A gym dedicated to “bouldering” — rock climbing on lower walls that requires no harnesses or ropes — will be the first of its kind in the Twin Cities to serve beer, and eventually wine, when it opens Monday.

Twin Cities Bouldering, Vertical Endeavors’ sixth climbing facility, worked permission to serve beer into the lease agreement at its site in the Prospect Park neighborhood between St. Paul and Minneapolis.

“That was a huge win for us,” said facility manager Gabe Olson.

The company has already partnered with Indeed Brewing Company in Northeast Minneapolis and plans to partner with other nearby breweries such as Surly and Urban Growler.

Jonathan Prestrud, a Vertical Endeavors member who toured the new site last month, describes the brewery partnership as a dream.

“That’s a very climber sort of (thing),” Prestrud said. “Climbers would go out and climb for the day, and after you’d be camping and usually drinking beer.”

The company has no plans to serve anything other than beer and occasionally wine.

“This will not be an all-day/everyday thing, but more of a once a week event partnering with local breweries,” said Noal Ronken, training and business development manager at Vertical Endeavors.

BOULDERING

Vertical Endeavors opened its first indoor climbing gym in St. Paul in 1992. This will be its first gym dedicated strictly to bouldering, and the second such facility in the Twin Cities — Minneapolis Bouldering Project opened in November in Minneapolis.

Twin Cities Bouldering is housed in a building that used to be a storage warehouse.

“This was just a freezer,” Olson said. “So we were standing here in a metal box, trying to imagine a gym.”

Virtual reality was used to imagine what the future climbing facility could look like. From there, the company partnered with Nicros, an outdoor sports store in St. Paul, which designed the bouldering walls.

Walls reach up to 18 feet high with a large padded area underneath. There will be 18,000 square feet of bouldering walls.

The company emphasizes full-body workouts and will also offer a training gym with exercise machines specifically designed for climbers, in addition to a fitness studio for classes such as yoga.

Customers will be able to book private training with professional North Face climber Alex “AJ” Johnson.

“There’s no reason you can’t get really fit in this facility,” Olson said.

The facility will also feature a pro-shop with climbing shoes and gear, showers, a lounge area with a fireplace, charging stations and an all-season deck with heated flooring, where they plan to serve alcohol.

A GROWING SPORT

The Twin Cities are not the only area where interest in sport climbing is growing and the number of indoor climbing facilities is increasing. The announcement that climbing would be included in the 2020 Olympics spurred more buzz this year about the sport, according to the Climbing Business Journal.

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The Lectric XP electric bike is a bit crude, but has quality where it counts Forty-three new commercial climbing gyms opened in the past year nationwide — double the number of new gyms that opened in 2016, which sets the record for the most facilities opened in a single year, according to the CBJ.

Twenty bouldering-only gyms opened last year, the CBJ reported.

Twin Cities Bouldering’s Olson argues that the growth in bouldering is partly because it creates more options for people.

“It allows you to either be very social or be alone,” Olson said, “And it’s up to you every day.”

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