The Wildcat Recreation Center hosted an all-day climbing competition called the “Ruckus” April 23.

Rather than using ropes or safety harnesses like the traditional method, climbers were only allowed to use chalk in the competition.

“Competitions are one of the biggest parts of rock climbing as a sport,” Khara Fishburn student manager at the WREC’s rock climbing wall said. “There’s not a ton of opportunity to show off your skills as a climber. Rock climbing is a smaller community and this is a way for all of our people to just get together and show off what they been working on.”

Competitors were given 2 hours and 45 minutes to finish as many routes on the rock climbing walls as they could. The scoring was based on how far climbers could get on the routes. There were 28 new routes climbers could choose from.

One of the competitors at the event was credential student Carlos Simpson. Simpson is a regular at the rock climbing wall and heard about the event through the staff. The credential student was asked by the staff to compete in the “Ruckus” and he decided to test his skills in the competition.

“The Ruckus was my first climbing competition I’ve done,” Simpson said. “Initially it was a little intimidating because there was a lot of people competing. There were a lot of people here for the same reason I am, but one of the reasons why I enjoy the ‘Ruckus’ is because the climbing community is supportive of one of each other.”

When the climbing competition ended staff members tallied up the scores for the three categories of climbing and handed out awards.

“Rock climbing is a very different score from most,” Fishburn said. “Everyone is really happy, really stoked to get you out and get you climbing to get you, to the best you can be. It’s very inclusive, it’s very calm, it’s very challenging, but it’s probably one of the chillest you’ll ever experience.”

Here are the list of winners:

Women’s Advanced:
1st – Tyler Harris
2nd – Miranda Santana
3rd – Katelyn McNulty

Women’s Intermediate:
1st – Linda Mena
2nd – Charlotte Park
3rd – Shannon Hussey

Women’s Recreational:
1st – Nile Reed
2nd – Katrina Santiago
3rd – Haley Vlastelicia

Men’s Advanced:
1st – Zachary Probert
2nd – Elvis Elden
3rd – Evan Roberts

Men’s Intermediate
1st – Carl Quicksall
2nd – George Gibson
3rd – Karsten McDonell

Men’s Recreational:
1st – Riley York
2nd – Carlos Corona
3rd – Kyle Simpson

George Johnston can be reached at [email protected] or @gjohnston786 at Twitter.