The Climbing Center has partnered with Intramural Sports to offer a 4-week bouldering league! The bouldering league implements a handicap system that levels the playing field so newer climbers can remain competitive with the more experienced. Details are below.

Bouldering League Dates: Sunday, January 26 - Friday, February 21

REGISTRATION opens January 1st in IM Leagues!
Deadline to register a team is January 24th at noon.

For information on creating or joining a team, please visit the Intramural Sports website.

Jump to Section

• Format
• Teams
• Handicaps
• Routes & Ratings
• Scoring Points
• Tracking Scores

Format

The 4-week Intramural Bouldering League (IMBL) is a team competition.

Each week, a new set of routes/ problems will be available. Participants will climb eligible boulder problems for points whenever the wall is open. Points will be accumulated by teams on a weekly basis and used to establish a rolling team leaderboard. The #1 placed team at the end of the season will be crowned the champion!

Teams

• Teams must be comprised of a minimum of 3 students, 4 students is ideal.
• IMBL is an open league. There is no male/female specific categories
• Teams may contain climbers with mixed experience levels
• To best enjoy the IMBL, participants should be able to complete bouldering problems at the V1 difficulty or higher. If you're unsure what that means, please email [email protected] or stop by the Climbing Center during open hours.

Handicaps

Each participant's handicap is used to determine their weekly points.

Handicaps are based on our gym's Hueco (V-scale) grades. Each participant's handicap is established based on their V-max grade. The V-max is the hardest grade you can regularly complete in a single session on our wall, even if it takes a couple tries. Emphasis on "our wall". Not at the gym down the road and not on the Kilter board. This is not necessarily the hardest grade you onsight (climb first-try w/o previous knowledge) and is certainly not the route you projected for 3 weeks and finally sent with a fair bit of desperation, with a good night's sleep, having skipped lunch, on a low-gravity day, after meticulously brushing each hold, and warming up to the point of maximum skin friction. The V-max IS the route that might take you a couple tries if it's difficult to visualize or contains a hold-type or route style that doesn't play to your strength.

Handicaps will be established by each participant's input during week 1 on an honor system basis.

League officials reserve the right to adjust participant's handicap for reasons that include but are not limited to: lowballing the first week or becoming a better/stronger climber. If it is determined that a handicap should be adjusted, it will be done after the week's scoring is completed. 

Routes and Ratings

Each week, our team of route setters will set 8-10 new boulder problems on the wall and the previous week's routes will be available for a reduced value. The range will be from V0 to about V8 but will depend on how strong the competitors are that season. Eligible climbs on our wall will be marked with a special tag, indicating it's part of the league. The Kilter Board will not be a part of the league in 2025.

* In order to maintain a full wall of climbs for non-league climbers, boulder problems will likely remain on the wall longer than 1 week. However, it will only be eligible for league points while it has a league tag.

Scoring Points

Most typical competition rules apply for completing a climb. Specifically:

• Climbers will gain points by completing a route without falling. 
  • Climbers must start on the hold(s) indicated by the tape, use only the rocks/ features indicated, and show control on the finish hold. Control is defined as either 1 or 2 hands on the finish for 2-3 seconds. If 1 hand is on the finish, the other may not be on any other holds.
• Hands cannot leave the start hold(s) until the entire body is off the ground. Static starts only (while touching start holds, cannot jump off the ground to higher rocks)
• Natural chips embedded into the wall and features like cracks are off-limits unless specifically taped or indicated as "on" at the start hold. If you're not sure, feel free to ask a staff member.

Climbs can only be completed for points once per week. i.e. if you complete route #13 three times, you will only get points for it once.

A flash bonus of 5 points is in effect. i.e. if you complete a climb on the very first attempt, you get bonus points!

There is no deduction for falls.

Climbs may be attempted for points at any available climb-time (open climb, FIT 128, Vertical Earth, or private groups, etc.)

Calculating Team Points

The points for each competitor's 3 hardest climbs for the week will be totaled. 

For each team, the 3 participants with the highest scores that week will have their totals added together to form the team's weekly point total. The 4th participant's score is not counted that week. This also minimizes the negative impact if one teammate can't compete during a particular week (sometimes life happens).

During the last week of the league, if there is a tie for 1st place, the tie-breaker will be determined by...tbd.

Making Sense of the Points Chart

Examples:

• If your V-Max (handicap) is V2 and you climb a V2 (not a flash), that gets you 100 pts
• If your V-Max is V2 and you Flash a V3, that gets you 115 pts (110 + 5 flash bonus)! For being such a boss, it also gets you flagged for a possible handicap adjustment
• If your V-Max is V4 and you climb a V1, that gets you 0 points. It was probably a nice warm-up though.

Tracking Weekly Scores

Each competitor will have a paper log-sheet for tracking climbs each week of the league. Simply request it from the staff when you check-in and return it before leaving.

IM League officials will log the climbs and maintain an official leaderboard which will be updated weekly in IM Leagues. 

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