Largest U.S. City Without a Climbing Gym

A comment in another thread got me interested. What is the largest city in the US that currently doesn't have a climbing gym?

Define “city”. The Chicago metro (for example) has a number of gyms but IL cities 2-7 (by population) don’t. Aurora, IL has 175k people and no gym. Yonkers, NY 200k. Something like that - a working class suburb of a major metro. 

Palm Springs/Coachella Valley Area has over 1/2 million people and no climbing gym currently, plus it's 120 degrees this weekend

Neil Littlewrote:

Palm Springs/Coachella Valley Area has over 1/2 million people and no climbing gym currently, plus it's 120 degrees this weekend

Not a "city".

Kyle Gilbertwrote:

Define “city”. The Chicago metro (for example) has a number of gyms but IL cities 2-7 (by population) don’t. Aurora, IL has 175k people and no gym. Yonkers, NY 200k. Something like that - a working class suburb of a major metro. 

Good point! I'm sure there are plenty of large suburbs that don't have a gym within city limits but have access to one within an hour. The example in the other thread was Las Cruces, NM.

Marc801 Cwrote:

Not a "city".

oh ok, thanks Mark, you seem fun

By "City" the largest 2 I found are Aurora, CO and Henderson, NV

By the spirit of the question I think it's basically all of southern Texas. I don't think there's a gym south of San Antonio.

 McAllen-Edinburg-Mission (900k), Corpus Christi (450k) Brownsville-Harlingen (425k),  and Laredo (270k) are the largest MSAs.

Neil Littlewrote:

Palm Springs/Coachella Valley Area has over 1/2 million people and no climbing gym currently, plus it's 120 degrees this weekend

There have been climbing gyms in this area over the years, though, including Uprising Rock Climbing Center and Desert Rocks Indoor Climbing Gym. IIRC, Uprising got started in the 90's with Cosgrove associated with it. Both gyms shut down presumably because of insufficient market (and COVID apparently didn't help DRICG).

Chase Webbwrote:

Good point! I'm sure there are plenty of large suburbs that don't have a gym within city limits but have access to one within an hour. The example in the other thread was Las Cruces, NM.

Haha, I was about to respond with Las Cruces but I guess that was the inspiration for this thread. I grew up there and no climbing gym despite being an hour away from Hueco. The first time I ever got to try climbing was when the Army trucked an autobelay wall into our high school parking lot for a recruiting event. The city has grown a ton since I moved away 17 years ago but I just checked and still no climbing gym, although the university now has a small wall students can use.

Lubbock is an even larger city (272k) with no climbing gym, other than a small one at the university. It might also have the longest drive to get to a climbing gym. Looks like your options are 4.5 hrs to Fort Worth or 5hrs to ABQ.

Neil Littlewrote:

oh ok, thanks Mark, you seem fun

But he’s right. The area you are describing is a very large area punctuated by very small towns. The most affluent towns in the area are largely populated by retirees and temporary tourists. The least affluent towns are known for tweekers. If you believe that population can support a climbing gym, raise the capital and start one. The one that was there went out of business.

Edited to say: I personally do find Marc fun. 

Austin Donisanwrote:

By "City" the largest 2 I found are Aurora, CO and Henderson, NV

By the spirit of the question I think it's basically all of southern Texas. I don't think there's a gym south of San Antonio.

 McAllen-Edinburg-Mission (900k), Corpus Christi (450k) Brownsville-Harlingen (425k),  and Laredo (270k) are the largest MSAs.

Henderson had one until recently (a year ago?), curious why the owners didn’t find it worthwhile/profitable enough to keep the doors open (they are opening 2-3 other gyms at the moment, so may be self-explanatory)

Christian Heschwrote:

Henderson had one until recently (a year ago?), curious why the owners didn’t find it worthwhile/profitable enough to keep the doors open (they are opening 2-3 other gyms at the moment, so may be self-explanatory)

The more questionable decision they made is deciding to reopen on the west side of Vegas basically next to competition (R2C2) when Henderson, centennial hills, etc remain gym free.

phylp phylpwrote:

But he’s right. The area you are describing is a very large area punctuated by very small towns. The most affluent towns in the area are largely populated by retirees and temporary tourists. The least affluent towns are known for tweekers. If you believe that population can support a climbing gym, raise the capital and start one. The one that was there went out of business.

Edited to say: I personally do find Marc fun. 

Well you are a fun bunch there Phil …annnnnd you’ve got “cities” on lock. Def not planning on opening a climbing gym, and def wouldn’t in Palm Springs but I’ll hit y'all up if I do —  we’ll get those tweekers sending in no time…prob better have them stick with a bouldering gym though

San Antonio doesn't have rope gyms, so if you don't consider bouldering to be real climbing-- always a productive discussion-- we have a winner.

Covid killed the Palm Springs gym. They, like many businesses, didn't go out of business until covid had everyone staying home.

Neil, I feel your pain. 

And I can say Neil is a fun climbing partner.

Austin Donisanwrote:

By "City" the largest 2 I found are Aurora, CO and Henderson, NV

Yes technically but Übergrippen is about 50’ outside of the official Aurora city boundary and the Denver metropolitan area has about a thousand and a half gyms

Side topic of relevance to the "what is a city" discussion. When I was investigating places to live outside of upstate NY, I kept running into problems of searching for "cities" and finding places that seemed like the perfect "small town" vibe (as I like to think, big enough for a Walmart and a Home Depot, but not multiple). The problem I ran into often was that most "cities" were suburbs/exurbs of a larger "real city" so they weren't small towns at all. That's where I learned about the concept of MSAs and uSAs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_area

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropolitan_statistical_area

(I don't have a dog in this fight)

Las Cruces is the second largest city in the state of New Mexico and is the home of our second largest university. It’s ready for a climbing or bouldering gym if anyone is looking for a business opportunity.

And, while everyone is climbing at your gym, you can be climbing in the beautiful Organ Mountains which are on the edge of town (must like long approaches).

Funny that Cruces is getting this attention now for being gymless - my wife and I looked pretty closely at opening a bouldering gym there a couple years back (it's her hometown so she's got a soft spot for returning). 

The old late-release movie theater shut down and was a promising venue except that the boys+girls club beat us to the punch (a great use of the space!) 

I still think the opportunity is there especially for the right location. We still look at commercial real estate listings every few months in the hope something pops up.

Not the largest but the Mobile, AL metro area (339k) doesn’t have a climbing gym. 

Chase Webbwrote:

Good point! I'm sure there are plenty of large suburbs that don't have a gym within city limits but have access to one within an hour. The example in the other thread was Las Cruces, NM.

FYI the las Cruces metro area is about 230,000 city itself is 120,000.

Edit: 3.5 Walmarts, 1 home Depot, 1 Lowe's, no rei or other decent outdoor store, lots of good Mexican restaurants 

I feel better knowing we are not the largest. 🤣