Earth Treks Climbing Team traveled to Philadelphia this weekend to compete in the ABS Regional
Championships hosted at the Pennsylvania Rock Gym Valley location. Nearly 60 competitors from
Earth Treks attended the event, competing for one of the top seven spots and an invitation to the
Divisional Championships next month. Earth Treks is proud to be sending over 30 athletes onto
the next round to compete in New Jersey for a spot at this season’s National Championships!
Additionally, Team Earth Treks placed first as a team at the event, retaining our long running status
as the Capital Region Bouldering Champions! Congratulations to all of the climbers who attended
the event and thank you to PRG for hosting the competition. Below are the results of Earth Treks
Climbers at the Regional Championships:

Earth Treks is thrilled to announce that we will be launching our fourth climbing center in Golden Colorado!  That's right, saddle-up everyone, Earth Treks is headed west to the Rocky Mountain state!

Slated to be open in late 2013, Earth Treks Golden will feature a custom built 29,000 sq ft building.  The gym will offer over 25,000 sq. ft. of climbing with walls up to 48 ft high, including tons of bouldering and roped climbing for all ages and abilities.  Earth Treks Golden will boast many amenities including a huge fitness center, dedicated strength training area, yoga room, outdoor patio, and locker room facilities with all the bells and whistles. And of course, climbing there is included in any multi-gym membership, so plan to stop by on your vacation.

 Keep tabs on the Earth Treks Golden webpage and Earh Treks Golden's new Facebook page to follow all the exciting developments as they unfold.

Last week during the Thanksgiving holiday break, several Earth Treks Climbing Team athletes travelled with Head Coach Ellis to Santiago, Chile to compete with Team USA in the 2012 Youth Pan American Championships. The Pan American Championships are held every two years and consist of Lead, Bouldering and Speed Climbing events between athletes from all over North and South America. The event lasted for four days this year and had a strong showing of US Athletes along with nine other countries representing. The competition disciplines started with Sport climbing, moving through Bouldering and finishing up on Sunday with the finale being Speed Climbing. Our athletes performed amazingly throughout the comp having strong showings in all three disciplines.

The athletes from the Earth Treks Climbing Team and their respective placements can be found below:

Sport Climbing-

• Kerry Scott- 2^nd (Silver Medal)
• Claire Bresnan- 5^th
• Ben Witham- 11^th
• Bouldering-
• Claire Bresnan- 1^st (Gold Medal)
• Kerry Scott- 2^nd (Silver Medal)
• Brandon Lieuw- 5^th
• Speed Climbing-
• Kayla Lieuw- 1^st (Gold Medal)
• Brandon Lieuw- 4^th
• Kerry Scott- 12^th

Also of particular note is that Kerry Scott and Claire Bresnan each placed 3^rd overall (Bronze Medals) in their respective age categories.

All of the athletes from who competed from the Earth Treks Climbing Team as well as all of the Team USA athletes displayed phenomenal effort throughout the competition and are deserving of great praise for their accomplishments and attitude. Congratulations to all those that competed, the Earth Treks family is extremely overjoyed at your accomplishments.  It speaks to your commitment as climbers, as a team, and your love of the sport.  Keep up the great work.

The 2nd Annual Mt. Gretna outdoor bouldering competition is scheduled for November 17th.  Last year's comp was a huge success and this year should be even better.  Registration is $20 and available at Mt. Gretna Comp Registration. Check out the action from the inaugural event at Mt. Gretna Youtube Video.

The new Ange carabiners from Petzl are sporting a slick new keylock closure with a totally smooth nose. Why should we care about a new closure technology? Well, if you've ever hooked a rope or a sling mid-clip or clean, you know the traditional design can be a bit frustrating. With the new keylock nose, there's no snag. Plain and simple. Pretty darn brilliant too!

The new setup provides a solution to sport & trad climbers looking for lighter weight draws with all the benefits of traditional biners. Designed to optimize clipping and unclipping, the Ange is a hybrid between wire gate and traditional gate closures. For the ultra-light fanatics, the Ange S weighs in at a mere 28 grams. Or if you prefer the slightly larger, more traditional size of the Ange L, you're hauling a whopping 34 grams per biner. Fast and light is the name of the game! Plus, the Ange Finesse Quickdraws come in four different versions to customize your rack to best fit your needs.

Who doesn't love shiny new toys? We suspect these are going to show up on more than one Christmas List this year. The new Ange L carabiners are now in stock at all three Earth Treks Pro Shops!