparking. When she was 8, Vertical World opened up in Everett and it became feasible for her to climb more often. We put her in a summer rock camp there and after the first day, Joe, the manager at the time, introduced himself and said he really wanted her to climb team. Of course, Sidney was excited and it was all she could talk about. I contacted the coach, Tyson, and he said he would love her to come and try out. I brought her down, dropped her off and left until the end of practice. When I came back, I asked Tyson if she was good enough to climb with the team. He smiled and said she was good enough and that he would love to have her on the team. I think he was pleasantly surprised. At that time, there were only a couple of climbers her age on the team. It's not like it is now where it seems like half the team is 11 or younger. Sidney was ecstatic and a climber was born. Chase would take a little while longer to come around.

Skatepark #159 (#143) - Lynden (The Skate)

On Monday night we traveled, almost to the border, to Lynden, Washington. We went there to attend "The Skate" (http://skate.third-church.org/) at the Third Christian Reformed Church. Lynden does not have a skatepark and it looks like this church has stepped up to fill that void in a big way. They have sessions for the kids, weather permitting, on Mondays and Thursdays. During the fall and winter months they rent out space at the local fairgrounds and skate indoors on those days. Very nice. The skaters of Lynden and the surrounding area are lucky to have the T.C.R.C. there. The volunteers and the skaters were also really cool, supportive and polite. It was the total opposite of what we often encounter at public skateparks so my kids were really into the session. This is their 10th year doing this I believe so they have a great system going. The kids ripped it up and had a great time. Thank you to Randy, Ivan and Eric for volunteering and for making us feel so welcome. Also, thanks to Cynthia for helping me get all the info I needed to get us there. You are all great!

Whatcom Family YMCA Climbing Team.

Yesterday, before we went to skate at the Third Christian Reformed Church, we stopped to climb with the Whatcom Family YMCA Climbing Team. Our family is good friends with another family whose daughter, Kayla, climbs for that team. Their coach, Dave, is the nicest guy and lets my kids climb with the team whenever we feel like trekking up to Bellingham. This YMCA boasts the tallest climbing wall in Washington state at 65 feet so the kids always like when we go there. Beware on a warm day, though, because it gets hot at the top! The good news for the team is that they are growing! Last year they ended the season with about 4 or 5 climbers. This year they are starting with around 12 or 13. Looking forward to seeing all of them at the comps this year!

BUSY WEEKEND

Well, I said our next post would be about the climbing side of our blog but I lied. We knocked off 4 new skateparks from our list this past weekend so I figured we'd write about that. I picked up the kids after school on Friday and we headed to Sultan. To get to Sultan, you have to go through Monroe and the traffic was TERRIBLE!! I know it was a Friday but every time I go through there I end up fighting the urge to pull the rest of my hair out. The S.P. was your typical small town set up. Concrete slab with Concrete brand ramps. The bright spot was that they had a quarter pipe that was split in the middle and angled away from each other about 5 degrees so Chase was getting some good airs. We then went to Woodinville S.P. which we have been to many, many times. There were a couple of guys who had their boards strapped to their feet and were flying around the park. Crazy. The kids ripped it up pretty good. On Saturday, we headed to Tacoma and stopped first at the S.P. at Norpoint. Easily the worst skatepark we've been to and a complete waste of concrete. I think it's pretty old but they really should tear it down. It had a shallow (really long) quarter pipe opposite a steep spine ramp that had the worst transition to it. The worst part is that the other side of the spine was just 20 feet of concrete and then gravel so you'd have to jump off the board at a high rate of speed. I took some quick pictures and a couple minutes of video and we were out of there. We then hit McKinley park which is a stones' throw from the Tacoma Dome. The park is newly remodeled and they added a skate plaza. The plaza was lame and kind of dangerous. Why design something where you get speed and then put a foot high curb right in front of it?! We weren't too happy at that point. Then we hopped in the car and went to check out the rest of the park because I thought they were going to put some boulders on the other end. Well, no boulders but up the path from the plaza was a cool run with a hump into a 5 foot quarter pipe. The kids really liked it and they spent a good hour just taking turns with some locals on it. The only bad thing is that they didn't use coping on the quarter pipe so it is already chipped badly and is only going to get worse. When I could finally pull them away from that, we headed to Lakewood and the S.P. at Harry Todd Park. This was you typical S.P. in the tennis court setup. We didn't spend a lot of time there. Pretty much got our footage and headed out to Sprinker. We had only been to Sprinker once before and Chase was especially excited about ripping it up there. As usual, the kids impressed all the locals. Sidney got 3 or 4 requests to drop into the deep 10 foot bowls there and Chase was launching out of this shallow quarter pipe, over the 3 foot wide landing, onto the flat 2 feet below, while doing a 180. He landed it all 5 times he tried it and they were all really clean. It was sweet. On Sunday, the kids skated for 2 1/2 hours at Lower Woodland in Seattle. The kids have skated there a lot and it's technically still on our list because I haven't taken any footage because it's always so crowded. Since we live in Seattle I am patiently waiting for the right time. So, we hit 7 parks this last weekend with 4 of them new ones for our list. If you can believe it, they also climbed at Redmond Vertical World twice. Sidney made this V6- that she was projing (working on) so she was a happy camper.

First Blog!

Welcome to the blog I started for my kids. I'm new to this stuff but I'm sure I'll get up to speed very soon. So I started this to keep everyone informed about our skatepark and climbing activities. Chase (12), started skateboarding when he was 6 and I would take him and his sister Sidney (10) to the local skatepark. He got very good, very fast so we just started spending all our time at skateparks. We were starting to go to different parks and I got the bright idea to start documenting every skatepark we went to by filming and photographing Chase. After a while, Sidney was getting bored of just watching and wanted to join in so I got her some rollerblades. She also got very good, very fast like her brother. After doing some research, I learned there were a ton of skateparks in Washington and then a light bulb went off. Let's go to every skatepark in Washington! The kids loved the idea and the Skatepark Tour was born! Almost 6 years later we are very close. We have documented being at 138 skateparks in Washington and 154 overall. We have about 20 left? It's hard to tell because there are always new parks opening or I'll hear through the grapevine about one in Timbuktu. Well, this is a good start. Our next post we'll cover the climbing part.