FUTURE GYMS

THE MOVEMENT

It’s a cloudy spring day, 2009, and I’m standing in a parking lot in Boulder, Colorado, with Mike Moelter, a thin, soft-spoken guy of medium height, with dark hair, and an elfi sh face. I’m here for a tour of the structure looming above us: Boulder’s latest (and fourth) climbing gym, Movement — one of America’s newest and most notable next generation gyms.

“The building’s basically a giant Erector Set that bolts directly to the foundation,” Moelter, the Movement operations manager, says to me over the sound of passing traffic. Far from the isolated, maze-like industrial parks home to many first-gen gyms, Movement’s on a major thoroughfare. The metal-box structure boasts huge windows, and the awning above the tall, glass entryway is topped with photovoltaic panels that convert sunlight into energy. The roof also boasts these panels, providing much of the energy needed to operate Movement, a 22,000-square-foot structure. “Our first energy bill was $19.72 . . . and that was in the middle of summer,” Moelter says.

Inside Movement, day lighting pours in through windows and skylights. The atmosphere is a mixture of indoor and outdoor. Moelter hands me a hard hat and shows me the front desk, made out of a renewable material called Plyboo. The place has the feel of a fancy day spa. Everything is clean and bright, and, a big hallmark of a next-gen gym, purpose-built. The building housing Movement’s walls was conceived of and designed as a climbing gym — the project started from scratch, and every aspect of the building was constructed with the best possible experience, on the wall or off, in mind.

“This will be Anne-Worley’s office,” Moelter says, poking his head into one spacious room. Anne-Worely Moelter is Mike’s wife and Movement’s general manager/ mission controller. Together, they’ve been planning the gym for years. (Previously, they ran USA Climbing.) As we continue the tour, Moelter shows off every unfinished room and structure like a proud parent: a conference room, a staffed daycare center, locker rooms and showers, a lounge area with free WiFi, a sizeable top-out bouldering zone. . . .

Movement hosts 17,500 square feet of climbing surface. When we get to the main climbing area, we walk down a bank of huge, stadium-style steps designed, Moelter explains, for climbers to spread out with all their gear. From the recessed floor, the climbing walls (built by Massachusetts based Rockwerx) launch up and over our heads. The steepest lead area is known as The Chalice, and it’s 40 vertical feet tall, with a 55-degree overhang at its steepest. “It’s just tall enough to comply with IFSC rope World Cup specs,” says Moelter. And nearby, there’s an IFSC compliant speed-climbing wall, with a consistent five-degree overhang from top to bottom and T-nuts laid on a perfect grid.

On the wall is a huge, green dome made of fiberglass Moelter refers to as “Le Boob.” Another next-gen item, lightweight macrofeatures like Le Boob are meant to accept smaller holds, effectively allowing gyms and setters to change the experience of a given wall without any major construction efforts. Le Boob was made in conjunction with Rockwerx, and more volumes are under way (see “Pump Up the Volume,” on the last page of this online article).

Upstairs, Moelter shows me the campus and system boards, where Movement’s fulltime trainer and routesetter, Justen Sjong, will whip clients into shape. Banks of brand-new treadmills, replete with iPod hookups, touch screens, and cable TV feeds, overlook the climbing area. There’s also a spinning room, a yoga room, and a weight and exercise machine room with a sick view of the Flatirons — 5,000 square feet of fitness space in all. The fitness element is designed to attract a broader membership base and draw members who don’t want to pay for separate gym and health club memberships. In this and the many ways mentioned above, Movement is a perfect example of the future gym.

THE BIGGER THEY COME

Although most of today’s future gyms are already large, clocking in at 15,000-20,000 square feet of climbing surface, there are even bigger, wilder walls on the horizon. Rockwerx is building a giant in San Diego called Mesa Rim, with circa 30,000 square feet of climbing surface and walls up to 60 feet in height. The Bulgarian-based manufacturer Walltopia is building another, called Stone Summit, in Atlanta, Georgia. When completed, Stone Summit will provide 30,000 square feet of climbing surface, with walls up to 60 vertical feet, and will occupy a footprint roughly the size of a football fi eld. (Of course, at such scales, the old wrench-and-ladder setting techniques won’t cut it — Stone Summit will employ a 60-foot boom lift and 35-foot scissor lift.)

“Gyms in Europe and Asia have found that [gyms] create climbers,” says Danielson, speaking of a phenomenon where larger gyms actually act like man-made crags, creating local climbing communities wherever they’re built. Super-gyms like Stone Summit and Mesa Rim, squarely amidst urban populations centers, will depend on this phenomenon to exist. Without it, they likely couldn’t support the costs associated with being so massive.

