Apex Mountain School

What an amazing time with our guide Jesse Wright ice climbing! It was our first time doing it with our boys 13 – 15! He was very patient, knowledgeable and made the whole experience really enjoyable! We truly had the best time! We will definitely do it again next year!

Amazing time. Our guide, Eric was super patient, knowledgable and funny. He kept my 8 year old engaged and challenged. One of the highlights of our summer trip. Eric does a great job demonstrating how to safely climb, different types of climbing styles and techniques and how things work. I totally trusted him with my son despite being quite apprehensive with heights. Great guy!

It was our first time climbing outdoors and Apex was recommended by a few folks and specifically our concierge at beaver creek. We were able to book pretty last minute and Scott was our guide.
He was so incredibly patient, took the time to explain the reason for each step and or procedure down to safety precautions. I was so impressed with his professionalism and his demeanor that we definitely plan to come back and schedule a much longer trip with Apex.
Safety and great service with a smile was exactly what I was looking for and Apex delivered that! We will be back!!!

My fiancé and I have been climbing in gyms for about 6 months now. On our last trip to CO we decided to try climbing outdoors for the first time.
We looked around at different guides/​companies, BUT a few people we spoke to recommended APEX – we thought we would give it a try. We ended up booking a 4-​hour climb in Red Cliff and it was a perfect day.
3 main reasons I would recommend these guys to anyone as well as I plan on using them again next time I visit CO!
1) Scott the director of APEX was our guide. He took our climb request not only last minute, but spent four hours of his birthday teaching us how to climb! DEDICATION to what he LOVES doing!
2) With over 20 years of climbing experience, we learned so much from Scott – truly lucky to get to spend a few hours with him.
3) Apex guides are all certified climbing instructors and are super patient with you and incredibly encouraging!
I wish all their reviews showed up, these guys deserve all the good things said about them. We plan to do the flat irons next year outside of Boulder! Thanks again Scott!

My daughter and I climbed with Apex on Friday May 8, 2015. May is the rainy season but our excellent guide and climbing coach changed our scheduled start time so that we would have a chance to climb even in the rainy season, that was a very smart move. So we started earlier than we had planned and climbed a great wall near Vail, it was safe and a ton of fun. It started raining a couple of hours in, so we left the cliff, had a lunch together and then went back out for a couple of hours. Overall, it was an excellent experience even though the weather did not cooperate — but that is Mother Nature for you. I am highly recommend this company for climbers of any skill level.

Thank you Apex Mountain School for another great ice climbing trip. I appreciate the great service and attention to detail. I highly recommend Apex to anybody that is heading to Vail and is looking for adventure with experienced and helpful guides. This was my second time training with Tom and I will be back for rock climbing in the summer.
Andy B

My sister and I went rock climbing with Eric and had a great time! He was so nice and helpful. I would highly recommend Apex to anyone who is looking to do something outdoors and wants a great guide. Honestly couldn’t have asked for a better guide. It was an awesome experience!

My nine year old daughter and I take a daughter and daddy only trip every year. This year she wanted to go rock climbing, zip lining, and white water rafting. We settled on coming to Vail, Colorado. After researching various companies, we chose Apex as our rock climbing guide.
We had one guide for the two of us, Nick, very hard worker. Apex’s safety and equipment appeared great. I got four climbs in and my daughter six. She was able to summit on her last attempt. We still had an hour and a half of climbing left, but chose to call it a day on a high note.
All in all a great experience, which built tons of self confidence for my daughter, and would not hesitate to recommend or do again.

We were in Vail for the week, and I wanted to find an activity to do with my four kids. The youngest one (age 7) was either too young, too light, or too short for most of the other outdoor activities in the mountain area. But Scott at Apex told me they’ve taken 3 year olds rock climbing before.
The guide met us at our hotel in the morning, but since we had too many people to fit into his car, we followed him in our car. The climbing site was about 25 minutes away. We were there for about three hours.
My kids had a BLAST… they loved it! They’re all gymnasts, so they have the upper body strength and flexibility to rock climb (although I’m sure anyone can do it!). The three older ones made it all the way to the top, which was about 90 feet up. They each got at least two, if not three, climbs in. Scott was great with the kids, and mindful of our safety.
The morning excursion was great… until the end when Scott handed us the credit card receipt to sign. I knew it was $ 118 per person, but he also wanted to charge us $ 85 for my husband (who tagged along to take pictures only, but didn’t climb). If we had known there was a charge for him to tag along, my husband wouldn’t have gone… especially for $ 85! That is a total of $ 675 for my family to climb! Not only that, but for $ 118, I only got one climb. They should have had a second guide so that we weren’t sitting around for so long between climbs. Anyways, I disputed my husband’s charge.
All-​in-​all, it was a great outing. Very memorable.