Bouldering Project

Relaxed social atmosphere and staff makes an effort to listen to feedback. Gym tends to run hotter than usual comfort levels in the summer, which is not ideal in DC weather. However overall a good place for beginner and intermediate climbers.My biggest gripe is that the amount of higher grade climbs is quite low. Advanced climbers can find themselves quickly exhausting all the harder grades. Would greatly appreciate if this could be addressed so that climbers of all levels are challenged appropriately. Thank you!

Awesome facility with a great variety of problems to try. The problems had an outdoor style feel that involved fun technique for me.I really appreciated the staff too. My partner and I are from Canada and visited DC for a trip and decided to check out a climbing gym. We really enjoyed the music and had emailed a few days later asking what playlist they had playing. Got a prompt reply back and they looked into exactly the time we climbed and checked in and pin pointed who's playlist was playing.Great service, if we ever move to DC I know what our gym will be!

Pros - this is a new facility with a lot of perks (sauna, shower areas with changing stalls, lotion, sinks located near climbing wall). The desk staff are really friendly and great - they went above and beyond to locate the person who locked their bike to mine this morning so I could leave.Cons - there are some things I don't love, but I doubt they'll change (e.g. the route rating system, underutilized climbing space - I mean it is truly sad considering how big the overall space is). However, my review could go from 2 stars to 4 stars if they would do a substantially better job with route setting - it's TERRIBLE. For one, almost every route uses the same type of hold for the entire climb (e.g. all crimps, all pocket holds, all slopers). That's fine every once in a while, but on most climbs I want some variety--both because it's more interesting and more challenging. There are also a lot of sharp corners where you can't easily see if someone is climbing on the other side - not great to begin with for safety, but they made it worse by having lots of routes criss-cross between faces which means people get interrupted when they come around the corner and see someone else started a route under them without realizing they were already on the wall. Finally, there is a real dearth of routes that are the right difficulty for me. I'm a solid V3 climber in other gyms. Almost all of the "B" climbs are very easy for me, and almost all of the "C" climbs are too difficult for me to even start. Over two sessions, I've basically encountered 3 routes where it either took me multiple attempts or I could get past the start but not send it. This is related to other problems mentioned above -- the grading system makes it hard for me to find climbs at the right level. And, the homogenous holds mean if I am good at using a certain type of hold, I can climb the whole route, and if I'm not, I can't do it at all. Enjoying the routes is probably most important criterion for me, and right now BKB falls way short.

Tl;dr: a bouldering gym with a lot of promise and some solid things going for it, but loses serious points in execution. Fingers crossed there are modifications in the future!Pros:Overall—location is great, staff really friendly, interior is beautiful, amenities like lotion and tampons in the bathroom much appreciated!Bouldering—the Beast Wall is awesome, the mats are great and cushiony, the overall vibe on the mats is great. The volume wall is a lot of fun—fingers crossed they update the routes there frequently to keep things interesting!Gym—quality, new machines, everything is kept really clean. Group fitness area is awesome and a much-needed space to offset the size of the workout areaCons:Bouldering—the routes feel very short and as others have said, seem to be designed more for aesthetics than the actual technical specs. E.g. there’s a C that makes a really pretty figure-eight but in reality you use a fraction of the holds… it just seems like a silly use of space. And overall the building space is not well utilized—relative to the size of the building and the fact that it’s a bouldering only gym there really isn’t that much bouldering space. I would much rather see more walls than have a slack line and lots of windows…Gym—the workout area doesn’t make a ton of sense. Very cramped overall; no mirrors in the weight area; bikes & other machines too close together; no duplicate dumbbell and barbell sizes beyond lower weights… what saves it is the group fitness area that you can expand into, but it requires absconding with weights that have no duplicates which feels unsporting.[update: as of Oct 2 they have moved the bikes and towers further apart, which is great]I have an annual membership and am glad I do, for the location and what the facilities do offer. I just very much hope mgmt is looking to make modifications as needed to maximize the potential of the space.

BKB is great! I recently joined after being a member at Earth Treks for a couple years. There are a surprising amount number of routes to climb and there is plenty for people of all skill levels. The regular gym also has everything you would expect. Perhaps the only downside is that it is bouldering only.

Climber since 2012, was very excited about a gym opening in DC - pretty disappointed in the execution of this one, though.tl;dr: If you are looking for casual climbing convenient to locations in DC, this will work for you. If you are looking for a good rock climbing gym, this is not it.Pros:1) Facilities are nice - like really nice. Good small touches like handwashing sinks adjacent to the bouldering areas.2) Staff is very friendly3) Co-working spaces and kids area make for a good family outing if your small humans are bouncing off the walls and need to get some energy outCons:1) The route setting is just very poor and seems more focused on looking cool for marketing materials than providing a good climbing experience to members2) Because of the contours of the walls, most of the routes are very short - so the longer and more interesting routes may overlap with 4 other routes, often around a blind corner. In a couple hours there I saw at least 5 people have to abort a climb because they didn't realize someone was around the corner on a climb that overlapped theirs.3) The beast tunnel is cool in theory, but can only be climbed by a maximum of two people at any given time (and then only if you choose those two routes carefully), so waits for the tunnel routes can be a bit long.4) Space is just not well utilized, and I suspect it will be overly crowded come winter. They could have easily put in twice as many walls and routes but elected to keep a lot more open and empty space, presumably for aesthetic reasons.5) Their grading system is just weird. I assume the concept of "ranges" is so people will try routes they might not otherwise have tried, but that assumes a certain mentality. I would be more interested in knowing the actual route grading for specific workouts or sessions I am trying to do, rather than being forced to guess.

Excellent climbing facility. Friendly people. Good vibes.

Immaculate facility with decent (but small) gym, OK bouldering, and very friendly staff. The layout of everything is just a bit funky, but it seems like management is responsive and actively trying to improve.Some minor suggestions include: offering duplicates of lower-weight dumbbells (maybe you could tuck another rack somewhere in the group fitness room?), providing a trap bar, and adding some basic weight machines (lat pulldown/row combo, leg press, etc.). Maybe they could be added in small clusters on the second floor to break up congestion in the lifting space? I never see people use that couch just up the stairs...I would also love to see more HIIT classes added to the calendar - there is only one per week at the moment and it is always booked well in advance (it is also 45 minutes, which seems pretty long for HIIT).

The staff are absolutely fantastic. We have a six-year-old who goes to both the kids academy and adventure days, and they are so patient with him and supportive, even when he is working through some challenges. I highly recommend BKB Eckington and am thankful for all the hard work they're putting into their youth programming.

If you are a new climber/want something fun for the kids for just a day this is a fine place. But even then I’d still just make the commute out to earth treks. TLDR: Lifestyle climbing gym with nice amenities but really strange and poor quality setting.Pros:-Sauna-Nice weight room-3 moon boards.Cons-Endless traverses that means you’re constantly worried about overlapping-Waste of space. There’s so much area and yet there’s so little relative bouldering area-Weird comp style problems that aren’t even really that. On the slab wall there were like 3 dyno problems out of 5. Like. Why? And it felt like every other problem in the gym was either a dyno or a traverse.-Inconsistent grading. Personal preference but using anything but the V scale is just frustrating for tracking progress.All in all. I get that it’s new. But there’s a lot of room for improvement here to make this a climbing gym and not just a last ditch gym for traveling climbers or a location for parties.