Nerves tested, goals achieved at GoPro Mountain Games youth bouldering competition

For the local climbing youth in Eagle County, Thursday marked the completion of one of the biggest — and most nerve-racking — competitions of the season.

The GoPro Mountain Games kicked off on Thursday with a youth climbing event that young Eagle County climbers have been anticipating since it ended last season. Local climbing coach and organizer Larry Moore with Eagle Climbing + Fitness said there were plenty of cheers from the local climbers, but plenty of tears, as well.

“It’s an emotional event,” he said. “To be in their hometown, and have such a big stage.”

Throughout the four-day GoPro Mountain Games, the climbing stage dominates the viewshed toward Vail Mountain from Mountain Plaza, and the entire plaza fills with fans during the main competitions.

While that can be difficult for kids, it’s an easy event for local coaches and parents. Usually it takes a massive amount of work to put on a big climbing event at Eagle Climbing + Fitness, the large gym in Eagle which has hosted the American Scholastic Climbing League High School State Championships (and will host a national championship in 2025).

But the GoPro Mountain Games has a massive amount of support that comes with the event.

“We can just kick back and coach,” said Ryan Currence with Eagle Valley Climbing + Fitness.

The youth climbing competition is a spin-off of the larger climbing event, a North America Cup competition that has been going on since the 2000s in Vail.

The NorAm event was once a World Cup, with records set in Vail that will go down in the history books of the sport.

In 2019, Slovenia’s Janja Garngret set a new World Cup circuit record with a win in Vail, her sixth consecutive.

Currence said a memory from those days that sticks out for him was watching Ethan Flynn-Pitcher, who now competes for Team Canada, at the GoPro Mountain Games youth climbing competition.

“Not only is it a big stage, in front of a lot of people, but we have world-renowned route setters coming in, and the kids get to climb on stuff that maybe local gyms might not have,” Currence said.

Garngret went on to win the gold medal in the women’s combined sport climbing event at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. It was the debut of climbing at the Olympic level, a sign of the sport’s growth.

USA Climbing, the national governing body of the sport of competition climbing in the United States, had moved its headquarters from Boulder to Salt Lake City, Utah, to ready athletes for the Olympics in 2020. The lone World Cup event assigned to the United States moved with it soon after.

The Vail event was demoted to the North America Cup level, which is a level below the World Cup, but Currance says the North America Cup of today attracts a bigger crowd than the World Cup during the Mountain Games of the early 2010s.

“Now you can’t find a spot to stand, it’s packed shoulder to shoulder,” Currence said.

Moore said his team at Eagle Climbing + Fitness helps to rally some 125 volunteers to help put on the event. Mountain Games organizers help ensure the event is fully staffed as well, Moore said.

“We have great support from the Vail Valley Foundation,” Moore said.

On Thursday, 9-year-old Fiona Ball, of Avon, took second in the female Youth D division. Her mother, Christy Ball, said Fiona has taken to climbing in recent years and now has a full competition schedule.

“She’s competing from November to June,” Christy Ball said.

That starts with the bouldering season in November, and then moves to a ropes climbing season in the spring. But to get ready for the GoPro Mountain Games again in June, a one-off event, local climbers like Fiona have to switch back to bouldering, which doesn’t use ropes.

Readying for the massive event always brings out the nerves of the local climbers, Currence said, especially because coaches limit the amount of bouldering training they’ll allow athletes to take on during the ropes season.

Bouldering requires a different kind of strength training, Currence said, so the athletes aren’t necessarily as ready for the Mountain Games as they could be.

But with how intense the travel schedule can get during the season, local parents are happy to trade the nerves of the bouldering big event for a weekend at home.

“They do competitions all over the state and New Mexico,” Christy Ball said. “So it’s a lot of work.”

Fiona Ball said she loves the Mountain Games, regardless of the pressure.

“The thought of it scares me more than actually doing it,” she said. “When I’m waiting in line, I’m kind of nervous, but when I’m about to start the climb, I calm down. … And as soon as I start, everything kind of slows down, and I take one hold at a time, and it kind of just happens.”