This is a good gym for children, a bad gym for adults, and has a wonderful staff.
There aren't any other climbing gyms in the Midlothian area. For indoor climbing, Peak Experiences is it. This gym has the basics and is definitely more ropes oriented. The bouldering cave is small, both in terms of surface area and the height of the finishes.
The positives: great, knowledgable and friendly staff. Good selection of hangboards, campus boards, bouldering circuit wall, etc. Has amenities like nail clippers, first aid kits, brushes, gear rental, etc. Offers classes such as yoga and TRX.
Peak Experiences has many fundamental problems, which I hope they address over time. Listed in no particular order:
- The entire floor of the ropes area is loose gravel. I'm not kidding. No mats, no padding, just loose rocks. Even worse is that you can't get to the bouldering cave without walking over loose rocks. Climbing is a sport where you wear uncomfortable shoes and usually take them off between climbs. Forcing patrons to walk over loose gravel is an obvious blunder. The regulars bring flip flops, which I would recommend for serious climbers who visit.
- The mat in the bouldering cave is low quality. It's at most 5(?) inches thick and doesn't offer as nice padding as traditional climbing gym mats. There are also a few routes that end near the edge of the mat, which clearly has wooden beams running under it. So for some routes it's easy to fall and plant your leg directly on a solid beam!
- The bouldering cave is built for children. If you're taller than five feet you can jump and grab the top of the wall in most places.
- The route setting is generally uncreative and lacking. Many routes just repeat the same hold or hold type for the duration of the route. This usually indicates less work put into the route setting, sacrificing climb quality and creativity for ease of setting.
- The route ratings aren't just bad, they're bonkers. In the bouldering cave they're almost random. There are V1s that are harder than V4s. The setters clearly over-compensate for the low heights by trying to make routes a lot harder, but don't do so consistently. Whatever level you're climbing at, discard it and pick a random number. Several patrons I've talked to agreed, the ratings make no sense, which is an indication of poor setting quality.
- To compensate for the low bouldering cave height, there are some *terrible* moves on routes. There are lots of gastons (easy to tear a rotator cuff!), underclings that only someone 4 feet tall could hold (again, it's a gym for children), crossovers to crimps on V3s(!) that you could easily strain a muscle on. Some of the very hard moves are on lower rated routes, like V2s and V3s, which could easily injure a newcomer with less technique. Be careful!
- Figuring out which hold belongs to which route is a cruel joke bordering on nightmare. Every route start has a laminated card indicating the color of the route holds and where on the wall it "tops outs" (misuse of terminology, no routes top out). Routes end at specific places dictated by colored tape and a number. First of all, most of the cards are completely faded and you can't read anything on them. To make matters worse, they set pink, red, yellow, orange, and white routes all in the same place. These holds are low quality and *covered* in rubber and chalk. And most of them are poorly lit and in shadow! Imagine trying to figure out if your chalky, rubbery foot hold is red, orange, yellow or pink in an unlit area of the bouldering cave. You'll spend more time figuring out what's part of the route than climbing it, guaranteed! An easy and obvious solution to this, which most climbing gyms do, is 1) use new holds when you set, and 2) put colored tape under each hold to help clearly show the route.
- None of the bouldering routes top out (where you actually climb over the top of the wall to finish). They're all jump down endings. And yet, the terminology "top out" is misused everywhere.
- The gym section of the gym is a bit lacking. It's more TRX focused so there are lots of resistance bands, etc if that's your thing. In terms of weights, there's only free weights. There's no benches or squat cages. No pull up bars, weighted machines, leg press, dip station...nothing really gym related. There's only a TRX(?) support beam running across an open area to attach bands to. The free weights are also bonkers, they go up by 5 pound increments until they hit 40 pounds, then the next highest weight is 60 pounds, and there's nothing above that! It doesn't make any sense! If you want to do incremental weight training you'll have to get creative.
To sum up: For a kids birthday party, or for young climbers training for competitions, this is a great place. For adults it's probably better to get a membership to a regular, complete gym, focus on outdoor climbing, and nail strips of plywood to a wall at home for strength training. read more