The Fiordland Climbing wall was teaming with young climbers on Saturday (30 Oct) as they hosted the Southland Secondary School Climbing Championships at the wall; the first time for the event to be held on this top-class venue.

Students came from Fiordland College (4 teams), Wakatipu High School (2 teams) and Northern Southland College (2 teams) to compete; from first timers to Nationally ranked climbers.

The event was run to a set timetable and allowed the students time to rest so that, by the end of the day, they had completed 8 climbs each.

Teams are made up of 4 people and they are given 20 minutes to complete or attempt the climb.

There are points given for how far up the climb you get and the level of difficulty.

Due to the fact that some of the students there are Nationally ranked climbers, these were not easy climbs.

Spectators and competitors look on as Riley Sheat (NSC), Frankie Neverman (Fiordland College), Oscar McCartney (Wakatipu) complete their climb at the Southland Secondary School Climbing Championships. Photo: Jeanna Rodgers

They ranged from intermediate to more advanced routes and everyone who attended achieved at least one marker to gain points while the top climber of the day, AJ Magness (Year 10) from Fiordland, obtained maximum points on every climb.

Even though the event was held at the Fiordland Climbing wall, the locals had no advantage as all the routes were set up in the few days before the event.

Andrew Magness and his team of route setters (Anton, Bailey, Keegan, Gerard, Julian, Michael and Hamish) spent several hours perfecting the 16 new lines.

Climbing is not for the faint hearted.

The top height of the lines is around 12m and, even though you have someone at the bottom belaying for you, sometimes physics and gravity take over and there were several occasions when the belayer found that they no longer had their feet firmly on the ground.

The amazing team of purple shirt volunteers were always ready to step up and help out, give advice, and tips on how to try and complete the climbs.

Benjamin Rodgers-Foran (NSC), Oscar McCartney (Wakatipu) , Frankie Neverman (Fiordland College) on the Fiordland Climbing Wall. Photo: Jeanna Rodgers

The Southland event has been run every year in Invercargill since 2011 but restrictions meant that last year’s event had to turn into a competition just for Fiordland College.

Main organiser, Vaughn Filmer, who also teaches PE and Outdoor Ed at Fiordland College, said it was great to have other schools join them again this year.

The plan for the future is to have three events - Fiordland, Invercargill and Queenstown - and competitors would accumulate their scores to decide the winners.

Originally, there was supposed to be a first round in September down in Invercargill, but it was called off due to low numbers despite there being the same number of students at the event on Saturday.

You need to have someone passionate behind the event for it to happen unfortunately, so Invercargill’s event was a no-go, but Te Anau definitely has this enthusiasm - in bucketloads.

The Fiordland Climbing wall which opened in May 2021 has become really popular and runs public sessions 4 times a week.

During terms 2 and 3 Fiordland College also runs Climbing Club after school sessions twice a week and has a good number of students come along.

Their biggest age group is the Year 7 and 8 students so the competition on Saturday allowed them to join in the Junior age group even though it is technically for High School aged students.

They have a good mix of genders, but Filmer has noticed that the girls tend to drop off after about year 10 and he’s keen for this to change.

He did remind people at the end of the competition that they were welcome to come and join the club in terms 2 and 3 for after school climbing.

Filmer said they are expecting the numbers using the wall to improve from now since we are moving into tourist season and borders have reopened so it might get a little warm in the middle of summer.

3rd place Junior Male, Oscar McCartney (Year 10) from Wakatipu High enjoyed his day climbing. 

McCartney has been climbing since he was about 7 having been encouraged by his father who is also a climber.

In Queenstown they can climb all year round both indoors (at the Queenstown Events Centre or Basecamp) and outdoors on the Remarkables in summer.

While he enjoys the indoors, he said he does prefer climbing outdoors in the fresh air.

He said that it’s great to have some other schools join them as there aren’t many competitions down this end of the country and travel makes it difficult to get to events further up the country.

He competed at the Fiordland Pump Fest in May this year and at the National bouldering champs - but an injury stopped him doing as well as he could.

Wakatipu High brought two teams to the competition and all but one of those students was female.

Most of them have climbed several times before and they all commented how much they enjoy the climbing.

They feel it’s a great sport for anyone, no matter your gender, but it’s beneficial to be coached by someone who climbs the same.

For females it’s more about flexibility than strength and gives your whole body a great workout.

It’s a personal preference as to the type of climbing you like but most of the girls preferred bouldering due to the fact that there’s more thinking involved to work out the puzzle of how to get where you want to go.

Training for these girls was 2 to 3 times a week and third place getter, Cybella Briscoe (year 10) also coaches students younger and older than herself which is a great challenge and useful for her Duke of Edinburgh award which she is currently working on.

The girls also commented that there aren’t many competitions down this end of the country, and they’ve been to mini competitions in Auckland and Tauranga so travel is expensive.

Briscoe heads off to the National bouldering champs in Christchurch in December.

First timers, Northern Southland College, also sent 2 teams and thoroughly enjoyed their day despite not getting as far up the climbs as they would have liked.

Ashley Chan and Lori Bradley (both Year 10) commented that it was lots of fun but pretty challenging.

They were expecting to have sore arms the next day as none of them had done any training before the competition.

At the end of the event, congratulations were given out to the category winners with promises of medals to come, the Fiordland College champion trophies were awarded and then a random generator selected the order for the students to come up and choose a spot prize.

Thanks to the generosity of the business community, everyone was able to take something home from food and climbing vouchers to hats.

A big thanks also went to organisation and business supporters Ditto NZ, Sandfly Cafe, Fiordland Cinema, Outside Sports, Subway NZ, Mountain Adventure NZ and the Fiordland Climbing wall.

Results from the day:

Junior Girls

1st: Alisa Schenk Wakatipu year 9 155 points

2nd: Jemima Hoskin Fiordland year 8 125 points

3rd: Cybella Briscoe Wakatipu year 10 120 points

Junior Boys

1st AJ Magness Fiordland year 10 200 points

2nd Elan Hill Fiordland year 10 170 points

3rd Oscar McCartney Wakatipu year 10 165 points

Senior Girls (no climbers)

Senior Boys

1st Keegan Magness Fiordland year 12 195 points

2nd Bailey Taylor Fiordland year 13 175 points

3rd Riley Taylor Fiordland year 12 135 points