Inner Peaks Climbing Crown Point
Henry Dickens
Loved it! The bouldering area was sizable, with great route setting and a few nice wall features. I didn't spend too much time on the top-rope section, but it was fun. The top-rope walls were on the smaller size, but they are building some 55ft walls in the back as I type. Once again, the holds were fun and the route setting was very creative.
Jason White
Unfortunately it's just not really worth it anymore. Started going to Crown Point almost 4 years ago. Have loved it, but with the membership now being $84/m instead of the previous $69, and the hours being greatly reduced (only open 5p-10p on weekdays) the value just isn't there anymore. They have 2 great facilities, but $84 every month is a lot in this economy.
Benjamin Khounsombath
If you're an old head who wants a gym that is apathetic to what other successful modern gyms are doing, then Inner Peaks might be for you. If you're not interested in a learning environment to develop movement skills but rather be tested on problem sets that scales difficulty by how heinous and uncomfortable something feels, then this might be the gym for you. If you have a narrow-minded view that climbing is only about how hard you can pull down on small incut holds even though the rest of the world's modern gyms churn out communities of vastly better outdoor climbers than those from Charlotte, then Inner Peaks is definitely for you. Otherwise, this review is for everyone else. This organization can charge the same membership fees that elite level gyms charge because there are no other competing gym organizations in the city to force its own improvement. The state of this gym is so bad that many members would rather drive 2 hours to Greenville on the weekends just to climb at BlocHaven. If you want to live in Charlotte for it's proximity to Boone and the New while also having a climbing gym during the work week to develop your skills, I would strongly advise you to consider a different city as long as Inner Peaks continues its monopoly. Visit any successful, modern commercial gym today in Europe or Japan or BlocHaven. The ethos of those gyms is clear: user experience through routesetting is #1 priority. The most obvious visual indicator of this is their constant investment in new holds, volumes, and macros. Compare that experience to Inner Peaks and you'd immediately notice an extremely basic hold selection. Even with their modern flat Walltopia surfaces and angles at the Matthews location, they continue to use the same basic incut polymer holds set after set. Setters from the rest of the world use new modern holds as tools for creating new and interesting movements but Inner Peaks is content with phoning it in and shuffling around their basic hold selection, avoid using holds that require anything more than one woodscrew, sticking a number on it, and calling it a day. When they do decide to use the few volumes and macros they already own, they're rarely ever appropriate for the wall angles which seems to indicate the setters just lack the hold inventory needed for a given sector. The Matthews location has many slab and vert angles that are so under utilized which is a shame because it has the potential for great setting if there was a better hold selection. Frankly the holds are so inappropriate, there are often dangerous collision potentials from falls above holds that are too big for the wall angle (setting small jibs or smears directly above large protruding holds). Even at the highest level of competition routesetting which is specifically designed to push the level of committing moves, that type of fall potential is a violation of basic safety rules. This isn't the fault of the setters themselves. They are simply being paid to do the job they're told with the limited time and tools provided by the gym. Vocal customers keep asking for faster turnover on problem sets which only gets a "quantity over quality" response from the setting by necessity. The Matthews location specifically has an issue with a sparse problem density leading to large wall areas of low user engagement. These vocal customers with their short attention span, who consume their single session objective and just move on to the next sector perpetuates this cycle of low engagement. Not to mention the new lead climbing walls that are only going to exacerbate these issues. The environment this gym has bred shares no resemblance to the rest of the world's modern gyms that treat routesetters as highly skilled tradesmen and values its crews to curate a challenging but fun user experience. It's really sad anyone from Charlotte encountering climbing as a beginner can't experience the learning environment a modern climbing gym can offer let alone, the many lifers who organize their life around this sport.
Jerry Wu
I absolutely love this gym. But I drive from Columbia. With the recent construction theyve been absolutely terrible about posting when theyll be closed. Ive driven there on 3 separate occasions and theyve been closed and had to drive 45 min to the other location. And then one time south end had a comp. when asked about it, oh check our instagram. No. Im not about that life. Why is it not on google or your website? Not everyone has social media and I shouldnt have to actually search through 10 posts looking for an infographic when it absolutely should be posted on google AND your website. Why didnt you call? After the first time I did. Why dont you ever answer your phone? So yeah. Not happy with management. Great bouldering gym tho. Really awesome routes and setters At this point I should mention Ive been to every climbing gym on the east coast and at least one in 44 individual states. Ive been climbing a while, you can google me. This is literally the worst review Ive left for a gym. Congratulations
Iron Station
Place is a mess, the staff is comprised of an eclectic mix of a**h0les, stoners, stupid miserable, busy bodied unfriendly and nosy tw@ts. Too many annoying toddler parties. Really, Dont bother. Go to the south end. Or better still, the white water center. Trust Youll thank us.
