Jake Ellis

Review of The Edge Climbing Wall

Edge is a great facility with great equipment and ...

Edge is a great facility with great equipment and is definitely a nice way to spend time with family and friends! They have routes of all different skill levels and all different types. The reason Edge is not getting a 5 star rating is because of my concern for safety and the lack of structure at the facility. I have seen too many careless mistakes being made by the beginner climbers. I understand this is a place for all skill levels, however it seems that the instructors/staff members do not seem to pay close enough attention to the climbers or the fundamentals of belaying. The belay tests that are administered by the employees are very quick and do not cover the basic things such as where the break hand should be at all times, how to take and/or catch a fall when top roping, how to make sure you are on the correct rope for the correct route, to be careful of where you (and your kids) are walking when others are climbing, and to make sure the climbers end of the rope is not twisted around the belayer's end of the rope before starting your climb. Every time we are at Edge we see numerous staff members walking around but they seem oblivious to the mistakes that are being made by their patrons. They seem more interested in making sure peoples names are on their clipboard. Maybe there is too much trust in the Gri Gris being used or not enough knowledge in the staff.. or maybe the staff isn't told to look for these things. Just today (we were there from 3pm-6pm) we saw two separate instances where a teenager was belaying and continuously took both hands off of the rope while their partner was climbing. We saw numerous belayers not paying attention while their climber was climbing, which left enough slack in the rope that the climber would have decked if they fell. We saw countless kids on the wrong rope for the route they were climbing along with countless climbers with a twisted rope. We saw two people belaying one person (one man was pulling the rope down while the woman pulled the break strand.. after passing the belay test with an instructor). Not to mention the teenagers doing back flips from the bouldering mats into the sport climbing area. To me, these are basic safety standards that any gym would need to follow. After all climbing is a dangerous sport and safety should always be a top priority.