Boston Rock Gym

Update:
Now that I have been going to this Gym more regularly I would like to add the following in addition to my original review:
The owner is very thoughtful. Myself and probably a few others have express that we disliked the way top rope was set up (the rope simply hung over the beam once). I went today and they changed the top rope. They wrap the rope around the beam so now it’s easier for people with different weight to belay each other.
One minor dislike that I noticed was in the way the routes were places near each other. In my opinion, they are a bit too close to each other. Today I noticed a few instances where two different grade of routes were placed really close to each other but marked with the same color. So it would be helpful if they started adding stripes to the marker.

I’ve been coming here now 3 – 4 days a week for the past 11 months. Obviously, since I keep coming back, it should be clear that I love the place. Really great, friendly staff; interesting top rope routes ranging from 5.5 to 5.13; and some really great bouldering problems. I’ve taken 4 of the classes and look forward to taking more. It’s been a really great experience.

Pros:
— Interesting routes
— Friendly staff
— Great for families (check out the family package)
— Reasonable prices
Cons:
— Dim lighting
— It gets hot in one of the bouldering rooms in the summer
— Routes need to change more often
— No locker room or showers

We really love the kids climb classes. It is a great place to learn.
We like the autobelay option as well. The staff is great with kids.

just went there for the first time, had a bad experience. To check my belay, the crew didn’t allow me to pick my friend as partner. Instead to save his time, he stuck me with someone twice my weight. did not tell me to anchor myself down (I had to ask my friend to do that for me), and asked that person to fall multiple times because that person did not know how to do the «accidental fall». BTW this place don’t do double back on the top rope, so if the person who’s twice your weight fall, you will be dragged up! you might even collide in the air, it’s a bit like lead belay in that sense.
I told the crew that he should not force people with huge weight difference to climb together, he had an attitude and lectured on how good belay technique would allow people of different sizes to belay for each other. Really? you are doing a belay check for a indoor gym, and you want to in the mean time make people collide in the air? and potentially cause an injury? 0 out of 5 for Boston rock gym. I will stick with the other gyms I regularly go to. This place is cheap, in this case cheap means pretty bad quality.

The people who work here are awesome. A fun and athletic activity to do with friends in the winter when it’s cold out! Looking forward to our trip back

This place is awesome. My friend brought me one day and I loved it so much I got a membership the next time I went. The staff are all incredibly friendly, helpful, and knowledgable. Ive been going for about 3 months now and have met so many great people. All the climbers are also very friendly and supportive. They’ll give you advice on any route you’re having trouble with. Great place all around plenty of space and not too crowded.

Unhelpful and rude people that check you in… Made the start and end of the process unpleasant to say the least–
Small gym–

Love Boston Rock Gym! Me and my husband have been going for about 3 weeks we took the beginners class and it came with a 2 week membership! Groupon has a deal for the class/​trial membership for $ 25. After about one week Becky at the front desk already remembered us by name, that’s great costumer service if you ask me! The place is big for what else is in the area I believe it’s one of the biggest. Sometimes it does get a little busy (week days early is the bet time to go or right wen they open on weekends) and the amount of unattended children is sometimes irritating but it’s clean and has a tremendous amount of different levels of difficulty and a great variety of things to do. Needless to say we got a family membership as soon as our free trial ended! (ps if you take the class they waive the initiation fee and it’s only $ 80 a month!)

Gym is fine employees need social skills. If you want to get treated like a piece of dirt make sure you speak to Becky! She has it down pat, and her manager is not much better. If you can get past the front desk, they have some good potential routes.

LOVE this place! So yes, it’s the first & only rock gym I’ve been to — but I’ve done some research and it’s pretty affordable compared to some others. I got the 10 day passes for $ 99 deal which was a great deal… the staff is friendly, it’s a great work out and they have some good climbs. Only negative for me is I love the auto-​belays, so I wish they had a few more especially since there’s so often kids there so you may have to wait a few turns each time. Definitely recommend!

