San Diego climbing scene

Hi there, I will be visiting San Diego for three days next month (Sun/Mon/Tue 8/9/10 of March) and would love to go climbing. Since it is a work visit, only evening sessions at a gym are in question. I much prefer lead on boulder but do both. Two issues I wanted help with:

(1) Which climbing gym should I go to (lead/boulder)
(2) Anyone willing to be my partner? (I am a badass belayer :)). 

If you want to boulder, mount Woodson is great! A mountain covered in boulders! If you want to lead there’s lots of options but it depends on your requirements, trad or sport or what? Multipitch, hard? Short or long? It looks like you climb way harder then me and my wife, ha. Mission gorge is a pretty good mix of everything. Maybe a good place to start looking for lead stuff to climb? 

Oh and for a gym.. more data would help, but Mesa rim is the nicest/largest/and most expensive. Vertical hold is the best value, but a little grungy. And there’s a few bouldering only gyms too if that’s more your thing. The grotto and the wall? But I haven’t been to those.. 

Hi Zachary, as much as I would love to go outdoor, I am afraid I will not be able to since my visit is work related - but in the evenings I can go to Mesa rim (looks nice online). Do you know anyone who goes there and would like to partner up for a couple of sessions?

I don’t know anyone there unfortunately. My wife and I used to climb there but it became too expensive, so now we only climb outside. I think you can put yourself on a partner list though when you get there and they will try to match you up with someone who is so looking for a partner.

I'm no longer in SD so can't climb with you, but usually if I was in need of a partner I just go to the front desk and ask them to announce it and usually you find someone.  You can just boulder until you find somebody, or just start chatting to boulderers - some of them might want to lead but don't have a partner.  Of course it's tougher to find a lead partner if you haven't passed the test.

Alternatively there are meetup groups that go to various gyms on different days: meetup.com/Rock-Climbers-Of… - you can show up and ask the front desk and they will point you towards the organizers.

Uri Shapira wrote: Hi Zachary, as much as I would love to go outdoor, I am afraid I will not be able to since my visit is work related - but in the evenings I can go to Mesa rim (looks nice online). Do you know anyone who goes there and would like to partner up for a couple of sessions?

I went there last week, and once you get your belay card its pretty easy to find a partner. I went through 3 partners in one session because each one had to go. They kept announcing people needing partners and I just went to the front desk and partner with them.

If you're going at rush hour 4:30 to 6:30 especially, then you may want to just stick with the easiest traffic from your location.

There's a lot of good info about the San Diego climbing scene in this thread.