MetroRock Bushwick

This was my first time trying this out. I am not great at a rock climbing, but it was fun to try. I have a fear of heights. Part of this outing was working on my fear, and hanging out with my friends. During this pandemic you get cabin fever. This really did the trick. After failing successfully, I watched friends fail as well. 🤣 Overall we had a heck of a time. The staff is very helpful. This place is great for very active kids since they can touch everything and climb all over the place.

Great climbing gym for all levels as there are classes and various bouldering and top rope routes at different grades. Was a member for 6 ish months and it was a great experience. There’s a small functional gym upstairs and there was weekly yoga in the summer. They sell climbing gear and shoes at a discount for members, which is nice. There are various “community days” most days that provide affordable day pass options. Staff are super friendly and usually the gym isn’t super crowded, especially when compared to places like Vital. There isn’t a lot of upfront safety debriefing or training for newbies, but I haven’t really seen that at most climbing gyms in the city. The setting is unique and fun and the community is great. There are also plenty of community events. Would highly recommend checking out this gym.

$30 just for a day pass. Really cool features and lots of variety in the bouldering area; solid climbs and stiff grading. I didn’t get to try the ropes area but I’m sure it’s solid. The walls are walltopia so keep that in mind for your shoes. There is the option to top out on 2 of the big boulder sections but not on the slab walls. The gym area is small and not realistic unless it’s just you or +1 before it gets cramped. The yoga room is on the smaller side too. The gear shop didn’t have too much but the bathrooms were nice and clean. The hand soap smells like watermelon, too. I’ll come back in the future but not making it a point to.

The setting here is pretty fun - both for ropes and for boulders. Comparable with gyms like GP81 and Vital. Stiffer than Movement, especially for ropes. Rope routes are long which is fantastic, and they all you to use your belay device of choice which is great (unlike movement which forces leaders to use an assisted breaking device). The main problem is that gym is not only too small, but that pretty frequently parts of the bouldering wall can't be used if there's too many people because everyone takes up space on the pads and there's basically no space to fall safely. I'm not sure this problem can be easily fixed (the gym walls are already in place after all), but it definitely detracts from the experience. Also some routes start near the bouldering section, but it would be nice if there was some bigger marker to differentiate the part of the wall where rope climbs start and boulders end (e.g. some very bright neon tape and a large sign).

Bad experience today. They removed all of the auto runs that kids can do. They said they were “servicing them”. I have a 6 and 10 year old. They only had challenging auto runs and 2 V0 runs that the kids could do. Maybe they aren’t interesting in families coming in anymore? If you are servicing some of your auto equipment then don’t remove all of the easier runs that kids can enjoy. This is the first bad experience we have had as we have been multiple times. If you have kids, call ahead to check to see if they have the short auto runs that are kid friendly.