I would rate this gym higher if it wasn’t for the inattentive and rude staff and overall poor instruction for first time climbers.
I am an experienced climber who belongs to a gym in California and took my stepsister and her family for their first experience rock climbing at BRG. I took the belay test and mentioned that I am used to auto locking Grigri belay devices at my gym and don’t often use the more basic ATC. The staff never warned me or gave me any tips about the difficulty in anchoring climbers with the ATC and single wrap rope system. When I was belaying my stepsister’s husband who weighs almost 100 more than me I almost flew off the floor. They could have easily warned me or pointed this out while I was doing the belay test. They also provided no instruction or tips for the auto belay system for my stepsister and her kids and because I have never used it before I didn’t realize you can potentially swing quite far out and hurt yourself if you are not careful. It would have been nice for the staff member who was helping us to give them some basic tips about the system to make sure they were safe.
Some of tape has fallen off holds for routes but otherwise it seemed on first pass there were interesting routes and a variety for beginner and advance climbers. We didn’t boulder but they have a large bouldering room that looked fun.

I’ll start off by disclaiming this is the first indoor rock climbing place I’ve gone do. So I can’t offer anything by comparison. I took my 7 year old son here during an early dismissal day when the weather was lousy outside. I called ahead to see what kind of fun there was to be had and the person who answered the phone was very polite and welcoming. We showed up around 1pm and by 1:15 my 7 year old was making his way up one of the walls with an auto belaying line. We spent about 45 minutes tacking the 5 walls with auto belays and he was exhausted! He asked if he could have his next birthday party here and we definitely will.

I got the groupon for a lesson, equipment rental and 2 week membership. Well worth the money — I had a great time! The instructors were very helpful and patient, and the gym was never crowded when I was there. Plenty of climbs to choose from, for the beginner anyway.
The bouldering room was fun and I’m fascinated by the aerial yoga class offered. Hmm. .
I don’t have the time to go there regularly now, but I’m keeping it on my radar of fun new sport stops. There’s a lot to learn, and helpful people to teach it.

I went with a Groupon deal for a 3-​hour intro to top rope and belaying course and a 2-​week membership with gear rental. I ended up being the only person to show up on my night, so I essentially got a 3-​hour private lesson! It was a bit intimidating at first since I hadn’t been rock climbing in about a decade, but it was so much fun. The class was really informative, the instructor was personable and told me lots of stories about climbs he had done. I practiced climbing and belaying, learned how to tie myself and others in, and how to use the auto-​belay devices.
Also, if you like strange things, they have a vertical rock climbing treadwall. It’s amazing, an infinite loop of handholds with adjustable speed and incline. So much fun!
The gym is quite spacious, with lots of top rope room in the main room, a bouldering wall, and three autobelay walls. Lead climbing can be done on the ceiling, too. A second room off the main room holds more bouldering and lead climbing. A third room in the back has a lot more bouldering routes, along with some exercise equipment and a set of rings which I played on. They also had a set of silks and ropes here for aerial yoga classes which I really wanted to try out, but they were $ 50/​class which was just too expensive for me. (My aerial silks classes are around $ 25 a class, for reference.)
Lots of kids come here, and the climbers aren’t too intimidating. They were friendly and didn’t look down on me as a new, solo climber at all.
There are lockers, and gear rental is smooth and inexpensive for shoes, a harness, and belay equipment. Gear smells like sweat, but so does everything in a climbing gym!
Friendly staff, good prices, and lots of area makes this place fun to go to. It would have been much more fun with a partner, since solo I was limited to three busy auto-​belay runs and bouldering, but that’s not bad. Parking is easy. Just wish there was a climbing place closer to me, this one is still out of the way so I won’t go so often as I’d like.

