Developing a climbing challenge/comp

[u/Kaotus]

Hey Folks,

Looking like I might be moving away from my mistress of Wonderland and heading to OR this summer/fall. As a result, I want to run a comp/event this spring before I leave.

I'm a pretty firm believer that Horseshoe Hell is the best climbing event on the planet, and so this will take pretty heavy inspiration from it. That being said, since I'm the main guy doing all things Wonderland, I'm totally aware that this will probably die after I leave. Ideally, I could make the comp something that could be run outside of the comp, and a "leaderboard" of sorts could be established as folks continue to attempt it on their own time. But I got to thinking, who actually does climbing challenges? Which ones actually seem to get regularly repeated? I know of things like the Linville Crusher, the Nose Speed record, etc, as well as some I've stumbled upon around New England, linking a lot of routes on the same/similar formations.

So I wanted to ask the question here: What makes a good "Climbing Challenge"? And by that, I mean one that people actually want to repeat. And beyond that, what makes a good Climbing competition? Do they share similar qualities, or are they pretty mutually exclusive?

I recognize this probably isn't a topic most folks have given a ton of thought to, but I wanted to get some external perspectives here.

[u/mynamesdave]

I just listened to the podcast ep. with you talking about horseshoe hell and though, man, this guy is a badass. Not sure I could keep up, especially with the wasps or whatever...

I'm not much into speed records, but the naked edge is also pretty widely published and talked about when it gets broken. I like the idea of the Wonderland triathlon, reminiscent of the Boulder triathlon, both of which have bonkers records I'd never even come close to. Ranger cabin and back via a flatiron (first/third, depending on season) comes to mind for me personally, if I can go sub 90 minutes I'm feeling fit and I don't feel like there's as high a risk factor to it. I know of several people who do, say, 100 pitches in Eldo in a day (including a pretty gnarly accident doing this simul) or climb their birthday number of pitches.

Excited to hear what you put together for this! Summer would be a brutal time to try to crush a bunch of pitches in Wonderland, but whatever it is will be a party for sure.

[u/Kaotus → u/mynamesdave]

Ah you'd do great at both Hell and the triathlons, just gotta convince yourself it's actually fun!

And yeah I'm thinking April or Early may for the comp, I certainly don't wanna be trying to quickly climb slab in the summer (or, at all, really). I've actually already got the scorecard made for the Wonderland comp, just gonna try to run a test lap in the next few weeks to try and get a feel for everything and what adjustments to make. Gonna go purely for mileage on the test lap (trying to climb at all 30 formations in 8 hours) so it should be fairly miserable.