So why build so big in the first place? “We wanted the community to grow,” says Daniel Luke, director of operations and co-owner of Stone Summit. “We felt like there were so many things in the community preventing that.” One of those roadblocks, Luke suggests, is smaller, crowded gyms that don’t allow for spectators to observe competitions. Stone Summit also designed a large mezzanine with shorter walls, to keep beginners on easier terrain and out of the often-intimidating zones where more experienced climbers climb.

Not everyone is confident that such beastly facilities are the wave of the future. Johnston suggests that rather than more space, tomorrow’s gyms might come in the form of satellite gyms serving sections of big cities or smaller markets. “I’m actually shocked at the size of some of these new gyms,” says Pederson. Regardless, American climbing is about to witness a whole different type of facility, one that’s as much a custom-built crag as it is an indoor climbing surface.

ROUTES ARE THE PRODUCT

In addition to more amenities and bigger walls, there’s also been a shift, albeit subtle, in the way rock walls themselves are designed and routes set. Cutting edge gyms today are building large, flat climbing surfaces and wide-open angles. Sharp transitions, mini-roofs, and highly featured walls are becoming a thing of the past (though rock-like texturing is still popular on many health club, school, and higher ed walls, often built as much for appearance as for climbing). This is due to a growing emphasis on routesetting. “Abrupt angles mean routesetters have to set the same moves over and over again,” says John McGowan, co-owner of the Eldorado Wall Company and the builder behind The Boulder Rock Club (BRC), a gym within walking distance of Movement and well ahead of its time when it was built in 1995. In keeping with current trends, Eldo recently updated one of the BRC’s walls, removing just such an abrupt angle. This emphasis in setting springs from a mantra repeated by many of today’s gym owners: routes are a gym’s product — set bad routes, and your business will suffer. In keeping with this philosophy, Movement’s hold room is massive and organized, and each setter gets his or her own toolbox. All route updates are made public via an online route-management software called RedPointManager (also used by California’s Thresh Hold gym). At the Touchstone gyms (there are five in Northern California’s Bay Area), a routesetting crew 14 people strong makes the rounds four or five days a week to ensure the product’s fresh.

BLOC PARTY

For his third facility, Vertical World’s Rich Johnston is building a dedicated bouldering gym in Tacoma, Washington. It’s not the only bouldering gym in the US — there’s The Spot in Boulder, California’s Bridges Rock Gym, The Circuit Bouldering Gym in Oregon, The Front in Salt Lake City, and more. . . . So does this reflect a major trend in future gyms? Probably not, admits Johnston. “Bouldering is such a niche part of the industry,” he says, “I feel it would be diffi cult to retire on one bouldering gym.” Danielson sees the bouldering trend as a real one, but adds, “There’s no introductory stage [with bouldering] — it’s harder to create members.” Still, it’s likely that multi-gym operations like Touchstone, Planet Granite, and Earth Treks could open bouldering gyms as a part of their larger operations. And just recently the SLO-Op bouldering gym opened the doors of a new bouldering facility in San Louis Obispo, California, though it’s technically a non-profi t gym, funded by membership dues — a different model, to be sure.

Still, many of today’s newest gyms are upping their ratio of bouldering to route climbing, and bouldering is becoming an increasingly high-profile activity. “It used to be, when we’d talk to people about bouldering, they’d say, ‘We’ll get back to you on that,’” says Adam Koberna, VP of marketing and sales for Entre Prises USA, an Oregon-based wall manufacturer. “Now that’s fl ipped; the customer is boulder savvy.” Cort Gariepy, President of Rockwerx, has seen bouldering become a bigger part of today’s gyms. “Fifteen years ago, 10 percent of a gym might have been bouldering,” he says. “Now it’s more like 30 percent.” And bouldering’s getting taller in gyms, too, in some places as high as 20 feet.

WHAT’S IT ALL MEAN FOR CLIMBING?

The many changes enumerated above are just a part of what’s happening in today’s (and tomorrow’s) gyms. When looking at the larger direction, it’s clear that climbing gyms have been moving towards the mainstream for years now, and especially in climbing hotspots and urban centers, the old dusty warehouse gyms with plywood walls have been falling from favor. Multiple-gym operations will likely grow, and more will spring up. “This happened in the health club industry in the late ‘80s and ‘90s,” says Pederson. “With multiple locations, there are economies of scale in payroll, routesetting expenses, upper management, accounting, and sales and marketing. . . . ” With bigger, pricier gyms come more business-savvy investors and operators, maybe even folks from outside the climbing industry altogether. “The new gym takes on more of a level of a quality health club,” says Bills Zimmerman, Executive Director of the Climbing Wall Association.

