Sundays are usually our day at Focus (it brings out the OLD folks, and the kids are not up yet :) so we get the gym pretty much to ourselves. But this week we headed over to the west side and met Steve Smelser at Ape Index in Peoria. Rather "low key" from the outside, the inside is painted in bright colors and they have a 30' Roof wall in the image of the earth. Climb from California to New York in the same day !!
We went online to get the address of the gym, and was immediately offered up a Groupon (not sure how I'd feel about that if I were Ape Index, because Groupon was right on top of them in the search results....selling discounts) so it looked like the daily rate was $20 with gear rental, but they had a $9.99 Groupon for one visit and another for three visits for $30. So I bought the $30 Groupon thinking that we all 3 could use it that day. BAD idea (though we didn't mind) it was for one person, 3 visits. Steve had an old Climb Free coupon he won at a contest last year. It was expired, but they honored it anyway (good people) and since we have our own gear, Jim got a better day rate. Since I have the Groupon I can go back if I want (too bad it's way across town)
OK so how is the gym?
In need of a little upkeep I'd say, but it's fun to be in a new place. So I know it's humid these days, but the routes were marked with tape that was falling off, rolled up and or just plain hard to follow. AND (here's one of my pet peeves) we don't like Brown tape right next to Drab Green, or Neon Pink next to Neon Orange (especially with bad lighting) Remember we are OLD... hard to tell the difference sometimes.
Additionally many of the walls are soft(?) so when you grab a hold the whole wall flexes and in a few places the sheet rock? was broken. At least I'm talking about the Belay'd routes, so it's not so concerning when the holds flex and creak .
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