Imst Youth Color Climbing festival

On Thursday mum and I left from Edinburgh airport to travel to Imst in Austria for the Climbing Colour Festival. I was ssooooooooooo excited. Mum picked me up early from school and we met up with Angus, William, Nikki and Sophie at the airport. It was a two hour flight to Munich airport and then we hired a car to drive to Austria. Mum and I had our own car and we were going to follow Gordon and Martin because they had sat nav, but Gordon drove too fast and it was dark and raining and so we lost him after 5 minutes. Nikki’s dad Jimmy saw us and so we followed him. It took a long time and we didn’t arrive in Imst until 12.30. I was so tired although I had slept in the car. Our room was great and I could see the climbing wall from the balcony. The next morning we had breakfast at 9 and then went to the alpine rollercoaster. We went on a cable car up the mountain fro about 30 minutes and then came down on a little buggy attached to rails with( when you are on it with my mum) no brakes !!!! It was brilliant. I went on it two more times with Nikki and Sophie, but used my brakes. We then had some pizza and bout some food for the next day. We then went to the climbing wall to have a look and register. The wall was awesome and I was number 15 out of 29 in my group.
The next morning we had breakfast at 7.30 and we were at the wall at 8 to meet Ian Dunn for our warm up. After the warm up, I did my own warm up and then watched the demonstrations at 8.45. The first route was okay but it I was quite nervous. It was very busy with lots of people watching and nobody spoke English in my group. They were from Austria, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Israel, Slovakia, Germany and France. When they called my name they said Steeeyouert Gabrrryelle Great Breetain. But we always went in the same order so I knew when it was my turn. There was an Austrian girl called Helena after me and she always said ‘luck’ to me before I started.
It was difficult to keep warm all day and I had to keep taking my shoes off and on and not do too much bouldering in between because we didn’t finish until 6. I topped all of the 6 routes on the first day but so did everyone else apart from one!! William, Angus and Nikki did well, they had really really hard climbs. Sophie didn’t feel she had done her best because she was shaking with nerves.
We went for pasta and ice cream and went to bed. I knew the routes were going to be a lot harder the next day.
We did our warm up and stretches and then watched the first two demos. My first rute was a purple, which looked a bit tricky but okay. I managed to get one hold from the top but whacked my chin and came off. It was okay after a couple of minutes and so I concentrated on the next one which was a a very technical blue. Lots of the climbers were coming off on this one. I managed to get about three quarters of the way up and then came off. My second last climb was very weird. It was more like a traversing boulder and then up. I got to the third last hold. And the final route was a green route which again was quite technical. I climbed this quite well and came off 2 holds from the top. I don’t think I climbed the absolute best I could have climbed, I was nervous and so my muscles were tense, but I really enjoyed it and learned loads. At the end I was 19th, the others were in the older category and Nikki was 11th, Angus was 9th, William was 23rd ( I think) and Sophie was 34th, I think we did well for Scotland. There was a prize giving and then we drove back to Munich airport. We arrived home at 12 which was 1am in Austria so I was exhausted. I was allowed to take the next day off school and so I have been doing nothing all day. I absolutely loved my trip to Imst and made really good friends with Nikki. I hope I see her soon she is an amazing climber.