Susy Buchanan
Alaska Rock Gym's cavernous new digs
The Rocky Gym's bouldering area. Photo by Bex Farleigh
On a sunny, end of July afternoon, Tayler Traughber, 18, is clinging to the wall near the top of a 5.11 route she’s just spidered up. Traughber’s got a long blonde braid and glasses, and appears slight until you note her well-muscled and sinuous arms. She reaches into her chalk bag, and climbs even further up the 43-foot pitch. Traughber makes it look easy, but a 5.11 route is anything but; the rock gym’s most arduous route tops out at 5.13.
Traughber, a recent West High graduate, is one of about 20 members of the Alaska Rock Gym’s climbing team, and one of three local competitors freshly returned from Nationals in Atlanta. Although she had a great time competing, “I didn’t like the gym there that much,” Traughber says. “It was OK but it wasn’t as nice as this one.” She said she’ll miss it when she goes off to college in Vermont this fall.
Traughber was one of a dozen or so lucky young climbers getting a sneak peek at the brand new Alaska Rock Gym before it opens to the public on August 1. The space is a brightly lit, cavernous 25,000-square-foot building that popped up off of 32nd by Kinley’s and Moose’s Tooth in 10 months, and is actually opening early and under-budget. The interiors are lit in large part by Solatubes—tubular daylighting devices that look almost like spotlights. Music plays on top-of-the line Sonos 5 speakers. The walls are painted shades of orange and teal. There’s a yoga and pilates room with spherical lanterns and floor-to-ceiling windows, an exercise room, a conference/party room and elegant locker rooms.
But mostly, there’s ample climbing space for up to 79 climbers at one time in the main climbing area, plus a bouldering area on the second floor that was especially important for the 16 or so investors who offered up five figures each to make the new gym happen. (The total cost of the new gym is something the investors aren’t ready to reveal, but it is well into the millions).
“Bouldering is really blowing up with Alaska’s Millennials. All you need is shoes and a chalk bag. There’s a camaraderie, it’s really social and we wanted to make bouldering a focal point here,” says investor Rod Hancock, who met his wife at the original rock gym. “I’ve seen a lot of beautiful gyms who really blew it on bouldering aspect.”
“I was kind of an outcast as a teenager and I didn’t like team sports. I grew up in Portland and started climbing mountains and volcanoes, and I followed that with rock climbing,” says Hancock of what drew him to the sport. “It’s interesting that all the climbers were originally anti-indoor rock climbing.”
That began to change when the country’s first rock gym, Vertical Climb (now known as Vertical World) opened in 1987 in Seattle, where Hancock was going to school.
When the original Alaska Rock Gym (ARG) opened in 1995, it was one of only 20 or so across the nation. Hancock, who was ARG’s third member, had moved to Alaska to start a brewery and pizzeria with climbing buddy Matt Jones, a little project called Moose’s Tooth which became a runaway success from the get-go. Hancock says the rock gym started at about the same time. Hancock would go to the gym to let off steam and compare notes with other budding entrepreneurs during both businesses’ salad days.
The original gym closed its doors for good on July 27 and will be converted into a Steamdot coffee facility. And for climbers who are melancholic about saying goodbye to the old space, one step into the new, 25,000-foot gym will remedy any apprehension. All equipment is state of the art, and there’s about five times more climbing space than the Fairbanks Street location.
The idea to find a new, larger space for a gym was born about five years ago. Investors realized the original space was antiquated, “old, dark and run down,” says Hancock. A committee was formed and they spent a great deal of time looking for a location to retrofit—just as Bear Tooth did with the former Denali theater—including Builders Millwork Supply, a skating rink and the Old Bailey's furniture store. It soon became apparent to the design committee (Rod Hancock, Siri Moss, Dave Caldwell, Diane Moxness, Tanya Leinicke and head route-setter Ted Phelps) that starting from the ground up was only way to do it.
The dozen shareholders in the old gym were offered buyouts, which half of them accepted, $3 million was raised through new investors, and construction began on the 125-foot by 125-foot building on September 15, 2015.
The design committee visited a number of prominent gyms in the Lower 48 for inspiration, and the result will have Alaskan climbers—novice and expert—drooling.
There's a speed wall sanctioned for the United States Climbing Association (USCA) competition, featuring a touch pad at the top that can decide races down to one one-hundredth of a second.
The bouldering wall, designed by a crew from Poland, measures 14 feet high. In the main climbing area there are 70 top rope lines and 12 lead-only lines; the overhanging lead feature was designed by a team of Frenchmen. Some $65,000 was spent on new holds from Entre Prises out of Bend Oregon. In fact, one of their employees, Eric Wickenheister, became so enamored of the gym and Alaska he begged for a job and has been hired as operations manager. The only other employees from Outside is Niko Monteiro, a USCA level 2-certified route-setter who drove 4,500 miles to Alaska from Florida in mid-July to take on his new position.
Head coach and setter Todd Phelps is particularly jazzed about hosting the USCA Divisionals at the new gym in June of 2017, bringing the best climbers from Hawaii, Washington and Oregon to compete with the ARG team. “I’m excited to have them here. For the past 10 years we’ve been traveling out of state for that level of competition.” This will bring 250 to 300 athletes as well as their families to Anchorage. “There aren't many gyms that can host an event of that size.”
The larger gym also means more young people can get involved, something that is close to Hancock’s heart. According to ARG Co-owner and director, Siri Moss, “at the old gym classes were maxed out with waiting lists twice the size of the class itself.” Hancock hopes the additional space can spark greater interest from Anchorage residents. “We hope to triple the interest at the youth level, eventually maybe we’ll see high school teams. There will be more classes for adults and maybe the creation of a masters league.”
Safety will continue to be first and foremost with a full time floor monitor/wall attendant making sure the proper procedures and safeguards are in place.
Are Hancock and the other investors concerned about starting a new business during such precarious economic times? Perhaps. Although Hancock says the new gym was designed to be a profitable venture, he’s not just in it for the money. This new gym is about making Anchorage a better place and exposing more of its residents, young and old, to the sport of climbing. “This is a passion project we hope will grow and contribute to the community.”
The Alaska Rock Gym is located 665 E. 33rd Ave. and will open its doors at 6 a.m., August 1. For more information visit alaskarockgym.com.
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