Banff Mountain Film Festival

The Banff Mountain Film Festival is this Wednesday May 1st at 7pm at Lincoln Center downtown Billings.  While not an official team event, the selection of films are mountain recreation oriented and always inspiring.  If you have some free time in your schedule I highly recommend attending.  I believe tickets are $10.

Outdoor Summer Session 2013

EXPECTATIONS

Steepteam is not a guide service for beginners. Steepteam is a program for youth with climbing experience to develop further skills towards becoming a life long rock climber. Outdoor safety techniques are the primary focus of our outdoor summer session. Younger team members will learn and practice the skills of top roping while older team members learn and develop their sport climbing techniques.  Everyone is expected to attend the May indoor sessions.  Climbers showing minimal progress with the taught safety techniques will not be allowed to join the team outside.

Our outdoor trips frequent locations like the Rims above Billings, Cody WY, Paradise Valley MT, and Ten Sleep, WY. We maintain a maximum 4:1 climber to guide ratio on all outdoor trips.

COACHES

This summer we will have AMGA Certified Guide Daniel Burson and Beartooth Pioneer Chad Chadwick.  Both are very experienced and also guide with Beartooth Mountain Guides.

DATES & APROXIMATE TIMES

Indoor Sessions: 

Junior Team (born 2000 - 2004) - 6-7:30pm 

Senior Team (born 1994-1999) - 7:30-9pm

May 14, 16, 21, 23, 28, 30 

Evenings on the Rims: 

June 4, 13,18, 27 and July 2, 16, 18, 23

Saturday Day Trips:  

June 8th (Allenspur near Livingston) 

June 22 (TBD) 

July 13 (The Island near Cody) 

July 27 (TBD)

REGISTRATION

To maintain a safe climbing environment we strictly adhere to a 4:1 climber to guide ratio in our outdoor sessions.  We will host a registration session at Steepworld Climbing Gym on Wednesday May 8th from 5:30pm - 7pm. If you cannot attend the registration session and plan on climbing with the team this summer, please call Joel Anderson at (406)860-7616 or Thad McGrail (406)860-0118 prior to the 8th.

If you are interested in Steepteam but new to rock climbing Steepworld Climbing Gym offers great options for beginner climbers.  The Steepteam fall competitive indoor session is open to all youth climbers ages 9-18 interested in attending climbing competitions.  The fall session will begin in October, details and schedule are to be determined but expected to be similar to previous years.

COSTS

The team fee for the 2013 summer session is $250 per climber, the same as 2012.  Steepteam operates as a 501c3 non-profit and all fees go directly back into the program. The summer fee helps us pay for experienced coaches and guides, group gear (ropes, anchors, helmets, and quickdraws), insurance, and other administrative costs associated with running the Steepteam program. For comparison's sake, a hired climbing guide for a full day will cost you $200-$350. We're offering 6 indoor education sessions and 12 outdoor sessions. Team members are also expected to maintain a membership at Steepworld Climbing Gym while the team uses their facilities. 

SCHOLARSHIPS

Steepteam offers need based scholarships.  Contact Joel or Thad for more information.

Volunteers Needed

As we prepare for the upcoming competition on Saturday we are looking for any volunteers, adult or senior team member, to help assist with washing holds.  Due to the large volume of handholds that get taken down and then need to go back up on the wall in a short period of time, we're always looking for an extra set of hands to help us meet our deadlines.  We'll even buy the volunteer(s) dinner Wednesday night and give them a tour of the competition routesetting process.  Please contact Joel if interested.  We'd greatly appreciate any bit of time donated to us.

Montana Bouldering Championship 2013 Registration

Pre-register online HERE, or at the gym.

Wrapping Up the Competitive Season

Our Schedule for the next couple weeks looks like this........

Thur - Jan 24 - practice
Tues - Jan 29 - last practice of the season
Thur - Jan 31 - no practice
Tues - Feb 5 - Team Pizza Party, wall teardown.  Begins at 6pm.
Thur - Feb 7 - no practice, competition preparation
Sat - Feb 9 - 2pm - The 2013 Montana Bouldering Championship.

Youth Outdoor Climbing Opportunities for Summer 2013

Touch the Sky Youth Climbing out of Bozeman, run by Bozeman coach Aaron Hjelt, is offering up some big trips for the ambitious climber this summer.  Climbing trips to Germany, Canada, Ten Sleep, and Bozeman.  More information is available here.

Steepteam will be announcing our local summer outdoor plans in February.

Montana Bouldering Championships 2013

The last scheduled comp of the year is the Montana Bouldering Championships, hosted by Steepworld on February 9th beginning at 2:15pm.  The comp was originally scheduled for February 2nd, but was pushed back a week by request of the gym.  See the official competition website for more information.  As a fund raiser for Steepteam, all proceeds for this competition go to the Steepteam 501c3 fund to help cover insurance costs for our outdoor summer trips.

Regionals - Divisionals - and the Holidays

First off, great job everyone that climbed at Regionals. We faced stiff competition and climbed our best. I'm proud of every single climber that took on the challenge. In the end we had 4 climbers qualify for Divisionals; Jaden, Roc, Kaleb, and Charlie. They compete in Portland the second weekend in January.

Second, a reminder that we take a little break over the holidays. Tuesday night December 18th is our last practice until Thursday night January 3rd. The gym will be open all week like normal (except Christmas) please get in and climb a bunch!