Vertex Climbing Center Review

Loveable staff and friendly community.
Creative and challenging wall puzzles that push you towards your best.
Affordable membership at $65 a month including free classes from Yoga, Climbing, Crossfit, and a upstairs workout area.
Clean facility aside from chalk, but hey that's climbing.

I really do love this place, and highly recommend Vertex to the curious and adventurous!

This is the gym where I learned how to climb. Their staff is very knowledgeable. As part of my membership I took the included introduction course, and I highly recommend taking it before climbing for the first time. It's been over a year and I still love climbing here. Roughly 18 top rope spots(I could have miscounted a few), and enough bouldering to go around. They also have a small gym, and offer event hosting as well. There is plenty of parking available at their location.

Customer service is 50/50. Some people there are amazing and will help in any way, sadly the other half are not.

What an awesome place to train! Bouldering, top rope, lead climbing, a few cracks, hang boards, weights, a small fitness center, instructional classes these guys have it all. The routes are fun and well thought out, the facilities are clean, bright, and energetic, and they offer free yoga and fitness training for members! I love that you can do yoga and then turn to your buddy to ask for a belay. Also, the small class size for yoga means you get a lot of personal attention for your technique, and the instructor has done a fantastic job thus far to cater to my personal needs and correct my form where needed. Sure, it is a bit small and can get cramped during peak hours, and I will agree that a few of the employees could use some advice on customer service, but that doesn't take away from the pure awesomeness of this place. Climb hard (and safe!), make friends, and have fun!

Small, but likeable climbing gym. Ratings are fairly consistent.

The manager is never there and he is the only one who can speak to charges on your account. I purchased a membership and had two separate charges on my account that no one could explain, I was told to email the manager both times. For a business not to have any procedure on looking up customer billing other than telling customer to email one guy who is never there is ludicrous! Not happy about my experience regarding their shady billing practices. For this reason alone I am canceling my account and climbing elsewhere.

Awesome climbing gym! Steven front desk (if I have his name right! I mean the most friendly and very helpful with awesome beard and dreadlocks) is the most welcoming and helpful staff the gym overall always crowded. There are also small workouts area with some quipments and yoga mat to accommodate the member. Fun place to climb.

I m so happy there is a place to climb in Sonoma County in the Santa Rosa area. I want to stress that I m thankful for Vertex, but by today s standards this gym has many... many shortcomings.

I have been to dozens of indoor gyms all over North America and Europe. I climbed at the gyms in SF for many years and always heard of Vertex and had never visited. I moved to Petaluma back in July and have been climbing at Vertex the past 7 months.

Pros: All the basics for training are present: lead climbing, top ropes, bouldering, campus board, a great assortment of hangboards, Olympic Rings, autobelays, even a systems board now. Also, the price is very reasonable.

Cons: I m convinced a secret sponsor of Vertex is Vaseline. If you re main focus is to send hard at Castle Rock while it s raining on mossy lines, Vertex is an excellent simulator for that. Little friction and few climbs that spark brain power. Furthermore, there are plenty of routes that have been there since July. The overall maintenance is terrible. There s little effort to cool the gym down in the summer, in the winter it s a reasonable temperature. Have I mentioned the route setting is awful?

I really don t understand this gym s following... but at least it s something!

Vertex is my happy place! Can't help but feel done-zoid when I walk outta that place Doh.

Old school grunge gym with some well set climbs. I bouldered while visiting and my only complaint was the lack of space in the older bouldering room in which there isn t even room to stand while not climbing because other climbers would fall directly on top of you. Unfortunately without renovating the area, it s a given.

Overall the community seemed really good there and I would go back if in the area.

I love vertex. The staff is super friendly, they have two auto belays (although I think they used to have 3), and there is always room to climb even when it's crowded.

Great gym, routes changed regularly. Kombucha on tap, staff is friendly and helpful.

Great little gym, with accurate ratings, AND they just switched to color coordinated routes! Wowzer, what an improvement. Good route setting. Love this place.

After my teenage son tried some outdoor climbing I got him a monthly membership here and he loves it. Friendly, knowledgeable staff, lots of amenities (showers, gym equipment), etc. Great support from management whenever I interacted with them.

Best place to climb in(side) California. My favorite gym with all my favorite people! Amazing staff and super solid community!

Awesome facility for my son during his holidays from school.

Chill vibe, good tunes, good routesetting, honest ratings, nice highball wall.

Hard to see and read climbs because so crowded. Very limited space so barely any good climbing workout equipment, especially when busy. In theory they are expanding in a year or so. Expansion could pump those two starts quickly. Amazing staff and amazing community.

Edit after 4 months of climbing here:

if you stick at this gym you will get great form quickly as the climbs are tough without good form. Would love to see a 5 gallon bucket of rice for hands/tendons after a tough bouldering day. Added 1

Awesome place. My friend and I climb weekly and the staff are very helpful.

If you're coming from touchstone thinking you can crush a V4, you're gonna have a bad time

The best part of Vertex is the people. The staff are friendly and helpful; if you've never climbed before this is a great place to learn.

We signed up and started climbing here with no prior experience - no clue what we were doing. We took a very informative class with Matt, who is absolutely an amazing teacher, and were able to get belay certified so we could climb on our own.

I'm not sure how this place would rank for an experienced climber, since I'm not one, but I know for a novice it's a great place to start.

The place is small, and as with any gym it can get a little smelly when it's hot out, but it's also clean and just a really awesome place to be.

Great people and good walls. Don't feel bad if you can't do a V0, they're harder here.

