If I lived in Austin, I would seriously consider making this my primary climbing gym.
The good:
- It's huge! Even though it gets crowded, there's just so much space to climb on that I doubt you'd ever wait longer than a few minutes to climb your desired problem. In addition to the insanely large bouldering area, there are kids/youth climbing areas, an upstairs airy space for studying/hanging out with outlets/wifi, a yoga room, and a seriously incredible fitness gym built for the hybrid crossfitter/climber.
- It's new. No gross feet/armpit smell, everything is sparkly clean, and the holds are clean and not faded. The locker rooms in particular are impressive, with bathrooms, lockers, changing areas, showers, a SAUNA (what!!!), a sitting area with blowdryers and straighteners.
- There's so much variety, for the novice all the way to the very experienced. It's so much more fun to climb in an environment where everyone is interested in the sport but all coming from different places. I loved how the gym covered all kinds of problems with all sorts of holds, including overhang/ledge, cave, corner, arete, balance/transfer/slab, top out boulders, etc. There's just so much volume that if you have a weak area you want to work on, there will be plenty of problems suited for that area.
- Their circuit coloring system for grading problems is so great. I really enjoyed it because it challenged me to climb more freely without having specific grades attached. Basically instead of a specific "V" grade, the problems are colored, and each color represents a range of V difficulties. For example, beginners climb the yellow, red, and green problems, which would be VB-V0, V0-V2, V1-V3, V1-V3 ranges, respectively. You can't tell for sure how difficult a route is within a color until you try, so I ended up trying way more than I would have typically. There's a handy color wheel on a card at the front desk you can grab to help you decide what colors you can flash and project your first time here.
- There are tons of volumes (basically pyramids stuck to the walls) that are incorporated into the problems. I liked this because they let you solve problems in more ways than a simple hold would have. It was especially fun as a short climber to utilize volumes for moves that required more flexibility or a high feet.
- There are ladders near every few sets of problems to help you climb down
- There's a hidden away climbers workout area in the middle of a large boulder that has hangboards, campusboards, a huge wall of various types of holds (for traversing? inventing your own problems? practicing holds? didn't stay too long to look), and a "treadmill" (for testing endurance? also not entirely sure but it looked fun!).
- Free loaner chalk bags and the staff were even kind enough to supply us with some extra chalk because we had run out.
- Free shoe rental for first-timers
- Discounts for students
- The day pass ($16) includes access to classes and the fitness room
The bad:
- The day pass is $16 which is rather steep for just bouldering. It does give you access to their classes and fitness room which is nice, but if you wanted to just boulder for a short session, it's excessive. I wish they had a "bouldering only" pass that was cheaper. That's the only reason I with-held one star.
- I can see how parking would be a pain, the lot isn't that huge and people tend to stay a few hours so turnover wouldn't be super fast (this is all conjecture so correct me if I'm wrong)
- I don't consider this "bad" since it's such a luxury, but there's no cafe/coffee option in this huge space. It's not bad since it's not a standard thing to include in a gym but it would have been a nice touch. There is food/granola bars/drinks that you can purchase though!
The unknown:
- Can't comment on how often they change their problems, though, since I've only been once
- Haven't looked into their membership options but check out their website for more details. read more