Last weekend I was at junior bouldering invitationals in Philadelphia, PA. I had an awesome time! But getting to Philadelphia was much less than awesome. My trip began with a call from Delta telling us “your flight has been cancelled. “You will be rebooked for tomorrow morning at 6:00 am!”

Thankfully when I got to the airport they rebooked our flight for only 5 hours later, Yeah! Only 5 hours of sitting in an airport...

The next day I didn’t have to be there 'til noon so I got to sleep in. The comp started at around one and there was a 3 hour redpoint-style qualifying round. This was a very interesting comp as unlike USA climbing comps, I was in a combined category of youth A, B, and juniors instead of Youth A. At the qualifying round I tied for 9th and 10th, just squeezing into finals.

Finals was an onsight style competition, with 5 minutes on the wall and five minutes rest. After waiting in iso for an extremely long time since the categories were stacked, I finally went out. My first problem--I sent in the last 10 seconds—was spotted by Five Ten® athlete Alex Johnson.  I flashed the third problem, and didn’t get very far on the second or 4th problem, having trouble with the dyno start on the 2nd .  They misjudged how long finals was supposed to take. They said it would end at 9:00 pm but instead it went till midnight. Over all though, it was an awesome comp.