Staff are great and very helpful. The interior is beautiful with a nice lounge area. However, there are a lack of climbing walls and I usually find this place to be crowded. It can also be very intimidating to any beginning climbers

I went there with. My class for a half day field trip and it was soooooo fun

I love this place and the staff, but they seriously need to expand and/or have people who are not actively climbing get out of the area and not converse in the bouldering room which is already claustrophobic as it already is. I will definitely not come back until they expand because it's not worth having a membership there if you can't even climb without the fear of falling on someone.

Friendly staff, good rock wall, gym is a little small and gets crowded with only one or two people in it.

Really nice people. I cant wait to get my daughter into the day camp rockclimbing.

Interesting gym! Not huge, but packed with fun routes. The grades felt a bit stiff, but that's probably because many routes were more balancey than crimpy.

Great climbing gym with a excellent staff that pays attention to safety. Great for parties and other groups. There is also a nice little gym with weights upstairs. Very fun.

Gym is very small and the weight room is not very well equipped. Overall I wasn't over impressed with the facilities, but the main thing I was upset by was the customer service. I walked in and the two people at the front were engaged in a conversation. Neither of them noticed me, I had to go ask for help. One employee was friendly but the other (who was the one helping me get a membership) was cold and unfriendly. He did not ask my name or try to make any kind of welcome small talk. I felt totally unwelcome and ignored.
I just moved to the area and my old gym had clubs, like a queer climbing club and a women's climbing club, to help people build a climbing community. So that would be cool and really helpful to add to Vertex.

The routing system was horrendous. A giant cluster of tape and mismatched colored holds. Lead and toprope ceilings were low. A lot of their holds were old and polished. They have a really nice water fountain however.

Friendly staff, family environment, all levels welcome.

Great foreman workout. Even have easy tracks for noobs like me

Great staff, good top rope routes, and even better kombucha.

I understand this is a privately run gym so I can forgive the holds not matching throughout the route but there is a ton of clutter on the walls. There is very little Boulder space. I haven't climbed in some time so I figured I'd go upstairs and run since my climbing endurance was lacking. I come to find that none of the cardio machines work and are from the nineties. There was also a yoga class going on in the middle of the floor. Given yoga is supposed to be a relaxing experience, I felt awkward trying to workout up there, and received a glare from the instructor when I went around the group.

I appreciate what they are trying to do but there is a lack of care that went into planning this gym. If you're used to gyms like touchstone, I wouldn't go here.

At vertex, everyone is a family. There is a variety of programs and training courses available for all ages. The climbing grades go up to 5.12c and v8.

Awesome climbing experience, always a challenge. A little expensive but definitely worth it if you like climbing!

5 Stars if it wasn't so crowded...this place desperately needs to expand!

Very nice indoor climbing facility, memberships are affordable as well

Definitely worth the membership! Come try out a day climb for cheap and you'll see for yourself!

Great staff. Fun form of exercise. They have options of bouldering or top toping. Plenty of classes to get you started in climbing. As well as plenty of other fitness classes to go with their weight room.

The routes here emulate outdoor routes and ratings. A climber's climbing gym. Great facility with cool people and a weight loft up top.

This is a very well equipped gym for climbing as well as training for it. There are two bouldering areas, one a deep recess to spider out of, the other a two-room cave with routes of varying difficulty sprawling over the walls. There are no topouts. The main climbing area is an arc of fortyish-foot-high wall ranging from slabby to overhung, of varying difficulty. There is a modular adjustable crack and an off-width crack built into the wall. The routes end at the top of the wall; there's no roof problems outside the bouldering cave. There are topropes to protect most of the routes, but a couple sections are accessible only by sport lead. There are also three auto-belays. It would be nice if they had a few more for higher solo sessions than the bouldering allows.
Upstairs opposite the climbing wall is a gym area with some barbell free weights, kettle bells, hanging rings, cardio equipment, rowing machines, and assorted other workout equipment geared toward the pursuit of climbing.
A final feature is the outdoor obstacle course, with some ropes and cable slack lines as part of a balance-focused apparatus. The only drawback there is the fact that there's the odd pile of dog doo no one bothered to pick up.
All in all, the biggest problem is it's not closer to my house.

I visited Vertex for the first time today. The staff was welcoming and helpful, and all of the patrons were extremely friendly. Highly recommend.

Awesome vibe with a wide variety of boulder options. A couple auto-belays too.

Great in door climbing facility, has a decent gym up stairs, acroyoga, silk classes and much much more

Been coming here for almost 10 years now. Awesome climbing. Awesome music. Awesome people. Awesome classes. Awesome routes set by awesome famous local climbers.. And they now serve beer, too!

The rock climbing community here is really great!! Even when you start out alone, you will not climb alone for long (unless you want to, nobody is stalking you either ;) )
I have been climbing here less than a year and I already made a ton of climbing friends to climb with. People are always willing to help, both staff as well as members. Prices are super decent and the quality of the staff is superb. They are on top of their safety game. This gym is known for their hard climbs, which will only push your climbing game further! But that doesn't mean you can't climb when you're a beginner, it just means they have climbing possibilities for beginner as well as crusher..!

Love this place. It a great place of training and has an amazing community. Their workout programs are really tailored toward improving your climbing skills and all of the staff are very supportive. It's a small gym and the route setting tries to get as close as possible to outdoor climbing. They set hard so that you as climber will be prepared when you climb outside. Membership prices are reasonable and while they might be lacking in some amenities that other gyms offer, they make up for it in excellent setting, a great staff, and very diverse workout programs aimed at all levels of fitness.

Great gym, climbing walls and community! Super healthy place for the family.

My favorite climbing gym of them all. Definitely has the BEST community and staff!

Super sweet environment with very friendly staff and members. Great place to get your climb on

Lovely community with lots of options for exercise, mindful conversation everywhere, not to mention dog friendly out back and a good place to tie your kids up to tucker them out for nap time.