Rock the Blocs Boulderfest 2015

Rock the Blocs is an annual bouldering festival in the Okanagan, B.C. It’s one of the best summer festivals.

Here are the basics:

When: Sat. June 20 to June 21

Where: The Boulderfields- Kelowna, B.C.

What: A festival including a bouldering competition/ area development projects aimed at getting the climbing community together for a whole lot of fun.

Cost: Free, but donations to the Okanagan Bouldering Development Fund are much appreciated.

The Fields – A Bouldering Film from Clayton Arnall on Vimeo.

The Specifics:

Time: The rules meeting/ explanation of the competition will be held at 9:45am with the competition starting at 10am and finishing for the day at 5pm. Prizes will be awarded following the comp.

Categories:
Men- Beginner (V0-V2), Intermediate (V3-V6), Open (V7+)
Women- Beginner (V0-V1), Intermediate (V2-V4), Open (V5+)
To register, email me (Andy) at okbouldering@gmail.com and let me know your name and category

Explanation/ Scoring: Essentially, we hand pick over 100 of the best problems in the Boulderfields from V0-V12 and projects above for competitors to crank on for the day. The goal is to send your top 5 problems by the end of the comp.

Prizes: There are prizes for the winners in each category, plus a bunch of draw prizes up for grabs for all competitors/ volunteers involved in the festival.

Extras- Post-event social on Saturday night (please bring whatever food and beverage you desire). I also wouldn’t be surprised to see some impromptu crash-pad wrestling as the evening unfolds?

Logistics- Camping at the Fields is free as always. If competing, you’ll need a Boulderfields bouldering guide to get around to the problems. Beg, borrow, steal, just get one, so you can find all the goodies. I’ll have some for sale at the fest (and as always they are for sale at Beyond The Crux Climbing Gym and True Outdoors), and we’ll have a few of us guiding people to the newer/ harder lines not listed in the guide. Please also don’t forget to carpool up to the Fields as much as possible to minimize our impact and to ensure we have enough parking for everyone (look for the Rock the Blocs Carpoolers group on FB)! We’ll have a limited number of loaner crash pads available for those without, still, if you don’t have a pad, just get to the fest and we’ll make sure you can get out climbing with someone!

Development Projects- We have a number of projects in mind for this year’s festival, so if you’re not too keen on competing on Saturday, please feel free to lend a hand with this year’s projects.

Volunteers- If you would like to come up and help out with the day, we have a number of things that we could use a great deal of help with. Let me know if you are interested.

Clinics- There are a number of very experienced local boulderers willing to offer clinics on Sunday (providing the comp proceeds on Saturday) on topics such as outdoor bouldering basics, boulder problem development and considerations, improving technique, an intro to the Fields, etc.

If you’d like any more info or are interested in clinics, volunteering, or helping with development projects, please email Andy at okbouldering@gmail.com.