Budding rock star climbing her way to the top

Piper Boudart knows how to rock it out.

Really.

The 11-year-old Cary girl has secured a spot on the U.S.A. climbing team for bouldering that competes across America in indoor rock-climbing contests.

She won the spot for placing fourth in her age group during the American Bouldering Series competition in February.

Bouldering is a type of climbing that involves scaling a route on a wall that requires technique and strength.

Piper was 10 years old when she earned this honor, but because she's not yet 13, Piper is too young to climb with the U.S.A. team internationally.

"She really has a natural talent for climbing, it just seems to come really easily to her," said her coach Eric Widing.

Bouldering is Piper's favorite type of climbing and although these are relatively low climbs that don't involve harnesses, they're still quite challenging, the fifth-grader said.

"Sometimes it's the holes that can make it difficult and there can be a big reach or weird positions or endurance," Piper said. "Sometimes people think it's easy but it's really not."

Piper, who attends Prairie Hill Elementary School, has been climbing for all of two years.

She got into the sport on a lark, said her father Michael Boudart.

Piper was climbing at North Wall Climbing Gym on a park district activity day with her sister Zoe when staffers noticed how good she was.

Boudart said he was initially skeptical about their enthusiasm.

"Of course, we were wondering if they just wanted her to join and get on the team, but lo and behold, they weren't kidding," her father said.

Piper, who says her favorite part of the sport is that it separates her from the rest of her friends, began cleaning up at local competitions and at one point, even won 10 consecutive first places.

"She wins just about everything in the Midwest locally," Boudart said. "She finally faced some pretty stiff competition when it gets to the national level."

She trains twice a week in Crystal Lake with a team at North Wall and with her coach, who says there's always room for improvement.

"What she really needs to work on is being able to try routes or problems that are above her difficulty level," Widing said. "She's a really strong climber and she just has to try whatever she can."

But as Piper climbs the ranks of the sport's most elite, her family will have to dig deeper and deeper into their collective pockets.

Her father estimates that between equipment, plane tickets and hotel accommodations, the family has spent several thousand dollars on his Piper's rock climbing endeavors.

"You're on the hook to get your kid to the competitions," Boudart said.

Piper has begun the sport's second season and is currently training for a regional sport climbing competition later on this month that will be held in Des Moines, Iowa.

In sport climbing, competitors are harnessed and clipped into certain points on walls between 40 and 50 feet high.

If Piper does well there, she heads to the division competition in Dallas and could eventually make it all the way it to the nationals in Atlanta.

Climbers are scored based on their time and Piper has a relatively low-key ritual before she starts any contest.

"I don't really do much," Piper said. "I say a prayer before I go."

Her parents are her biggest fans and are looking forward to a summer trip out to Devils Lake, North Dakota which will give Piper a chance to get in some real rock climbing.

"She's our little rock star," Boudart said. "It's a real joy to find something your kid is good at and that just gives her a lot of joy."