When you first walk into a climbing gym, regardless of your ability, you might generally look around at the surroundings, check out the walls, and get a feel for the place. You might gauge how “serious” it is by the attitude of the folks at the door, the grade of the route markings, or just by surveying the clientele. If you're interested in “serious” climbing, the conventional wisdom suggests avoiding facilities overflowing with kids for fear of the inclement noise or walls that have chaotic route tape and old, unwashed holds, which might be a sign of management neglect.

So if all of that is true, you will think I am flat out crazy when I suggest that one of the best climbing facilities in the country has holds up that were made before you were born, on routes taped years ago, and obliges you to give deference to pre-teens in leotards running at high speeds past the walls every single night. Welcome to CATS (Colorado Athletic Training School), where you will find some of the steepest climbing in the country, among the most difficult indoor boulder problems in the world, and on a good night, perhaps more double-digit boulderers training than at any other facility in North America. But when you walk in you may not even be aware that this is a bouldering gym. Since climbing makes up just a quarter of the “terrain” at CATS, the first people you will see are aspiring gymnasts doing double-back handsprings or iron-crosses on the rings. And if the friendly desk staff, the management, or the climbers within do not scrutinize you the same way you did them when you first walked in, that is because your ego is not a priority.

Even if you have not been to Colorado, you may have heard of the Boulder Rock Club or The Spot, spectacular competition-scale gyms with superbly designed terrain, but if you have spent much time in Boulder, you may also have heard that the place to train is CATS. It's been that way long before the BRC or the Spot were even built. Run by Rob Candelaria, a super strong and prolific boulderer for the past three decades, who built the facility in 1988, CATS was one of the first facilities in the country to offer indoor climbing to the public. It has long been a proving ground for American climbers, largely due to the strong community built around Rob's little training gym. The grand-daddy of indoor training in Boulder, you might call him, Rob says, “I originally built CATS Climbing for myself and my friends and never thought that it would catch on.” He says he designed the gym with a love for the “infinite possibility of movement.” If you ask Rob about himself and his facility, you will not hear any self- promotion or a list of CATS accolades, but his humble demeanor does not accurately portray his reputation. He has numerous first ascents ticked in the Front Range over almost four decades of climbing, as well as super hard bouldering sends, such as the second ascent of Skip's Pebble Traverse, V11. Robyn Erbesfield-Rabatou, the only American to win a World Cup (which she did three times), first came to Boulder specifically to be trained by Rob, and continued climbing here during her reign as the strongest female competitive climber in the world. Tommy Caldwell, Emily Harrington, Katie Brown and numerous others climbed here as kids. Now CATS is frequented by a slew of young phenoms like Daniel Woods and Paul Robinson, as well as lesser known, but insanely strong climbers like Seth Allred and Ben Safdi. Due to the caliber of the facility's athletes, the climbing history buried within, and the confluence of light-hearted community and intense athletic energy, the aura surrounding this gym is captivating.

For almost two decades limit-pushing routes have been scattered across these walls and numerous prolific climbers have frequented CATS. Erbesfield-Rabatou says that Rob “... had quite a reputation as my trainer,” and that “everyone wanted to be around him and his gym.” This included legendary climbers like Francois LeGrand, Yuji Hirayama, and Liv Sansov - who would come by CATS to train while on climbing trips to the states. Herman Feissner, or “Herm” to friends around the climbing world, is a local who has been bouldering at CATS for about fifteen years, and has seen much of the history firsthand. In the beginning, bouldering at CATS meant face climbing up the painted concrete warehouse walls on sandstone flakes glued to the surface (clocking in at 5.12 and easy 5.13 climbing). Peter Beal, who began training at CATS in 1995, was climbing here just as bouldering was beginning to be taken seriously. “People were probably regularly climbing V11/V12 before that was even common in climbing gyms,” Beal says. The energy surrounding CATS has always provided an environment for hard climbing, in part because of the strong company, but also because everyone is psyched to climb as a group. In such a small space, social interaction is almost forced and, whether friends or new acquaintances, people begin climbing together almost immediately; according to some stories, sometimes even a little too close for comfort.

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JAMIE EMERSON, MIKE MOELTER AND CHRIS DANIELSON

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HERMAN FEISSNER

On late nights and during infamous Christmas parties, a slew of hard men would have notoriously injurious climbing/drinking sessions. Rob describes the antics at parties as “stupid human tricks in rare form,” and Herm adds that “somebody would go to the hospital every year.” But even at the height of the partying, it is safe to assume that these guys were still probably sending harder than most other climbers in the country. Herm notes that CATS has always attracted the best talent in the area, stating, “When people become serious about climbing and need an open environment for trying new things, they come to CATS.”

The “open environment” has as much to do with the social atmosphere as the freedom implicit in the layout on the walls. At roughly four holds per square foot in less than 2,000 square feet of climbing, the hold density here is at least twice as much as most climbing gym bouldering areas. Rob changes holds only a few times a decade and leaves routes up for almost as long, constantly enjoying what he calls “the infinite possibility of movement.” Climbing gyms around the world might be smart to emulate this approach in training-specific areas. Taped routes are not set from the ground up on blank walls, but by creating lines from the existing holds. Somewhat of a hold museum, the grips themselves also capture much of CATS' fascinating history. Some of the first modular grips ever made are bolted on this wall and climbed on daily, and there are hundreds you will never find in any other climbing gym in the country. They include classic Front Range granite rocks, homemade wood and clay holds, e-Grips one-of-a-kind shapes, and countless unique designs from companies long gone, like Straight Up, Pusher, and Yaniro Holds. The holds are generally smaller and sharper than most finger-friendly shapes mass-produced today, and part of the reason why CATS is almost exclusively home to advanced climbers is because there are few holds larger than hand-size, especially in the roof, where hundreds of razor crimps make for countless V12 - V14 possibilities.

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