Momentum Indoor Climbing SODO — Attraction in Seattle

It looks like most of the high ratings are first time climbers, so I want to be clear that my review comes from someone who climbs regularly.

To say the least, this place is a beautiful disappointment. When you walk in it's open, clean, cool and esthetically pleasing. Bathrooms are polished, the gym looks nice. But here's were things go wrong:

1: the mats are HARD. They have some sort of tough plastic coating on, that makes falling from even three feet a concern. There's no way I'd even consider going for the slightly risky reach on these things; they legit hurt. TBH, I'm not really sure from a legal perspective how they were approved. Most of growth from climbing comes from taking risks and pushing your boundaries; don't expect that here.

2: poor utilization of space. The gym is actually smaller than it looks, and the way the setters utilize it is just wasteful. If you go to small gyms like Stone Gardens Seattle you'll notice the routes overlap to fit a ton into a little space. At momentum, I can't tell you how much blank wall they have; it's astonishing. You can easily hit everything at your level in 40 minutes, making it pointless to come more than once a month. On top of the wasteful setting, they have a whole wall dedicated to training, that NO ONE uses. Read your audience and put the space to use with proper routes

3: poor route turnover. On top of how few routes are on the walls, they take forever to reset them. Again, if you come twice a month, that's too frequent. Not only are you not challenged, but the routes get greasy to a point that no brush can fix. I've seen V1s turn to V4s with how slick they got; it's legit dangerous, not to mention frustrating. If you're going to skimp on your setting and waste wall space, at least turn the routes over!

Lack of setters. Based on the tags, there are only two, and they're not very creative. Also, one appears to be tall, making half his routes by default impossible for anyone under 5'4".

This place is beautiful. It has a lot of potential to be a go-to spot for climbers, especially with how overfilled SBP is, but they really need to step up their game; it would be a serious waste if they didn't get it...

Better to look at than than to climb in. The staff was super nice!!! Shoutout to the front desk. First thing you notice when you walk in is the gorgeous lighting and crisp aesthetics of the gym, however there are a few obvious cons that will prevent me from returning. 1.) Pads. Are. Rock. Hard. And. Slippery. Do you like the feeling of a nice ground fall? Well, look no further than SoDo Momentum! The pads are really strange and feel like slippery hard plastic. Most bouldering gyms are decked out in the Asana pads, which support safe falls, but this gym is lacking for some reason. Don’t know what’s up with this, but it is discouraging to try anything above your flash point because you know how unnecessarily uncomfortable the fall is. 2.) The Setting The setting lacks variation and feels like it’s been set by two or three lanky dudes who have never touched a real boulder. I understand that gym climbing deviates further and further from outdoors as the sport progresses, but a variety in sets could keep even the non-gym climbers happy. I’m comfortable in the v7/8 range, and only found myself enjoying climbs in the v3/4 range. Not all of us climbers do parkour :-(. Also, the holds seemed pretty dang greasy to the point where you couldn’t distinguish a yellow hold from a black hold. Zoinks, scoob! 3.) There was so much dang chalk everywhere that I think I’ll have to wash my climbing shoes. When you leave, you feel like you had a chalk bucket dumped on you.

I had a lot of fun! But the soulless corporate nature was kind of disappointing, despite the beautiful facility. Hopefully some changes will be made so this gym will be able to keep people coming back, rather than just scooping up the people trying to avoid the...

This is a great gym. If you want to take up climbing or have thought about trying climbing for the first time and this place is near you do hesitate to go here for your first time. The climbing is excellent and you can ditch your other gym membership because they have a first-rate regularly gym built in with cardio equipment and everything.

Okay, climbers let’s talk. I’ve been climbing in Seattle for five years. I traditionally had as my main gym Seattle Stone Gardens and I loved it. I like the staff there and I know all the setters, the regulars, and the owner. Nice guy drives a cool car as his everyday driver rain or shine which is fun. I have also climbed extensively at SBP, Bel Stone G, climb Tac, and many gyms near the places I’ve been for the army. Most gyms have something good about them and I think if you’ve been climbing for a while then it makes sense to go climb outside your home gym for the verity and I’m sure you agree so first if you haven’t tried Momentum you should stop in for a day pass. Second, the facility is as nice as SBP was when it was brand new but a single story. Lastly, the setting is more challenging the SBP and I think you’ll find it competitive with SG/SGB. It’s much bigger then climb Tacoma and new so unless you’re just living down south I cannot think of a reason to not make that the trip. Come by and try it. For reasons of construction on the highway, I started going here but it’s a good gym and I will be staying even after the tunnel opens. That said as I mentioned I will still go to all the other gyms so if I don’t see you at my new home I’ll...