With new facility, Alaska Rock Gym isn't just for climbers anymore

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Climbers scale 46-foot walls in the roped climbing area, which features 78 rope lines, as the Alaska Rock Gym holds a soft opening on Monday, August 1, 2016, at its new location in Midtown. This area offers top-rope climbing, lead climbing, speed routes and crack systems. Along with a bouldering area, clients can now tackle 19,800 square feet of climbing surface. The previous location held 7,000 square feet. (Erik Hill / Alaska Dispatch News)

The new Alaska Rock Gym, which had its soft opening Monday, is expanding options in a city where indoor athletic space is in demand.

The new gym has 19,800 square feet of climbing surface, including both rope climbing and bouldering, at a new location just off the Seward Highway near Moose's Tooth Pub and Pizzeria. The gray walls, shot through with hues of yellow and orange, soar to 46 feet.

"I was happy with the old gym but this one is on steroids," said Bob Dugan, a Girdwood resident who has been climbing for 45 years. "I think it's fantastic."

Rock climbing in America has moved definitively from niche sport to mainstream, and the soaring new space makes it clear that's now true in Anchorage too.

The scruffiness of the old Alaska Rock Gym, with its cork bulletin board full of handwritten ads and business cards, cramped locker rooms and aging equipment, is nowhere to be found. The old location, on Fairbanks Street south of Tudor Road, will be turned into a SteamDot Coffee tasting room and roasting facility.

The new climbing gym bears more of a resemblance now to those in the Lower 48 and Europe, and offers more modern amenities. Kids' parties will be held in a carpeted conference room outfitted with a flat-screen TV. Filling out forms and signing in, once done with pen and clipboard, is accomplished at a bank of iPads. The women's locker room is spacious and bright, and includes a shower that can accommodate people with disabilities. There's an air filtration system to minimize the spread of chalk dust, and light-focusing skylights and LED lighting to reduce electricity use.

With 78 roped routes, 152 boulder problems, speed-climbing wall and ample stadium seating, the gym managed to convince USA Climbing to bring a youth divisional event to Alaska next year for the first time.

Investors in the new $7 million facility, which includes Moose's Tooth owners Rod Hancock and Matt Jones through their company 33rd Avenue LLC, plan to claw their way further into the city's market for indoor exercise.

A conventional gym there offers weights, kettle bells, Bosu balls and a selection of heart rate-boosting machines. Nestled in the rear of the building is a yoga room hung with white globe lanterns.

"We hope people will want to make it their health club and not just their climbing place," said Siri Moss, general manager and one of a group of owners. "Hopefully, they'll decide they can get everything they need here instead of running around town."

Day-one reviews seemed to bode well for the enterprise. Kevin Goodman, 18, who has been climbing for two months, brought his friend Austin Pavles, 18, who was trying the sport for the first time. Both planned to be back often.

"The transition from the old gym to the new one is crazy," said Goodman, who arrived at 7 a.m. and planned to stay all day. "I was going almost every day to the old one and will come here even more often now. It's just a happy place to be."