AZ on the Rocks

This is a one of a kind, fun for the whole family type of place! The staff are very kind, laid back, helpful. They really help teach you how to climb safely and then let you go to it!

Happened to find out about this place in an online ad. «Best indoor climbing gym in Arizona,» it said. So I checked the Unilocal reviews, and decided to go after seeing they were overwhelmingly positive. However, at the time of writing this review, I am slightly disheartened since my experience was not what I had imagined.
Postives:
Great staff. Staff is chill and super friendly. They were helpful in getting me and my friend gear and showing us the ropes, quite literally. My friend even got a mini belay lesson for free, which was super awesome.
Having routes with auto-​belay is also really nice, since my friend couldn’t really belay me. This makes it a great place to go for climbers that don’t have a belay partner.
The bad part?
The rental shoes. If you come here with a background in climbing, these shoes will frustrate you to no end. Normally, I can breeze up 5.7’s and 5.8’s, but here I was slipping off these routes because my shoes refused to grip on the wall. Every one of my moves was punctuated by the thought of slipping and taking a nasty fall (can I step up on this hold? or is this auto-​belay device going to send me swinging to my death?). In addition, I’m not sure if the walls were smooth or my shoes were bad but I just could not get a damn smear on the wall. Taking a fall on an auto-​belay cause the bottom of your shoes seem to be made of shea butter? Nooot fun.
Other than the shoes. the route variety was good, although none of the routes stood out to me as particularly interesting. On the boulders, the route difficulty markers were hard to see, and finding out which hold belonged to which tape caused me to waste a lot of time and energy, which meant I burned out faster than I would have liked.
TL;DR: if you come here, bring your own shoes. And don’t have bad footwork like me.

AZ on the Rocks is Great! They are truly a dynamic gym, a pro could climb here all day and be challenged and hang out with other experienced climbers in a positive atmosphere or beginners could have a fun safe place to enjoy some casual climbing. I would also like to thank the Nick for getting involved with the local charity I work for, it is great to see that the gym is truly invested in its community. Thanks again

Short review: Go here if you have small children and don’t know a darn thing about climbing.
Don’t go here if you have climbed more then a couple of times. If you aren’t into places that could be called the 24hour fitness of climbing gyms, or the AT&T of climbing gyms, etc… This place is the worst!
Long review: If I could give zero stars I would. I have been to climbing gyms all over California and Arizona and this place is the worst. My wife and son and I tried to go yesterday just to check out a new gym and we regret ever making the drive from downtown to this place. We filled out waivers in advance, and figured at most it would take a second to prove we knew how to belay, and the typical safety stuff once we got there. Incredibly wrong! We go to the counter after navigating through a minefield of children, told them we filled out the online waiver and they instructed us to wait. So we did, for 21 minutes we stood in their lobby and waited as the two guys behind the counter helped member children barely older then toddlers get their shoes and harnesses. When we were done waiting they took us and another couple who had never been climbing into a little office, where we had to stare at a tiny screen, and watch a video that covers basic climbing junk all while speaking down to you in general. It was also part infomercial for the gym so you can buy one of their packages. Suffered through the video and now we are well over 30 minutes waiting to climb! Unfortunately my wife usually rents gear so we had to go back out to the counter, wait in line again, inform them we finished the video and that my son was just wanting to boulder and my wife needed to rent gear. The kid could see we were frustrated by this processes already and handed my wife her gear and said just «make sure you guys come and pay before you go, we are swamped». So my son went in and started to check the place out. There were unattended small children as young as two and three years old all over the bouldering area, and freaking children everywhere. That’s when my wife realized they didn’t give her a locking carabiner, and I didn’t have an extra. Went back in to ask for one with her, and the exact same time my son was walking out to look for us to tell us it would be impossible to climb because of all the little kids. We all arrived at the counter ask for the carabiner and the other kid told us we would have to take their $ 29 belay class. I held up the obviously used equipment in my left hand and tell him we have all been climbing for years, we can show you we know all the belay procedures. He informed us if we haven’t been belay certified there in the last six months we really should take the class or if we wanted to wait for a bit he could see if we «really knew» what we were doing when things calmed down… so now we are over 45 minutes waiting to climb. With out coordinating it all my son says «I’m not climbing here», my wife drops here gear on the counter, and we walk out, got in the car, drive to climbmax in Tempe and actually had a fantastic afternoon and got a decent workout.

Tips:
$ 15 per person ($ 32 after tax for 2 people)
Check in on Unilocal for 20% off!
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Very nice place with many routes and a lot of staff to help you. There’s a quick informative video on all the rules which is great for a beginner like me. After the video you sign a waiver and you’re good to go!

WOW!
We went there for their 11^th Anniversary party on Sunday. Climbing was free all day. They had face painting for the kids and a bounce house. Pita Jungle catered the free lunch and for desert they brought in an ice cream truck. It was definitely a birthday party atmosphere. Which apparently they host children’s birthday parties too.
I had been to a few climbing places, but I was impressed by the design of this location. It was build with the feel of a canyon and not just a simple climbing practice wall.
Thank you AZ on the Rocks. You went above and beyond.

This is an incredible rock-​climbing gym! It’s enormous — tons of walls, many different courses, boulders and slacklines. The loaner equipment and ropes, etc. are nice, the staff is friendly and they have a video and quick lesson for first-​time climbers. There are lockers for your stuff, or you can leave valuables with the staff.
It’s a wonderful place to go in a group — I’ve been there with large and small groups and everyone always has a great time. They have kids courses and courses ranging in difficulty from easy to «how do they do that?». There’s tons of mat space to sit down and stretch in between, too.
They have a small shop, a few vending machines, and clean restrooms. There’s even an upstairs area with a gym and yoga studio (check out Jen Brooks — excellent teacher).
The only small annoyance is that, if you are an expert, their way of belaying is a little different from the norm, and you might get harrassed by staff insisting you do things exactly their way. Overall, a very minor inconvenience.

People always ask me which climbing gym in the valley is my favorite or which one is best and it’s not really a question I can answer. Each one has it’s own quirks and character that provide a uniquely enjoyable experience. But if I had to compare AZ on the Rocks to the other Phoenix gyms, I’d say it’s like the sleek, preppy, well-​funded team in a children’s sports movie (minus the menacing coach with slicked back hair) while the other gyms are more like the scrappy, ramshackle underdogs that don’t always look good on the surface, but still have a lot of value hiding just below the surface.
AZR, in other words, is a clean, well-​run gym with regularly updated equipment, an expansive bouldering area, and, of course, plenty of great top roping routes. They also offer a lot of non-​climbing related services, like yoga and a small non-​climbing gym with some exercise equipment and weights. It’s a great place to climb and if you enjoy the activity at all you have to give AZR a try.
On a final note, they’re usually pumping out some good jams over the speakers that make the climbing experience that much better. Ratatat might be the best climbing music I’ve heard so far. Give it a listen.