The Gravity Vault Poughkeepsie — Local services in Town of Poughkeepsie

Our kids are on spring break so we finally decided to try this place out. We made an appt for 7pm which you must do to get a slot and fill some forms out before hand. When you get there you fill out a waiver also but it’s right on an iPad at the front desk. The front desk employee wish I got her name welcomed us and was very nice. She was really good with the kids and getting to know them. Now this place there’s a lot going on and can be a hazard if not careful. First things first she got serious with them and gave them some rules. After that she got them fitted with some rock climbing shoes and a harness. She had us wait on the sofa for our instructor. We got there 15 mins early as they requested and we were seated right on time at 7pm.

About a min or 2 later the instructor named Kat came to us and introduced herself and spoke with the kids briefly to get to know them and they were off to the walls. My son and daughter who are 10 and 5 were both excited and nervous. Even the kids walls seemed high to them but she assured them how safe they were in her hands. For the hour they took turns going up the walls and they loved it. My daughter through most of it would stop a quarter of the way and want to come down. At first Kat would let her come down and talk to her and reassure her she was safe. Then little by little she would hold her at the point she wanted to stop and talk her through it. Tell her to breathe and show her how she was locked at that position and she would be ok. She would push her but not to a point where my daughter would get discouraged. We loved that! But the end of the hour my son was burned out he let his sister take the last few turns and wouldn’t you know it Kat for my daughter to reach past the point she would keep stopping and get to a point she was trying to get her to reach during the session. We all cheered her on. My daughter did not want to leave. So we are definitely happy with the experience! My kids are in other memberships so we will just be doing like the 5 pack and bringing them when they get the urge to climb which I’m sure will be soon.

Pricing here isn’t cheap and I wouldn’t say it’s too expensive because the experience and the 1 on 1 you’re getting is great. You get the gear and an hour with the instructor.

We will be back and this time my wife and I want to...

My husband and I moved to the Kingston area last year from NYC and this is the only roped gym within an hour drive or so of us. When we can't climb outside because of the weather, we either go here or to BC's in New Paltz for bouldering. On the plus side, it's a large, clean gym, and it's never crowded (of course compared to our city gym, nothing is crowded). The negatives are part corporate policy, and part specific to this gym. A day pass is $21, which is expensive, albeit cheaper than the city of course. A family membership is minimum 3 people. At the Cliffs in LIC my husband and I had a family membership which did save us a bit of money, and were disappointed to find out we can't have one at Gravity Vault. The setting is inconsistent - some of the routes are great, and some are absolutely awful. You do get that with most gyms, and setters have good days and bad days, but we've noticed some really awful awkward setting here on a regular basis. The routes don't get changed up very often - some can be up for 6 months. Then when they strip the routes, they sometimes strip half the gym at the same time. And not necessarily just for competitions, but on a random weeknight when we come in after work (and we don't always check the calendar to see when that's happening, because most gyms don't strip half their walls at once). So when half of the walls are bare, why are you still charging people full price when there's like hardly anything to climb?? Customer service is meh - some of the people at the front desk are nice and helpful, others don't seem to give two hoots about you, but we've encountered that at most gyms. Lastly, the corporate policy of having to use a Grigri for leading is nonsense. We've never had to use them at any other gym and have been leading trad for 10 years and never use them outside. Even if you're very experienced and you just have a moment of inattention, your leader can still deck if you're using a Grigri, just ask Ashima. And if safety is really a concern, then perhaps the staff should be a little more experienced with rigging systems ahead of time instead of figuring it out on the fly, and being more careful about not dropping stuff and having to shout "rock"! in a gym. That sure was a...

This is a good place to climb for people who have never climbed at other gyms (Movement fka the Cliffs in NYC, Goat in NJ, Allez Up in Montreal, Momentum in SLC, Earth Treks in CO, the list goes on..).

If you are an experienced lead climber indoors at other gyms or outdoor sport (up to 5.12)… you will probably take serious issue with what this gym has to offer you. After 6 months of climbing at this gym, I’ve come up with this list of reasons why this gym is lacking:

Lead routes are NOT forerun with a lead rope, only top rope, so the rope placement and therefore its safety is not factored in during setting. Shorter climbers who have to dyno may get their feet caught in the rope because of this issue (has happened to me multiple times). Ignoring the lead rope and clipping during setting also means that there is excessive rope drag sometimes. Hold density (number of holds on the wall) is quite low compared to the better gyms named above, so alternative beta is not welcome—particularly problematic for climbers whose body types don’t match those of the setters. This boils down to a gym that doesn’t offer much in terms of accessible climbing. Lastly, the routes are consistently sandbagged, so if you’re just getting into ropes climbing and hop on a 5.8 at this gym, you’re actually getting on a route that the other/better gyms would rate 10b or 10c… newbies be warned. Don’t get injured.

Lots of room for improvement for the only ropes gym less than an hour...