I’m not an «experienced» climber per se; yet I’ve spent my entire life in the mountains climbing without a rope and harness throughout, have bouldered with the best of them but now into adulthood I recognize the major problem with this after a few incidences that were significantly hairy. That said, I go BRG (with a GroupOn — yes) because I see it in my best interest to do things more appropriate these days, with emphasis on my personal safety now that I have much more at stake.
What I received was a less than enthusiastic approach to teaching someone new some valuable skills. The lack luster «training» was fairly intimidating and I genuinely felt as if I was wasting someone’s time… that they were getting paid for. Look, I get it. It’s not so fun teaching someone to climb up a gym wall and tie knots, no shit. But please, if this is how one has to get educated in climbing (in the US), and you’re the instructor, at least be attentive enough for the time you’re getting paid for, for me to learn what I came there do.
Needless to say, I did not go back and I can only hope that when I move to Europe that starting with Lead Climbing will help keep the teacher’s interest far more than that which I got from BRG.
The three stars are for existing, not service.

BRG is a great climbing community. My son & I have been members for over a year and I logged in to write a review of Rockspot so I wanted to put one in for my home gym as well. If you are over 35 and want to get into climbing BRG has a mix of young intensity and grown ups. The staff also has that mix. There are a ton of serious grown ups climbing at BRG. My son is 15 and in Aleksei’s kids program — I can not say enough about him or his program — it is AWESOME! Between NuSchool and the kid program anyone who is committed can learn to climb at a high level and share knowledge with others at all levels.
«It’s all about loving to train hard, not competing with anyone.» –Aleksei

Love this gym.
People there are great— very friendly, inclusive environment.
It’s (a lot) cheaper and also A LOT LESS CROWDED than Metro. Those are huge pluses. Nice bouldering area (2 rooms), decent top ropes. People are always willing to help, give pointers, etc.
Music sometimes sucks but thats okay.
The boulders are high. higher than metro. kinda scary and I’m not a huge baby (at least I dont think I am). but its a nice challenge.
Also, I’ve taken the NuSchool classes and they are REALLY GOOD. I’d climb for a couple months consistently to get a feel for it before taking the class but it was definitely helpful and made me a more confident and aware climber.

We came here recently with the Groupon deal for an introductory climbing class. Normal prices are $ 58 for the 3-​hour class.
I quickly discovered that climbing is most definitely NOT my thing. I always forget that I don’t like heights and imagine myself to be some sort of super athlete. In fact I am a phobic spaghetti-​armed wimp. I made a few climbs successfully, but begged out of a few more challenging ones when my palms began to sweat too heavily for comfort.
The instructor, Dan, was great. He provided clear instruction and feedback infused with good humor. Dan also spent more time with us than promised – we were there about 4 hours. When I was frightened to climb, Dan pushed me to go on, in a good way. By the time I was absolutely done, he did not insist or make me feel uncomfortable.
The variety of challenges available in the gym was excellent. There were easy climbs and near-​impossible ones. I’d love to be around when people are doing the ceiling climbs! Even some of the people in our class broke out their inner Spidermans (Spidermen?) to do some horizontal wall crawls. I had a great time watching.
A few details keep this from being a five-​star experience. First, chalk bags were not provided. That would have made a huge difference for me (you know, cause of my wimpy sweaty hand thing)! Second, there either weren’t lockers or their availability wasn’t clear. I ended up stashing my stuff in the trunk of my friend’s car, but felt kind of uncomfortable about that. Third, the gym was very crowded and there were a lot of kids, some of whom weren’t always observing great safety practices. Even though instructors were constantly providing feedback (like, «Don’t walk between a climber and his belayer»), that’s small comfort when you’re the climber who will kick a child in the head if you fall.
I was terrified out of my mind on that climbing wall, but I’d still go back and try again. I think that’s high praise!

Like my college wall, all grown up — friendly people, decent routesetting schedule, familiar faces.
Smaller-​than-​average gear shop, 3 auto-​belays (with 2 – 3 usually working), decent climber-​to-​route ratio.
Weekend mornings tend to be elementary-​school birthday parties; Ladies Night is usually packed. Monday evening makes for a great quiet session.