Laura DeFrain

Review of Delaware Rock Gym

Visited this gym from out-of-state and had a prett...

Visited this gym from out-of-state and had a pretty decent time. Highlights are the wall features and sheer volume of routes. Detailed review below:

Pros:
-large space, plenty of room
-nice variety of wall features
-boulder, TR, lead (free lead ropes)
-nice boulder pads
-fun bouldering problems
-staff was nice
-spacious bathrooms, relatively clean
-met a nice crusher dude, indicating community has some cool people
-variety of smaller handholds
-can make holds in-house
-got the summer camp bus full of kids in and out before open hours, smart gym! We flinched when we saw the bus but they know what's up :)

Areas for Improvement:
-Tape. You can make any holds you want in-house and you still use tape?! This is extremely wasteful of not only the tape itself but also time: staff's time putting up & maintaining the tape and guest's time figuring out where the heck they're going and what's on, especially when a piece inevitably falls off. Not to mention the noise... (see next) Please do yourselves and everyone else a favor and switch to monochromatic setting. This really put a damper on our visit because we're used to being able to focus on the climbing itself, not searching for tiny pieces of tape that may or may not be there. I know, we're spoiled, but when you have the capability to do this and yet choose not to... you're only hurting yourselves.
-Noise: Because of the ridiculous amount of tape on the wall & how easily it falls off, there were a few staff members going around replacing/reinforcing w/rubber mallets and even using drills to remove/replace holds. We were lead climbing at the time and missed some important commands due to this. Loud maintenance noises during open hours is unsafe, especially when people are lead climbing.
-No volumes or large feature holds: this place had zero volumes or lg feature holds, which means your poor setters have their work cut out for them in terms of creativity. Thankfully the amount of holds & wall features make this bearable but I can imagine things start to get a bit repetitive in certain areas w/out things to add dimension. Might be insurance companies fault but if it isn't a liability thing, get some volumes and features at least in the bouldering area!
-Old, slippery holds: speaks for itself
-Old, slippery routes: it must be challenging to set so much real estate regularly. Some lead routes had been up for at least a few months. Not a problem with new holds but really challenging with old, slippery ones!
-Rope: the rope we were provided was fine though showing signs of wear (namely, softened core & some fraying). They asked us to coil it ourselves when we were done. Nope, sorry, we're here on limited time and we don't work here. Protocol at many commercial facilities is to check each rope upon being turned in for signs of wear while you're flaking & coiling it. Made me wonder how often the rope is actually being inspected if not after each use.
-Training area had tons of space and surprisingly little equipment given the area. Maybe a systems/Moon/Tension board or better fitness equipment like weights or rack, would be cool to see.
-Seating around the bouldering area: would be nice

All-in-all, we had a good time (in spite of the tape ) and would go back if we were in the area again. However, all it would take is a nice, new commercial facility anywhere in the state to blow these guys out of the water. Keep up or die trying is the unfortunate state of climbing gyms these days! I hope they continue to do well and improve Thanks for having us.