BY BARBARA EBLING
RUTLAND—When the last climber was belayed down the wall for the final regular-season meet last Tuesday, Feb. 28, at Green Mountain Rock Climbing Center in Rutland (GMRCC), the Otter Valley Union High School (OV) climbing team topped the scoreboard, with a season total of 115,725. OV’s robust slate of climbers includes nationally ranked youth climber Patrick Daly, senior Adia Polli, junior Sawyer Tinsman, and sophomores Kaiden Lee, Ian Miner, and Kyle Frankenberg, as the top scorers, giving OV an average of 23,145 points per competition against area schools Green Mountain, Burr & Burton, Rutland High, Woodstock, Long Trail, Mill River, and Proctor.
OV Middle School’s three-person team consists of 7th graders Amelia and Olivia Gibbs and 8th grader Owen McCardell. With such a small team, they were outscored by Rutland Town (1), Mill River (2), Long Trail (3), RACS (4), and RMS (5), finishing the season in 6th place overall with 53,350 points.
KAIDEN LEE DEFYING gravity to help OVUHS secure a win at this week’s meet in Rutland.
Photos by Jennifer Cyr Tinsman
Competition rules stipulate that climbers complete as many “clean” climbs as possible in 90 minutes, with the top three scores for each climber counting toward the team’s overall total. To be “clean,” a climber must place hands on the starting holds for three seconds before ascending, use only holds designated for a particular route, and hold their head to the ceiling for three seconds to indicate completion of the climb. Climbers are securely harnessed and roped into a belay system, and typically belayed by a member of a competing team, which ensures fairness.
Otter Valley Middle & High School teams will compete at the Vermont State Climbing Competition at GMRCC this Saturday, March 11, with middle schoolers climbing from 9:00-10:30 and high schoolers from 11:00-12:30.
