IV Form Expedition Day 2

Blue bird sky's and amazing temps today!!!  Ill get more pictures up later.

More pictures can be found here: IV Form Expedition Pictures 

IV Form Expedition Day 1

The expedition is up and running! Boys are all packed up and many have hit the trail. Ill be posting pictures as internet is available so check back often!!!

 

2017 WFS Short Track Course

5/17/2017 Making Climbing Holds with Trevor and Charles

Trevor and I have started to gather up and clean all of our silicone negatives so that we can make many climbing holds at once.

We realized that, if we properly stabilized them, we could fit more holds in to our box at one time.

Because of this process, we could make about ten or twelve holds in a day which gave us the time to experiment with things like paint.

Unfortunately, our idea of mixing in paint with the poly-urethane was not the best idea after all.

As you can see, the moisture of the orange paint caused many bubbles to form within the hold. These bubbles enlarged the hold and caused it to become too brittle to use.

Thankfully, Trevor and I are still on track and have almost all of the holds that we need!

5/6/2017 Making Climbing Holds With Trevor and Charles

Trevor and I have been covering holds in silicone recently. Our original plan to pour silicone into a box was changed because we realized that putting small amounts of silicone into soap and water would be much more efficient and would dry much faster. Because a whole box was not filled, we could use small globs to save large amounts silicone. 

Once we were confident with our new mold making process, Trevor and I moved onto making and testing holds. We recently received our poly urethane composites in the mail, so we were ready to see how well our materials would work. 

We were very excited to see that it worked out.

Then we tested the strength of each test hold by dropping it from tall heights and hanging from it like a climbing hold should be used. As you can see, it worked out quite well.

Finally, after a long day of work..... I made Trevor clean up the workshop.

4/28/17 Making Homemade Climbing Holds with Trevor and Charles

The first steps to making your own climbing holds are shaping the holds out of craft foam, which we will then pour silicone over to produce a negative. This negative mold allows us to poor in a urethane mixture that will then set in the same shape as the carved out foam. We researched this process online and called about 10 different climbing hold companies for their personal tips and tricks. 

Board consisting of tasks, designs, and important phone numbers

After sketching up some designs, we went to work using knives to carve the basic shape and used our fingers (the foam is very delicate) to make small details.

  

The results of our floral foam carvings:

A few of the holds are test holds, which we will be attempting to break once they have been cast to test the strength of our urethane mixture.

Stay tuned for next week's update!

VAHS MTB 2017 Course

Extra Pictures from the Championship

 While the rest of the team was working hard on the wall, I was taking pictures. Here are some of the best pictures I took.

WAICL 2017 Climbing Championships

On Sunday WFS A and WFS B traveled to Crystal City for the last competition of the 2017 season.  Most of the boys climbed PR's on the day which is a true testament to how hard they have worked and the dedication they showed to the team.  WAICL Photo Album 

We lived this season by two mottoes:

1. 1) try harder 
2. 2) make the guy next to you better.  

We did both in spades.

Boys Team Results
Rank	School	Total
1	GDS	244
2	WFS A	212.5
3	Heights	212
4	EHS	204
5	STA	203
6	WFS B	183
7	FHS	157
8	SSFS	122

WFS A

212	Varsity Boys	Top Rope		Bouldering
43	KJ Pankratz	5.11b	5.9	V5	V7
		13	6	10	14
48	Trevor Barker	5.11b	5.11b	V6	V5
		13	13	12	10
38	Chares Moorman	5.10b	5.10d	V5	V4
		9	11	10	8
45	Reece Tilgner	5.11b	5.11c	V4	V5
		13	14	8	10
38	Will Slicer	5.10b	5.10b	V5	V5
		9	9	10	10
38	Thomas Griffin	5.10d	5.10b	V5	V4
		11	9	10	8

WFS B

183	Varsity Boys	Top Rope		Bouldering
38	Alex Krongard	5.10d	5.10d	V4	V4
		11	11	8	8
38	Garrett Venable	5.10d	5.10b	V4	V5
		11	9	8	10
33	Gus Dupree	5.10c	5.10b	V3	V4
		10	9	6	8
39	Tilden Winston	5.10d	5.11a	V4	V4
		11	12	8	8
34	Coleman Bishop	5.10b	5.10b	V4	V4
		9	9	8	8
34	Dawson Duckworth	5.10b	5.10b	V4	V4
		9	9	8	8