This content was created by Jeff For Local Marketing. This content was uploaded by Jeff For Local Marketing. This is a YouTube video titled "The Best Indoor Climbing Gym - Desert Rocks Indoor Climbing Gym-Palm Springs" featuring a conversation between Jeff For Local Marketing, Kristen Schekman, and Jesse. The discussion revolves around the operations and community aspects of the Desert Rocks indoor climbing gym, including its history, offerings, and the inclusive environment it fosters for climbers of all ages and abilities.
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Hey, welcome to Reservations. My name is Jeff Harrison. I'm here with Kristen Schekman of Desert Rocks indoor climbing gym. I've been inside, and the place is crawling with people. Exactly. Tell us about that. And what did it take? Because you just started this? How long ago?
Okay, well, we bought a piece of land five years ago, and we built this building from ground up. People come in, and they try it, and then they become a little addicted to it, because it's very much about problem solving as working out the entire body. Core, legs, flexibility, strength, endurance, and a lot of the arms. First climbing myth is, I have no upper body strength. I can't try that. Actually, a lot of it is in your legs. Fear of heights is a real fear. A lot of people have that fear, and I never push that. We say, okay, you know what? Today you might just get to here, and then the next day, let's try two steps up. And pretty soon, before you know it, they're at the top of the wall saying, look at me. So the fear of height is a real thing, but we work with that. Also, people who have a disability or have something else that makes them feel like they're afraid to do it, we can work with that as well. As long as we're told up front that that's something we need to work with, we have no problem. We offer a day pass. We also offer a special 25 for five, $25 for five days in a row.
That's amazing.
So you get climbing, a little instruction, shoes, harness, and chalk for five days for $25. It's our best deal. We also have monthly memberships, punch passes, yearly membership.
So, Jesse, tell us what we're seeing in here.
This is our traditional Monday night. We got families in here. We got kids, classes going on in here. We got pretty much everything and anything. We got steep walls. We got flat walls. We got everything from beginner to more advanced climbing. So you got people on ropes, learning, learning. Just trying to figure that stuff out. There's bouldering. There's our climbing team. That's in the background over here. They're practicing, and y. Yeah, basically, it's just kind of a free for all in here. People come in, they bring their kids, they bring their family, and you just get to go. You just get to climb.
What age group do you say, hey, no, you're too young. Is there an age group that you start working with here?
We can work with all ages and ability levels. Our youngest climber is 3. Our oldest is 84.
We really focus on community here, we introduce people when they walk in the door, if they're interested. We say, this is somebody you might want to climb with. You guys are at the same level. They end up exchanging phones, numbers, and as you can see in there, there's a lot of people talking to each other that met here. So it's. It's perfect.
What we find that that really brings people in and keeps them here is the community, the relationships that they build here, the people they get to know, new friendships that are made, you know, new relationships are made, everything. It's really pretty. Pretty amazing, powerful community here. What we want to see, what Steve and Chris and the owners wanted to see, the whole reason they started this place was to bring people together to share their love of climbing with other families and people of. Because they grew up climbing as a family.
I also noticed that you guys have routes all over the place. Now, forgive me if it's not right, but you set those.
We set those. Every Friday, we set a different piece of the wall. Every Friday, we take routes down and then we put them up. So every. Every Friday, there's about three or four routes that are taken down and put up in a different order. And then by the time that eight weeks has come, the entire gym has been reset. So we have to change that up because people get.
The philosophy we have here is it's all about inclusivity. And it even goes as far as the way that we build our routes. We try to be as inclusive of people of all varying heights and sizes. Doesn't matter if you're, you know, a giant guy jumping on the ropes or a small little kid crushing on the home wall.