All this means that the gym experience will be a lot different — as will the people attracted to gyms. This will certainly create more climbers. “More people are introduced to climbing in gyms than through outdoor climbing,” says Bill Zimmerman, President of the Climbing Wall Association (climbingwallassociation.org). But like the gyms they’re learning in, these climbers are part of a next generation. They may or may not ever climb on real rock. Many of them don’t own their own rope. For the crusty old tradster who values nature, solitude, and adventure above all else, this development is likely less than welcome, as waves of young, relatively inexperienced climbers begin crashing against the crags. “Now all you need to start climbing is a credit card, a chalk bag, a harness, and a belay device,” says Zimmerman. “Today’s new climbers don’t have the same values and expectations that a traditionally schooled climber might about risk and responsibility.” Zimmerman sees the coming years as a time of cultural friction in the climbing community, when the old guard — traditionally the folks opening climbing gyms — and the new school meet, altering each other in the process.

But for most of us, this change is and will be a good thing. For one, it’s sure to mean more participation, more attention, and more career sustaining job opportunities in the climbing industry. Better gyms and broader participation, especially in areas where climbing has no major crags or areas to root it, will mean stronger climbers.

“Gyms have been the major reason climbing has grown over the years,” says Johnston, who’s seen the changes first hand since opening his gym in 1987. He adds, “climbing gyms have cranked out some amazing athletes.” Typically, a climber who stays in the game for any length of time will go through multiple phases, and the gym-bred youngsters of today, who can train on 50-plus-foot walls in high-tech facilities like Movement, Momentum, and other top gyms will likely end up on rock at some point. When that happens, we can expect to see the standards click up another notch. Many new gyms are putting strong focus on youth and youth teams, and hiring dedicated coaches, so we’ll also likely see Americans faring better in World-level competitions. (Many new gyms are now building with just such events in mind.)

It’s perhaps worth mentioning that more climbers means more impact on the crags and more accidents, which could lead to more access issues in already crowded areas. Many gym climbers who head to the crags for the first time haven’t received an extensive outdoor initiation, as their forebears did. Most in the industry, though, believe that gyms, as the new conduits to the sport, must serve as points of education, too. “We try to educate our teams about leaving no trace,” says Pederson. “One of the big challenges will be managing the transition from indoor to outdoor climbing,” says Zimmerman. Many gyms, Zimmerman points out, are well-equipped for this transition, offering classes from intros for beginners, to higher-level indoor instruction, to outdoor guiding. If new gyms take this tack, climbing should be able to continue growing in a healthy way. There’s no question that these gyms are bringing change; what remains to be seen is what that change will mean for climbing.

It’s a warm September evening, and I’m back in Movement with Mike Moelter. “It’s been busier than we expected,” he tells me. In a month and a half, the gym’s passed out close to 5,000 waivers to climbers interested in using the facility. I ask him if things have been says. “We want this place to be members’ and guests’ favorite place to come, and employees’ favorite place to work.”

It certainly seems to be that. I mingle with the climbers on the floor, half of whom stare up at the giant overhangs in awe, or climb only to pump off The Chalice and swing into space. A flat-panel LCD mounted to the wall by the front desk shows the gym’s total energy consumption (in red) and generation from the PV system (in green) — from what I can tell, the place is just about breaking even, with usage spikes in the hours after the sun goes down but before the gym closes, and generation spikes in the middle of the day. The young guy at the front desk happily explains the system to me. “Isn’t it cool?!” he says. I nod. This ain’t like the gyms I came up in. My tips are twitching; it’s time to climb.

PUMP UP THE VOLUME

The pro climber, owner of CryptoChild (cryptochild.com), graphic designer, hold shaper, and videographer Jason Kehl, 32, recently started work on a massive new “volume.” His sculptural piece (pictured below) is part of a growing American movement towards large, moveable features that can accept smaller holds. Kehl has been shaping for 10 years, and is pushing volumes, holds, and indoor climbing forward with his freaky designs.

What’s this volume project you’re working on?
This volume, The Growth (working name), is being made in collaboration with So iLL Holds (soillholds.com), CryptoChild, and Rockwerx. CryptoChild’s part is to take care of the shaping — that’s where I come in.

Are volumes relatively new ideas?
Gyms have always used volumes, mostly making their own out of plywood. They’re very popular in Europe because of their availability, but these days, we’re seeing more popping up in the States all the time.

The Growth looks more like a sculpture than a climbing surface. . . .
Yeah, we’re trying to do something completely different, as usual. Most volumes are very simple, like a part of the wall. We wanted to take this technology more in the direction of an actual climbing hold, just gigantic and depending on how you spin it, you always have a different challenge. For this one, I took inspiration from the fleshy landscapes of H.R. Giger.

What does the future hold for climbing holds?
The future is open — you can climb anything that you can imagine in your head. The shapes will always change, but maybe the materials will, too, giving everything you grab a different feel . . . almost alive.

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