ABS Bouldering Comp

Got to see my niece, Elizabeth, compete in the ABS Youth Bouldering Comp today at our other local gym, Mesa Rim. She placed second in a similar comp in CO. Looking forward to the time when we can get Em and Liam out climbing with her.


Update: Elizabeth placed second in her division at this comp. She's setting a high bar for Emilia and Liam.

Mesa Rim Climbing Gym

We went to the grand opening of the new climbing gym in Mira Mesa last Saturday. It's called Mesa Rim, and is quite an improvement over our current gym, Vertical Hold. But the niceties come at a cost as the annual fees are like 75% higher. That extra dough gets you: much taller lead and TR (toprope) walls, simulated cracks of assorted sizes (and they appear to be good quality), a decent bouldering area with topout options, a fitness area with lots of new Precor equipment, a very nice yoga room (although yoga costs extra), and a sweet hangout/family area with playstuff for kids. This may be the biggest lure for us to make a change at some point (hmmm...I guess our priorities are a little different these days).

The gym looks massive inside, but like most climbing gyms, it's difficult to get a good overall picture since the walls go in so many different directions. Anyway, here's an overview shot of a portion of the lead/TR area:


This is the hangout/family area (complete with lots of moons - whassup with my camera?!):


And here's Emilia enjoying the new gym - yup, that's what she did a lot of the time - sleep.


But when she was awake, her head looked like it was on a swivel as she tried to take in everything that was going on around her. She's at a very visual stage right now, and wants to see as much as she can. I like to think that it was the climbing she was interested in, but she'd probably do the same thing at the Miramar landfill ;^p