The Circuit Bouldering Gym Tigard — Attraction in Tigard

**BEWARE OF MALE EMPLOYEE AT TIGARD LOCATION THAT VERBALLY ASSAULTS WOMEN & 4-year old children!! Description below.

I am a first time patron to your Tigard location. I have been looking forward to checking out your gym on behalf of my 4-year-old climbing enthusiast. I called ahead to ensure it would be suitable & appropriate for her age. I was assured there was a designated kids area that was both fun & encouraging for young climbers. We invited 3 of her friends to join us from her preschool. When we arrived on Thursday, 5/16 at 1:30pm; the gym was quiet & the staff was very friendly. We signed the waivers & headed back to the kids area. Myself & the 3 other mothers stayed in the kids section with our children. We were attentive, interactive, & engaged the entire time. Around 3pm a few more kids arrived & everyone shared the space. In a hurried instant, a tall, male employee, with shoulder-length bleach-blonde, wavy hair, & dark trimmed beard walked to the far corner to sweep something out of the top corner of the window. He turned directly on our children that were moving from one slide to the adjacent rock face & shouted aggressively at them “STOP RUNNING; STOP RUNNING. You are not allowed to run back here!” He never once made contact with us mothers (who were all watching just a few feet away) to relay a rule we were not aware of in this area. This was very upsetting. The video we watched prior to climbing stated that the rule of children running was regarding only in between & around adult areas. It did not state anything about the connecting pads between the two kids boulder walls. Our children were playing safely, responsibly, & respectfully in the kid-approved section the entire time. When kids from the 3:30pm camp showed up, this individual was the only male instructor & came into the kids area. Our children gave them space & stayed away from their lesson. Again, we were present & interactive the entire time. After the kids were done with that section, the male employee escorted them to the more advanced area. He came back to clear their equipment & abruptly; without warning, stormed over to all 4 of us women; stood on the edge of the mat. & shouted belligerently at us saying that we had been warned several times about our children not following the rules. Not only was this unprecedented, it was completely untrue. He was physically intimidating; pointing his finger directly in my face & standing intentionally & intimidatingly over me. He was shouting at the top of his lungs. None of this confrontation, under any circumstance was ok. He humiliated me, belittled me, falsely accused me of things, & caused my child & I both to fear for our safety. Not once did he or any employee come & talk to us about more specific rules regarding the kids area. Furthermore, there is not any additional, or specific signage clearly stating what the rules of conduct in the kids area are. Myself & the other mother’s he physically threatened & verbally assaulted, will not be returning to this facility. I will be posting my experience on all social media platforms as a warning to any parents of small children. This man is a threat to the safety of your business. I hope you further investigate this individual & consider the eventual legal, & financial ramifications this could cause you. Disregarding the verbally assaulting employee-incident; I would strongly encourage you to refresh your waiver video to include kid zone specific safety rules & conduct as well as clearly marking them in the designated areas. It is not fair to be expected to translate the adult version into the kid section when you have 2 slides &...

Birthday party review: We booked our kid’s birthday party here. I was a little apprehensive that it would be unfriendly due to the many rules and restrictions and the statements warning about heavy penalties or cancellation of the party, but please don’t let this turn you off of booking your kid’s event here.

The party was excellent. Check in was a little chaotic as the guests arrived the same time as we did in order to check in and because our access to the party room was only 15-min prior to the event starting. There was a room we were directed to with lovely windows outside that could open for ventilation and a big window that overlooked the kids area. There was a multipurpose table and two tables with chairs, plus extra chairs and a big box bench. The instructors, Tristan and Jacob, did an excellent job of essentially herding cats, and were amiable and engaging with the kids. The format was perfect: about an hour of climbing games, then a thirty minute unguided break in the party room for snacks and cake, then thirty more minutes of climbing. Though we did our best to tidy up, the sweeping, garbage emptying, etc. was done by the gym. Everyone working was very helpful and even gave us paper plates as we had forgotten ours.

There are a few critiques, and thus the four stars. Firstly, there isn’t a whole lot of information available online and unless you ask the right questions, you might not get the information you need. For example, I wasn’t sure what would be available, like trash bags, etc, if shoes were included, how many parents we could have, etc without asking each question specifically. Secondly, we’ve run into this problem before at other Circuit locations: there aren’t enough kids shoes available to rent. Even in the classes, which have a limited number, there aren’t enough pairs to go around and that’s including sizing up or down to just have something on the kids’ feet. Third critique is that it would be nice to limit the number of kids climbing reservations during birthday parties because initially it was sheer chaos and pandemonium with kids everywhere, until it cleared out a bit. The desk and people I emailed with kept telling me there is a limit to the number of kids during the birthday times but as I had reserved more than half of the climbs available for the siblings that aren’t included in the party, I can tell you that even the day before our event there was still the same number of climbs available as all other time slots with a party going on or not. Finally, it would also be nice if you could do a group reservation for the kids not included in the party, instead of making multiple separate reservations. There wasn’t any support in making additional child reservations for the children who weren’t allowed to participate in the party (siblings, anyone over the strict 12-child limit). The threat of the consequences and the lack of flexibility there definitely added a bit of stress.

Overall we had a great time and were pleasantly surprised with the quality of the instructors and the size of the kids area in the Tigard location. All of our guests had an excellent time and the parents all reported happy and tired children...

LOVE IT. The staff is super laid back, very pleasant and helpful and always make you feel at home. the music they play is pretty conducive to climbing - a lot of instrumentals with smoother, punchy beats and at times an airy ethereal vibe. mostly wordless = less distraction. the atmosphere and decor style of the location is minimalist - bare-bones simplicity and climbing. their bathroom sinks are large unpainted concrete troughs, hand dryers are decent brushed steel models, doors are steel framed w/ opaque glass inlets, enormous window-paned shutter doors are lifted and lowered for ventilation (contingent on weather) as opposed to constant usage of a costly HVAC system. out front there are two decoy model owls perched on the rafters to dissuede would-be nesting sparrows - as opposed to installing or welding unsightly death spikes. Their exercise area's jumprope is makeshifted out of a thin plastic sleeved wire cable and small plastic tubes. Simple, smart & efficient is the Circuit. They have a small exercise area w/ jumpropes, dumbells, a recumbant bike & an elliptical, squat station (can be bench press w/ extra benches laying around), row machine, medicine balls, cable-pulley weight system w/ pull up handles (or red rock grips). problems are challenging & regularly changed with colorful holds (gigantic hands, baby heads, green slime, fruits etc). the kids area has two unpolished steel slides, a 'cave' leading to a top-out overlook area, and many walls with banana bunch, ghost, hand, baby doll & other varietal hand holds. the gym also has 3 slacklines - two in the grown up's area, one in the kid's. I come here tri-weekly at least and love every minute. challenging and fun, staff is super superb, + they have a good little selection of chalk bags, crimp grips, outdoor route books & more climbing goods in their small store (watch your step). They're open till 11....