Houston may not be the “outdoorsiest” place, but our collective soul beckons for adventure. What better way to satisfy that innate desire than rock climbing? Houston recently received a duo of gyms from the indoor climbing company, Momentum. It may sound counter-intuitive to scratch an outdoor itch with an indoor facility, but the primal yet natural body movement climbing offers might be all we need to satisfy our wanderlust. I was able to catch up with Sydney, the assistant manager of Momentum, who was gracious enough to answer a few questions about the climbing gym.
CL: Tell us about Momentum as a company. Where did it start, and other than Houston, where are the other locations?
M: We started in ‘06 in Salt Lake City, since [then] we’ve opened two more locations there, so three total in SLC. The first place they expanded to outside of Utah was Texas, first Katy then downtown.
CL: Why Houston?
M: There are climbing gyms in Houston, obviously, but this is one of the largest and fastest growing cities [in the country] and the amount of growth that we’re having; we saw as a great opportunity to open a gym here at our scale.
CL: You’ve opened two gyms in Houston, one in Katy and one near downtown. Each location specializes in a different type of climbing, bouldering (no ropes (shorter walls)) and sport climbing (with ropes). What’s the relationship to bouldering and downtown/ropes and Katy?
M: Momentum has wanted to open an urban bouldering gym for a while. When we found this building–the one we’re currently located in–we knew it was the perfect set-up for a large bouldering gym like we had envisioned.
CL: Now you’ve been open for about three months in downtown right? Obviously with the lack of mountains, Houston isn’t exactly well known for its outdoorsiness. How has Houston been for you so far from a business standpoint?
M: It’s been fantastic, we’ve been well received by the existing climbing community, which we’re really happy about and there is also a really large population of people who might have relocated to Houston and people already from Houston who are outdoorsy and this may appeal to them. Even though it’s an indoor gym it has that connection to the outdoors.
CL: I heard you offer other climbing gym employees free entry, very cool. What’s the mentality behind making that call?
M: Yeah, for other climbing gym employees in Houston we do [offer free entry]. Our entire staff climbed at other gyms before working here–for many of us, that’s where we first learned to climb. We appreciate them and want to have our doors open.
CL: That said, do you offer a discount for students “–cough UH students cough–” or teachers?
M: Yeah, what we do is, the local university climbing club members can set up a deal with us for a discounted rate or membership as long as we are provided with proper documentation or a list of the club members.
*Fellow Coogs, we have an Outdoor Adventure organization*
CL: You seem to have gone all out with your facility, climbing, yoga, treadmills, full gym, etc. are there any plans for the future or did you hit a homerun first try?
M: Nothing on the books to physically change the building but we will be offering youth summer camps and in the fall we will have a full functioning youth program.
If you’d like to know more about this gym or any other climbing gym that might be closer to home, for all you commuter Coogs, check them out below:
Momentum:
Momentumclimbing.com
1401 Silver Street
Houston, Texas 77007
Phone: 832-433-7211
Stone Moves:
Stonemoves.com
6970 Cypress Creek Pkwy, Houston, TX 77069
Phone: 281-397-0830
Texas Rock Gym:
Texasrockgym.com
1526 Campbell Rd Houston, TX 77055
Phone: 713-973-7625
inSPIRE:
Inspirerock.com
403 E. Louetta Rd. Spring, TX 77373
Phone: 281-288-7625
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