The Cave Bouldering

It looks creepy when you first get here. Go ahead. Take the elevator 10 stories underground. Park your car in the gravel lot. You’re in the right place. Trust me. Follow the signs. Super unconventional? Absolutely. Super awesome? You’d better believe it.
If you are not a climber: This is a bouldering gym. No ropes. No belay. The walls are about ¹³⁄₁₄ feet and you’re on a foot thick crash pad. Have someone teach you how to fall. You will fall. Please fall well.
There are easy routes to follow for a first timer. Grab a worker at the front desk if they’re not busy. They are all climbers and LOVE to get new people started. If Elsa (the fiery woman with the red hair– who happens to be the owner) is working, she will get you on the wall in no time flat.
You don’t need to bring anything. Wear comfortable clothes. You can rent shoes (you’ll need to if you don’t own climbing shoes) and you can rent a chalk bag. You will be sore and your hands will hurt after the first time but you will probably be addicted. Keep coming back!
Climbers: No loose chalk is allowed here. They have a wide variety of problems and they do have an actual cave with some inverted problems. Not the widest variety, but they have better bouldering routes than Ibex in my opinion. It gets crowded during the weekend, but they’re open at 3p on the weekdays and aside from some classes from 5 – 7 it’s not too busy. Go late if you can, it’s a lot better.
I love the culture of this place. I love the climbers who come here. Everyone tries to help everyone out. Nobody judges. They’ve got a slack line too and it’s fun to watch some of the people who are freaking amazing do stunts on it. If you want to try something new and don’t want to drive all the way to Ibex to do it, come here. You will not be disapointed.

When I heard about the Cave opening more than a year ago, I was pretty excited. KC NEEDS something like this. After climbing on and off there on day passes for a while, this last month I decided to give into a one month pass. Unfortunately, my experience in the last month has been very negative. I am only giving two stars because I believe that the setters are doing a good job and the atmosphere among the climbers there is mostly friendly.
The issue is the owner. Specifically the way she treats her customers and employees and the bad example she sets for the climbing community. A previous review mentions that the flooring system is great. I starkly disagree. Over the last year that flooring system has deteriorated horribly. The seams between sections are DANGEROUS. More than once have I fallen and sunk my ankle through the gap in the padding. Luckily I never really hurt myself. As a remedy I started bringing in my own crash pad. For a while it wasn’t an issue. Then, one day, the owner yelled at me in front of a child for bringing in a crash pad. I felt the tone and discourse was disrespectful and unwarranted. I later approached the owner about how I felt she talked to me and how she speaks to her employees (yelling at them from across the gym in a belittling manner in front of customers. And not to mention the previous set of employees that helped build the facility that she ran off). Here is the one thing that really bothered me about the conversation:
«I didn’t build this gym for climbers. I built it for new climbers.»
There is a sign painted in the Cave that says «Built by Climbers for Climbers».
Every other gym offers discounts to Kansas City Climbing Club members. A group that does local trail work, rebolting, events, and many educational climbing clinics. She doesn’t want them there. She doesn’t want to responsibly help grown the climbing community of Kansas City. She wants to make money. She understands she has a monopoly and could care less what the climbing community thinks of her. She is opening at least one more facility. If she ever opens a roped facility, I hope the regards for safety are taken more seriously than they currently are being. I also hope that customer service and staff management improve, because whether she realizes it or not, her gym, and gym to be, partially represent the KC climbing scene.

One of the my favorite places in kc! Its close to the plaza area and KU Med, so it is very convenient. It is a newer gym but has plans in expanding with getting new members. The routes are reset all the time so you always have something new to work on. It is a great price and they always seem to be offering a discount night or something fun every night. They have put in a lot of new equipment a long with newer kid friendly routes for families that come. It is a great place. I definitely recommend it!

The Cave is a brand new climbing gym on the south side of downtown Kansas City. It’s in a really unique location at several hundred feet underground, which makes it a bit hard to find (have to take an elevator in back of an industrial park) but has a very interesting vibe. The woman that own The Cave is fantastic — very friendly and helpful. They’re still in the process of growing, so hopefully they’ll have more routes in the near future. Until then, it’s one of the best (and only) places to go for climbing in Kansas City. I’d definitely recommend it!

I was in st Joseph, MO for the week for work and this was the closest rock climbing gym I could find in town (about an hour away). I decided to make the drive down after work one day. this gym is only a bouldering gym. it doesn’t have any top roping or any lead climbing
The concept of it being underground is neat however it’s in a place with a lot of office suites. I was upset to see that there weren’t a lot of bouldering walls and different levels… I think it’s a new gym in town and the place is still undergoing more walls… people seemed kind of clicky there however the front desk lady was really sweet and nice.

This gym has a great wall that changes often and a sweet slack line. The staff are very nice and there is plenty of space in the parking lot. Im a fan!

The cave is a new bouldering gym in KC, its underground too! I went here about a week after it opened and had a blast. The owner has a very fun personality and is very helpful when it comes to climbing advice.
There are different climbing routes on each wall. A wall will contain a ton of handles but they are all marked with tape to lay out different routes that scale in difficulty. As a new climber we were working on the green routes. Since I haven’t climbed I was able to do about an hours worth of climbing before my hands were tore up and my arms where getting tired.
For being opened for a week I had a blast, the check in smoothness and introduction by the staff isn’t too solid and we got there before they had received their shoes to rent. We were a little confused on the route markers on the climbing walls so a little introduction on how the colors and stuff work would have helped a lot. You’re also supposed to use a spotter at all times.
During check-​in there were some computer issues so we had to wait a bit longer than normal, the owner was understanding of this and gave us some free day passes to come back!