A master of upward mobility

At the age of 15, Melissa Main’s athletic ambitions have hit a wall.

The Lewis and Clark High School sophomore enjoys basketball and she made the varsity gymnastics team as a freshman. But her passion for defying gravity has taken her to the top of another sport that will peak this week at the 2005 World Youth Climbing Championship in Beijing.

Maine is among about 35 boy and girl climbers in various age groups and divisions who qualified to represent the United States in the international competition, according to USA Climbing, the national governing body of competitive climbing

First she had to place high in a series of regional and divisional contests that led her to the national climbing competition last month in Boston, where she finished second in the 14-15 year-old division.

“I was feeling good on that climb when my foot slipped just two moves from the top,” she said. “The winner came off one move higher.”

While there’s an event to see who can climb the fastest up a vertical wall fixed with artificial climbing holds, Main will be competing in the “difficulty” event to see who can climb the highest on a route in which each move is designed to be more difficult. These routes eventually go beyond vertical and into overhangs.

At this level of competition, there’s no top rope. The contestants are “lead climbing” and they must continuously clip their safety rope into fixed protection as they scale the wall.

“All the competitors are isolated until it’s our turn to climb,” Main said. “Then we get 45 seconds to look at the route before we start.

“I try to figure out each move in my head – right hand here, left hand there. Most of the climbs are designed to foul you up if you use the wrong hand on a hold.”

Main got her first taste of indoor gym climbing as a 10-year-old, when her father took her to Wild Walls climbing gym. “He’s a climber and we had a good time,” she said.

As she matured she realized the power she packed in a small package – she’s 5-foot 2 and only 105 pounds – gave her a big boost in the sport.

Asked if she knew of any fat climbers, she said, “Well, not any good ones.”

She’s seen plenty of experts throughout the tough Pacific Northwest division as well as at the continental cup contest she competed in last year at Mexico City. But the sport is still fairly obscure and sponsorships are rare. She said USA athletes will have to pay their own way to China.

Her training regimen should include some running, she said, noting that she’s sloughed a little in that department. But she’s heard the world championship routes will be longer than she’s accustomed to, so she was stepping up the workouts before she was scheduled to leave for China on Thursday.

“I’m working on endurance by doing laps on the routes at Wild Walls; then I do a couple hundred crunches.”

Meanwhile, she has maintained her connection with the roots of the sport by heading outside to real rocks where nature dictates the moves.

“I’ve been to Smith Rocks (in Oregon) and they were great, but we have lots of good spots an hour or two from Spokane,” she said, as she stuffed her pack with gear for a trip last weekend with a friend to camp and climb rocks near Metaline Falls.

“The gym is great for training, but we go outside to do the hard stuff and have fun.”