They Climb the Wall Just Because It’s There

Delicately balancing herself on several small stones 18 feetabove the ground, Jade Chun on Friday paused to study the rock formations above her head.

She later said she was barely cognizant of the 100 spectators cheering, the photographers focusing in on her as they leaned over the scaffolding to her right or the maintenance men who stood by to help out to her left.

“I was just thinking about getting to the next hold,” said the Santa Barbara woman, who has climbed rocks for 16 years.

Chun had paused twice on her way to the halfway mark of a 36-foot wall constructed in the Del Mar Fairgrounds’ O’Brien Pavilion for qualifiers in the 1991 San Diego Indoor Climbing Championship’s masters division.

Those who made the climb within four minutes would qualify to return today and Sunday for a shot at the $7,500 cash and prizes.

More than 250 men and women from the U.S., Canada, France and England have gathered to compete in five divisions, including masters and a kids division for 14-year-olds and under, said Bart Berry, the event’s organizer.

Most of the climbers said they were clearly more comfortable negotiating rocks outdoors than the indoor walls made of 4-foot-high boards bolted together and sprayed with sand and chemicals to make a non-skid surface.

The sport is only a few years old. It emphasizes gymnastic difficulty rather than danger and will be included in the 1992 Olympics as a demonstration sport.

The slightly protruding hand and footholds made of polymer concrete and bolted into the boards at 3- and 4-foot intervals made the masters division wall appear easier for taller climbers.

But standing a mere 5 feet, the 33-year-old Chun was forced to study each formation a little longer before advancing a few feet.

Although she was well within the maximum time limit, Chun later said the delays spent negotiating the earlier segments of the masters wall were physically draining. But “the shorter you are, the stronger you have to be,” she said.

The hand and footholds on the masters division wall appeared smaller than those on the walls for the other divisions. As if that weren’t difficult enough, negotiating the few holds on either side of a 45-degree arete, a crest that constitutes the last fifth of the course, seemed to frustrate and disqualify most of the climbers.

An exceptional few, such as Boone Speed, negotiated the masters wall with ease. The Utah climber, a 6-footer with a long, muscular body seemingly created to climb, has already won a few boulder-climbing events.

Most climbers slipped out of the competition as they attempted to touch the top of the wall by shifting weight from one side of the arete to the other. But, by using his long legs to place one foot on either side of the protruding structure, Speed climbed right up the middle.

He touched the top and was lowered via rope by a spotter, or belayer, who stood below.

“I didn’t get tired,” Speed said modestly. “But tomorrow’s a different story.” Today, Speed and other masters division competitors will find themselves in an almost upside-down position as they climb a slightly taller wall that arcs into an overhang on the top.

As for Chun, she moved to the arete in half the time it took her to climb the first half of the wall. At 32 feet in the air, she was two moves from the top.

Chun lunged to the left of the arete and landed safely, two feet landing on one hold. On her last move, she lunged to the right of the arete and slipped off the wall without having touched the top.

The crowd groaned as she slipped, then applauded as the belayer eased Chun down the wall.

“The problem is I had gotten so ‘pumped’ from (climbing) the bottom, I just didn’t have the juice,” she explained.

But the muscular Chun, who practices on a wall she built in her back yard, had nothing to worry about.

“She’s so far done the best of all the women,” said Berry. Chun qualified and returns to the competition today.