Climbing gyms may be the new, well, gyms. Their numbers across the U.S. have more than doubled in the past decade. By the end of 2020, there will be around 600 facilities compared to less than 300 in 2010. According to Climbing Business Journal, a record number opened in 2018, and while 2019 slacked off significantly, 2020 is expected to set another record. Urban dwellers are especially craving the funky hand calluses and chalk dust associated with the sport. In New York alone, there are now over 10 with more on the way.
Why are urbanites choosing climbing gyms as opposed to traditional health clubs?
Atmosphere, for starters. Lounges, co-working spaces, Wi-Fi, yoga studios, saunas, beer taps, and cafés. The climbing gyms opening in a city near you offer some serious amenities. Mix in the conducive social setting of the sport and asymmetric wall architecture with colorful holds that paint the walls, and you’re quickly increasing urban quality of living. Not to mention, the minimum gear needed is simply a pair of shoes.
All the Gear You Need to Rock the Cool Climbing LookAnother reason is the climbing gym’s ability to connect us (despite being largely indoors) to the broader outdoor lifestyle without leaving the city.
“It has become part of our culture to interact with the outdoors and nature. It’s what we do,” says Scott Rennak, publisher of Climbing Business Journal, and marketing manager for Colorado’s The Spot—a gym with locations in Boulder and now Denver. “We are supposed to go hiking, skiing, hunting, ATVing, climbing, all that stuff that gets you dirty and sunburned. None of that can be practiced in cities or buildings. Except climbing.”
Here are a handful of climbing gyms that opened in 2019 worth hanging around.
How to Ace Your First Indoor Climbing Gym Experience
Central Rock Gym has a prime spot in downtown Boston. The gym is at a crossroads of major attractions in the city and just down the street from the subway’s North Station. Let’s not leave out the city-skyline vista that climber’s enjoy while traversing 5,000 square feet of bouldering walls. “The views of downtown from the gym are unparalleled,” says Central Rock Gym co-founder and owner Joe Hardy.
The downtown location is one of seven in the Boston area owned by Central Rock Gym, also with facilities in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New York. When you aren’t chalking up the gym has fitness areas, yoga classes, and lounge space for hopping on Wi-Fi.
The Cliffs is well established with locations in New York City and now has transformed a warehouse north of Center City, Philadelphia into a full-scale facility.
The Cliffs at Callowhill not only has every kind of wall you can think up in its 40,000 square feet, including bouldering, top-roping, lead climbing, even an Olympic training speed wall. It also has a dedicated yoga studio, fitness center, full retail shop, indoor bike storage for your cherished single-speed, and wait, that’s right, a sauna.
Lorraine Ciccarelli/The Cliffs
Sequence Climbing is a stand-alone bouldering gym in the Crossroads Arts District of Kansas City, Mo. The exposed brick interior and overhead garage door are a good match for the aisles of bouldering problems in this Midwest creative enclave.
Remote workers looking to clock in without leaving the atmosphere can grab a nitro coffee or kombucha and open up their laptop at the co-working tables and lounge. Sequence hosts some fun events like trivia night for those off-days when you still want to kick it with your gym crew.
Andrew Conroy @andrewsconroy/Sequence Climbing
Front Range climbers are probably familiar with the Boulder-based climbing gym that has been getting folks stoked on rock climbing in Colorado since the early 2000s. Last year the Spot finally opened a second location in Denver’s Golden Triangle neighborhood.
The centralized downtown location means Denver residents have a handful of good options to reach the 19,000 square-foot bouldering gym via public transit—something The Spot strongly endorses. When your arms are worn out from the after-work crimping session pull up a stool and grab a cold beer from The Spot’s rotating cast of Avery Brewing beverages. Or be sure to show up for Final Fridays, a monthly gathering of artists, music, and food trucks to pair with your cold brew.
Long Beach Rising has made its home in one of the most unique climbing spaces you’ll find anywhere. The nearly 100-year-old Packard Building was built as an aesthetic automobile showroom using Spanish Baroque-style architecture. The decorative arches and detailed column work still remain, bringing an altogether different experience to gym-goers than the usual warehouse-style buildings that gyms gravitate toward.
Long Beach Rising features bouldering walls, weight rooms, yoga studios, and sauna. When you aren’t climbing, feel free to hang around the lounge or the in-house café coming soon.
Courtesy of Long Beach RisingThe post The Best New Climbing Gyms in America appeared first on Men's Journal.
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