I'm taking my 9-year-old son on a road trip from NH to OH for his April break. We'll be spending a few days doing museums and zoos in Cleveland, Columbus, and Dayton, minimum. I'd like to find a gym or two in one or more of these cities for the downtime between museums, mostly midweek. He's pretty short (and so complains sometimes about route-setting habits) but pretty solidly intermediate for his age. We aren't crushing it, but nor are we looking for ladders. Anyone have any recommendations for places to go or avoid? Thanks!
Columbus has a pretty cool artificial outdoor wall located downtown at the Scioto Audubon Metro Park. The cool thing is that it’s completely free to climb there, you just have to bring your own gear. It’s also close to a number of museums downtown (COSI, CMOA) so it might be a good option for y’all. It’s on mountain project if you wanna check it out.
I also recommend checking out Vertical Adventures in Columbus as they set a pretty good range of top rope grades as well as an entire bouldering section set specifically for youth climbers.
Greg W
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Apr 14, 2025
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Unknown Hometown
· Joined May 2020
· Points: 171
Urban Krag Climbing Center is a really neat converted church.
if you’re an outdoor climber Mad River Gorge is really cool. I took my 10 year-old and seven-year-old there also the Dayton Air Force Museum is really cool and free.
Greg W
·
Apr 14, 2025
·
Unknown Hometown
· Joined May 2020
· Points: 171
Urban Krag Climbing Center is a really neat converted church.
if you’re an outdoor climber Mad River Gorge is really cool. I took my 10 year-old and seven-year-old there also the Dayton Air Force Museum is really cool and free.
Thanks! Outdoor would have been great, but there's only so much room in the car and time on the wall. As it turned out, we managed to go somewhere along the way in upstate NY (unfortunately not a great choice, but oh well), and then spent too much time in great places like the Air Force museum to have any time for climbing in Ohio. Nuts.