New (big!) gym opening in Golden - Earthtreks

I received this announcement this morning. Pretty exciting news for folks in Golden as well as the Front Range in general. Earthtreks operates three gyms back east.

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Earth Treks Climbing Centers is thrilled to announce that we’re coming to Golden Colorado! Founded in 1990, Earth Treks operates three premier indoor climbing centers in Maryland including Earth Treks Rockville, which boasts the largest climbing wall in the nation. That’s right; Earth Treks is saddled up and headed west to the Rocky Mountain state!

Slated to be open in late 2013, Earth Treks Golden’s 29,000 sq ft building will be built from the ground up. After more than 15 years of running climbing gyms, we’ve learned a lesson or two about what makes a climbing gym great. First we’ll start with over 25,000 sq. ft. of climbing with walls up to 48 ft high, including tons of bouldering and roped climbing for all ages and abilities. Next we’ll add key amenities like a huge fitness center, dedicated strength training area, yoga facilities, and locker rooms with all the bells and whistles. Finally we add our commitment to excellent customer service and a welcoming climbing community. At Earth Treks, it’s our mission to “share our passion for climbing,” and we are thrilled and honored to have the opportunity to deliver on that promise in Golden.

About the wall: We encourage you to look at our gyms in Maryland for hints about where we are headed on design. We are committed to delivering a next generation gym, evolving from 15 years of customer feedback and extensive consultation with route setters, competition climbers and gym owners. A great gym starts with thoughtful design, but allows for continuous renovations. All of our gyms have been expanded and/or renovated in the past few years. Our Rockville, MD gym has over 38,000 sq. ft. of climbing walls. While size isn’t the most important thing, great route setting and varied terrain help keep our members happy.

Location, location, location. Earth Treks Golden is just 15 minutes from downtown Denver and conveniently located near the intersection of Rt. 6, I-70 and C-470. The new Golden light rail station due to open this winter is less than a ten minute walk away. Before we are even open, the city will be constructing pedestrian paths and a bridge that will take you right to our door. The gym will have ample parking—whether you arrive by car or bike.

Earth Treks expects to break ground in March.

Keep tabs on all the exciting developments as they unfold at earthtreksclimbing.com and the Earth Treks Golden Facebook Page

Elevation.

Great news! I have climbed in their gyms in Maryland and they were great. Looking forward to this.

I can confirm. Earth Treks is in fact coming to Golden, CO. We're so excited about our plans for the new gym. You can follow the project at earthtreksclimbing.com and on Facebook. Earth Treks, Chris Jenkins

This is fabulous news!!!! A perfect location too. I'm psyched!!!

Hide your kids, Golden!

its about time! excellent news!

When is a climbing gym going to hire a decent architect to do a building that is something more than a big metal shed with some walls in it. I'm sure the climbing will be great knowing the Maryland gyms, but the elevation looks so utterly banal. Especially as this is a ground up building.

don't care how it looks, as long as it climbs. :D

Looks and sounds great to me!

Thanks for passing on this awesome news, Andy. And Chris, good luck getting this off the ground. Location looks to be very good, I am sure you guys will see a lot of interest from the get go.

Wally

Tony Hawk wrote:When is a climbing gym going to hire a decent architect to do a building that is something more than a big metal shed with some walls in it. I'm sure the climbing will be great knowing the Maryland gyms, but the elevation looks so utterly banal. Especially as this is a ground up building.

So you would rather pay higher fees for some exterior lipstick?? It's a sports facility not a museum.

Last time I looked around there were some pretty amazing sports facilities out there.

Who said anything about a more expensive gym? There are ways to make an exterior more exciting, interesting, dynamic, than the bland industrial shell for the same cost. Even on the interior...all these very expressive walls and generally the architecture does not respond. Plus a nicely designed facility certainly doesn't hurt attracting more clientele.

Sorry I'm an architect and a climber...can't resist the comment. I'd love to design a climbing gym. All these crazy walls inside and no response from the architecture.

Yes! This is awesome. Finally something on the west side. YAY!

Woohoo! Right across from my office!

Tony Hawk wrote:Last time I looked around there were some pretty amazing sports facilities out there. Who said anything about a more expensive gym? There are ways to make an exterior more exciting, interesting, dynamic, than the bland industrial shell for the same cost. Even on the interior...all these very expressive walls and generally the architecture does not respond. Plus a nicely designed facility certainly doesn't hurt attracting more clientele. Sorry I'm an architect and a climber...can't resist the comment. I'd love to design a climbing gym. All these crazy walls inside and no response from the architecture.

Maybe you should contact Earth Treks and offer services?

actually, the 'shed' look seems to be very 'in' with architects.... i wouldn't want to pay extra for non-functional turd polish (sometimes referred to as 'architecture').

Looks awesome but they are gonna have to change their pricing a bit or I will still drive the 20min up to rock,n,jamin $20 day passes or $69 monthly memberships way to pricey for my blood, do some local research come up with some off hours pricing or something unlike the east coast we have year round outdoor climbing to be had those prices are not going to get the rainy day indoor climbers to your gym. Please don't put some elitist gym in golden if you want to put that crap up put it up over in cherry creek.

Fair Disclosure: I actually don't climb at the Earthtreks gyms or any gym really regularly because I can't afford to.

Even so I wouldn't call their gyms elitist. Know and climbed with several of the staff outdoors and anytime I do manage to go there's never any weirdness with the clientele. There is some bad electronica playing once in awhile but whaddya gonna do?

A side note: A new gym out in Manassas seems to have a good crew of people working for it and they seem interested in setting up a fee structure that would make is accesible to more people so good on them. Maybe the invisible hand of capitalism does work and we just have to be more patient?

The prices for their existing gyms seem pretty close to the going rate around here. I like R&J, but the extra cost in fuel and driving time (that could be spent climbing) would justify a few extra bucks in admission fees for a lot of climbers in Golden or the west side of Denver.

Movement aint cheap...

Agree with J Johns - $22/day is pretty steep. Keep in mind that there are not sufficient numbers of "existing climbers" to support such a large gym, it will be looking to develop new climbers - might be tough to get people to come when the outlay for a day is over $30 (day pass and rental). This would be along my commute, but at those prices, I'd be inclined to stick with DBC.

This is going to be great! So excited!