Stone Age Rock Gym — Local services in Manchester

I travel for business but always try and save room for my harness and shoes to visit local rock gyms whereever I go. In the past year or so I have visited gyms in WA, CO, LA, NY, CT, NJ, TN and WI. I live in southwest MI and regularily visit our local gym and occasionally one on the east side of the state. I found myself with some extra time in Hartford before my flight and headed over to Stone Age in Manchester. What a great choice! The gym is really cool, not the biggest (but not the smallest either) but with a great layout to fit the most climbs and boulders in a smaller area. Kevin was super friendly, helpful, welcoming and even taught me a couple of new things. Something very different about this gym (for folks who aren't local), very VERY stout climb ratings. At most gyms and outside, I am fairly consistently at a level of solid 5.10 to a few 5.11ab for sport and some lead. I found myself stymied by a 5.8+ and owned by a few 5.9s at Stone Age. A 5.10 laughed at me. When I asked Kevin, he explained the indoor ratings were more in line with the local (and more original old school) outdoor ratings when 5.10 was about as high as they went. Cool! The routes were fantastic, even the ones that kicked my butt - they moved so nicely and made me want to keep working on them! With fingers fried and toes screaming (breaking in new shoes) I had to leave sooner than I wanted to catch my flight back home. A hidden gem certainly...

I have been regularly climbing at Stone Age Rock Gym for about 5 years now, and even though this gym has shaped me tremendously as a young climber, I unfortunately had to stop going there, after a series of inappropriate encounters with the gym's owner.

I (14 year old female), as well as some of my fellow teenage friends, have noticed strange and often inappropriate behavior from the owner/coach (middle aged male), who we have known and trusted for many years. This behavior, which has been occurring for a few years now, consists of uncomfortable touch, sexual comments (both in-person and over text), and trying to become close and overly friendly with minors.

My most recent encounter like this happened on an overnight climbing trip with the coach in question, as well as another teenage girl. The inappropriate situation was handled very poorly by him, making me and the other girl feel very skeptical of his true intentions and his commitment to his most important job. He made no effort to contact authorities, and also did not even reach out to our parents, even after they had tried to contact him multiple times.

I encourage families who want to enroll their children at this gym to put my experiences into consideration, and make sure that you closely monitor odd and inappropriate behavior if you end up getting involved...

I would 100% recommend taking an outdoor excursion with Kevin of Stone Age Rock Gym. A trio of us were visiting for fall foliage in late October and booked a half-day trip through the gym's website. We were able to fill out everything online, and Kevin reached out the afternoon before our climbing day to confirm the crag (east facing on Ragged Mountain, so we could be warm!), where we would park/meet, and any pertinent notes.

Once there, Kevin had all the gear we needed, packed and ready to go. Harnesses, helmets, ropes, webbing, things I didn't know we needed but he had prepared for safety/security/fun. Then, we had a short approach and voila! A wall with plenty of climbs. Kevin led us up a scramble first to set up our first two top ropes and gave us a chance to rappel back down after we took in the incredible view from the top of Ragged Mountain. We spent the morning climbing a range of 5.6-5.8s, got to say hello to a friendly pup, and learned a lot about crag stewardship in the area. Our trip had a blast, and despite the wasp/bees that we were disturbing, we couldn't have pictured a better day.

I'll be making an excuse to visit more often to take advantage of Connecticut's great climbing scene, Kevin's knowledge, and relationship with the local...