Climbers from all over the Southeast traveled to Tuscaloosa this weekend to compete in the ninth installment of the T-Town Pull Down, which took place in the University of Alabama Student Recreation Center’s climbing facility.

About 25 to 30 climbers from The University of Alabama, Clemson, Georgia State, Georgia Tech and Valdosta State competed in Saturday’s tournament. Next year, the Outdoor Recreation Center plans to host the competition in their new facility at Presidential Village.

In preparation for the annual event, the Rec Center’s climbing wall was temporarily closed for two weeks. The Outdoor Recreation staff stripped the walls and created new routes for the competition.

“We’ve been working pretty steadily for several weeks getting the routes set, getting the competition ready, getting the gifts and the prizes, everything set up to go,” Sam Bates, a senior majoring in human performance exercise science, said. “All our staff helped set the routes, and therefore, we get to climb them and have fun, so it is a really fun time. We get to use our imagination and climb the routes and climb each other’s routes.”

Throughout the day, climbers tested out the routes the staff created and tried their best to complete them. The routes varied in difficulty, and the climbers could attempt each one with as many tries as needed in the set time frame of about two hours.

Outdoor Recreation staff member and bike shop manager Wren Smith said there are two ways a climber is scored. The first is by “flashing” a route, which is to complete the route on the climber’s first try and earns the climber more points. The other is to finish the route on several tries.

The climber’s top five route scores were totaled together, and they were then ranked into certain subdivisions: men’s beginner, intermediate and advanced and women’s beginner and advanced. The top three male and female competitors were chosen to compete in the final round, which featured new routes. In the finals, climbers had three routes to conquer with five minutes devoted to each route.

“The last round was rough,” Brandon McChristian, a freshman majoring in mechanical engineering, said. “You just have to trust the pads, though, when you fall.”

McChristian was one of the finalists. He was the first competitor to try the routes and said it was difficult to be the first one out there. McChristian finished third overall.

The finalists for men in the order they placed are Ryan Copeland, Hayden Ligget and Brandon McChristian. For the women, Caroly Coffey took first followed by Linae Maganini and Krys Kittredge.

The T-Town Pull Down has continued to grow each year and climbers of all levels enjoy competing.

McChristian said he thought the event was well put together, and because he had a good time, he will definitely come back to future events.

“Everybody’s kind of established this is a really good place to climb, really good routes,” Bates said. “Everybody seems to enjoy it and have a good time.”