Steel Peak Climbing & Ninja — Local services in Vaughan

The best word to describe this gym is gimmicky. So first the good parts. Staff are insanely friendly and super helpful and just overall amazing. That definitely gets a star from me because they have really great people working there. The walls and holds also seem clean and good and unlike some grime covered gyms they are very pleasant to climb. The sheer size of the place and activities to do perfectly justifies the price tag. And now the bad. Probably the worst washroom out of any gym I have been to. Floors are sticky, there are no paper towels or ways to clean hands, and in general it comes off as no one cleans the washrooms. I know it's not something to complain about when it comes to climbing places but I seriously haven't seen worse washrooms anywhere else. The climbing problems are feather bagged. Whatever grade they give probably should be lowered by a grade or two. Compared to other climbing gyms in GTA steel peak is heavily inflating its grade difficulty and doesn't need to do that. Although I said that the climbing area is clean and feels new, there is too much chaos. Too many kids roaming around without proper safety and in general I just think that maybe the gym can invest in more serious route setters.

So the only advice I have is to invest in better route setters, some cleaning teams for washrooms and areas outside of climbing and maybe some staff to monitor safety. Overall I had a great time there but coming from gyms like boulderz, up the bloc and Joe rockhead I think this gym can do so much better with some effort. And from the looks of it staff aren't to blame but rather how the...

I like this gym! It was my first time here and I’ve climbed at many climbing gyms before my visit here.

Aspire Vaughan is very spacious (and also at times, very cold). I love how there is a spray wall and a kilterboard amongst the other climbings on the walls. I was told by the regular members that they usually reset the walls every week which is very nice (challenging to project anything in this case). The usual gyms I visit in downtown reset about once a month.

If you want to change the angle of the kilterboard, you must ask a staff to do this. I was climbing with a few other guys and at times, it was hard to grab any staff as they’re occupied with other customers. During my visit, the staff seemed a little overwhelmed given there were only two people manning the storefront (owner should consider having three staff members on a Saturday morning).

The facilities were very clean and well maintained. Lockers and showers are inside the men’s/women’s washrooms. Bring your own lock if you need to use the locker, otherwise, they have shelves outside the washroom area for your belongings.

I enjoyed all the problems under the cave area, it was really challenging but also fun to train for endurance. The grading is soft, if you’re at least a V5/V6 climber, the climbs here might be too easy for you.

As for the obstacle area of the gym, it was mainly occupied by kids, I can’t comment on it much as I haven’t ran it myself but I think it’s more for kids than adults to be honest. Doesn’t look challenging at all. Regardless, I highly recommend this gym, it’s finally nice to have a gym that’s somewhat...

Spacious new bouldering gym with an amazing and friendly team that’s hands-on and super helpful. If you’re looking for a new home gym, this is definitely a great place since it’s a brand new community so everyone is getting to know each other! Aside from everything being new, they’ve also got new gym benefits of being well-ventilated and clean, and lots of bouldering problems for every skill level! If you’re looking for a different experience, they’ve also got a ninja obstacle course so it’s a fun, full size jungle gym for kids and adults! Looking forward to when they change up the obstacles regularly and put on gym-wide challenges.

I’ve been to a number of climbing gyms of various ages around the GTA and found that as a beginner they were unwelcoming or you find yourself not learning/growing fast enough to meet the constant changes, but with a gym as big as Aspire Vaughan, there’s lots to work on so you can ease into it on a less frequent basis.

Right now the gym isn’t too crowded, so there isn’t as much pressure to try new things or feel embarrassed about not sending the problem. They’re also fully-integrated to KAYA, a climbing app, meaning all their routes are tracked, and there’s an active community sharing their photos, betas, comments, and experiences with each problem. A great way to track progress - which is even more incentivizing for new climbers!

Cheers to Topher and Alejandro for making us feel welcome from the first visit, and providing such good tips and suggestions to help us get back...