Movement Callowhill — Attraction in Philadelphia

My friend group & I have loved this gym for a while now, but sadly, we have all decided to cancel our memberships and move on to another gym due to a single but persistent issue with the gym. But first, let me start with the pro’s:

Pro’s Facility: Clean, tall walls & nice lead area, and good bouldering area with nice padding. Excellent quantity of routes Amenities: Good pro shop with wide variety of gear. Gym is quite nice for a climbing gym and the locker rooms + sauna’s are well above average from what I’d except form a gym. Holds: Good variety of holds and volumes Staff: Very warm, knowledgeable, overall nothing but good interaction Location: Excellent location for those of us in downtown Philly

Cons (aka route setting): Too many high-risk moves & dyno’s, lack of consistency

-Safety of setting: They say safety comes first but it does not always seem that way to us at Cliffs. Climbing is inherently dangerous, but subjectively, we feel as though the routes do not consider the safety of the climber sufficiently. Let’s be specific though:

For a commercial climbing gym, their bouldering routes sport an egregious amount of high-consequence moves towards the top of the walls. I’m talking mainly about dyno’s but also moves with a high chance of slipping unexpectedly. It’s become so ubiquitous that on v4s & v5s, we consistently find the biggest and most dangerous moves at the top of the wall. Ironically, towards higher grades (v7-v9) this trend is diminished, but the dyno’s are still commonplace. While many of us (including myself) enjoy dyno’s or poor feet, the positions that Cliffs consistently puts us in are flat out un-fun.

We can’t help but noticing that anecdotally among our friend group we’ve been injured here quite frequently with rolled ankles or torn tendons. We want to get injured trying our outdoor projects, not indoors. This is not surprising as the moves which Cliffs seems boast consist of the most common ingredients for indoor-rock climbing injuries according to AMGA: highly dynamic movement, large lateral movements, & unexpected falls due to unindicated loss of footing.

Comparatively, climbing gyms such as Philadelphia Rock Gym, Tufa’s, and Gravity Vault all exemplify (in our opinion) a far better model for setting which lowers the consequence of failure of risky moves. These are concrete & noticeable improvements such as: reserving more of the risky moves for lower down on the wall, reducing lateral dyno’s & moves which result in unexpected falls (foot slips), and ensuring minimal falling hazards (other holds/volume).

Subjectively, the Cliffs has simply given insufficient thought into the safety of their bouldering routes to keep us from moving to other gyms which have demonstrated this ability.

On ropes, things get a bit better. My singular gripe would be to improve clipping stances. Indoors, it’s nice to have decent clipping stances between hard moves to ease the risk of dropping. But we all know people will clip high anyways haha.

Variety & Setting: Simply put, too many dyno’s. I enjoy dyno’s, but even I must admit, it has gotten far too frequent.

Style: Primarily comp-style. Up to you if that’s a good or a bad thing, style is subjective.

Consistency: While I know many of my friends encouraged me to address grade stiffness here, I personally don’t care so I won’t comment on whether I think it’s stiff or not. What does frustrate us all though is the inconsistency of the grades at Cliffs. Of course grading is subjective and divisive at best, but it’s hard not notice that compared to other indoor gyms or outdoor areas such as gunks or NRG, our experience grade-to-grade differs more dramatically at the Cliffs. We did like that Cliff grades with real grades, not colors/groups/etc.

We used to enjoy the Cliffs more, but the poor route-setting, particularly compared with the other gyms in Philly, has ultimately led us to canceling our memberships. We will be checking in now and again, but for now, we can’t...

First of all, this gym is quite large. Lots of surface area.

1 star for existing.1 star for pure volume of space and having a slack line in that space.

Where to start. Went through a relatively painless autobelay orientation even though I’m just bouldering. That’s okay- this is to be expected and normal for most larger gyms.

So, the boulders… or maybe it’s the lack of the boulders that are the real issues with this facility. Here are my primary issues with the boulders.

-Density wicked low. This gym could easily accommodate 50+ more boulders. -Boulders not that creative/fun/interesting. (look- they were fine. Just not anything to write home about…) -Complete disregard for certain setting standards. (Primarily LARGE holds at the bottom of the slab.) I guarantee they’ve broken more than one ankle at this gym on large holds near the bottom of the slab… who does that- the industry knows by now not to do that.

Now to go on a bit beyond the boulders. I’m sure the gym in general is full of many many wonderful individuals. Unfortunately the space in the gym, and low density of boulders or maybe some other unknown variable mean you get an experience that can feel quite lonely. I was literally here climbing with some of my favorite friends. But there was close to zero community cheering and encouragement.

It’s hard to describe cuz it’s a vibe. But my home gym, and the other gyms I’ve visited along the way out west have all had it. The Cliffs just didn’t…

A lot of large commercial gyms have stopped having slacklines. It’s not perfect/but it’s there and that’s all it needs to be fun. I had more fun alone on the slack line than climbing...

I have been coming to Cliffs (now Movement) since it opened. It was a great gym at first, felt really friendly with good amenities. Since then many of my friends have left because of the inconsistent routesetting and pricing.

I enjoyed the routesetting at the beginning. Since then the quality of the routesetting has decreased and has been super inconsistent. I regularly climb v4/v5 and there are some v2 that have been very difficult. The climbs are usually very tall and as a short person (5') I often struggle to figure out a beta that can work for my height. I have basically stopped bouldering because of the tall sketchy moves. There are often difficult moves at the top which feel more unsafe than hard.

I'm particularly disappointed in the pet policy implemented last year. It was such a wonderful place to bring the whole family (including our furry ones!) and I honestly never saw any issues with dogs acting out in the gym. More often there are kids running under people climbing that pose more of an issue.

There is very limited parking and only during certain times of day. There are multiple parking lots in the vicinity so I am not sure why management hasn't created a contract with another parking lot.

Lastly, the pricing has just gone up so much. It makes climbing unaffordable and inaccessible to so many people and it lessens the diversity of the gym. There was a sliding scale implemented but for such a small group of people.

I've kept my membership because it is the only gym close to me with rope climbing, but honestly I wish I...