Dallas Rocks

Wish it had more bouldering problems. Haven’t been in two months though and I hear they’re putting a lot of money back into the place so ill be checking it out soon. Really good price for what I’m used to in Seattle though.

Considering my zero to non-​existent knowledge on indoor rock climbing, this place impressed me. At the time I went, my muscles were mush, my body was in the shape of a grandma, and I was on a date. In short, I was not in the right state of mind nor shape to really fully engage and kick ass on the rocks. But I did have fun.
The space isn’t large but boasts numerous walls at various levels of difficulty. The facility offers shoes, socks, and all the fixins’ necessary for climbing, which left me a little skeptical. I am no germaphobe, but I couldn’t help but say a little prayer to myself that they were properly cleaned and sanitized before each use.
This place could serve as an innovative idea for a party, team-​building workshop, and yes — even a date. Just make sure you know each other well enough first. It was kind of awkward to have a guy I barely knew constantly looking up at my butt.

Awesome place for going bouldering in Dallas. Very open, light space with lots of problems for a variety of abilities. There are always lots of friendly fit people you can meet and will offer to belay you if you are there by yourself. If you get a membership, you can some extra perks too which is a pretty good deal.

I’ve been rock climbing in the past where they have three options, regular rock climbing (tie your own knots, need someone to belay), auto belay (where you do not need a second person), and bouldering (no ropes, thick padding, not far off the ground). This place had a combo of the first two, you don’t tie knots but need someone else… it almost felt generic to me. No auto belay. They have lots of bouldering.
They have plenty of rock climbing but I decided to give bouldering a try since everyone else was doing it… and to be honest, heard there was a slide that took you over to the other side. This ended poorly for me. I was kind of shocked how high the bouldering was, I made it nearly to the top and my foot slipped. There was nothing I could do to catch myself, I felt like I was blindly falling (probably about 6 – 8 feet). I landed awkwardly and broke my foot. Not so fun. The wall wasn’t just straight up, there was a bend at the top, I kind of attribute this to the blindly falling as well since my fall wasn’t just straight down.
I have to say that the customer service was a little off when I arrived (a little cold) but they were super nice and helpful once the incident occured and checked in on me, got my foot propped up, gave me this swelling reducing gel, etc.
Overall, this place is just okay in my book. I’d rather have to tie my own knots or have auto belay so I don’t have to climb with someone else if I don’t want to. The bouldering was a lot higher than I had seen in the past and would be very hesitant to try it again. Ever… but this isn’t specific to Dallas Rocks, this could have happened everywhere and I understand that I assumed the risk. So, no hard feelings and I’ll probably be back once my foot heals. (:

Great place to climb and hang out. I’m a novice and I prefer bouldering; there are lots of bouldering opportunities here (plenty of rope climbing, too). They change the routes regularly and are usually helpful and friendly. Nice atmosphere with a variety of difficulty levels. I love climbing here.

This place is the best gym in Texas. It is more geared toward the intermediate to advanced climbers, but there is still enough easy stuff for the beginners. If you climb hard and have the inconvenience of living too far from the crags and can’t beat the heat of Texas, this is your gym.

I really enjoyed this gym when I lived in Dallas. Great community, people are always offering help. The routes are challenging and changed with good frequency. Great place for top-​rope, but also tons of bouldering. Highly recommended.

Drocks is like my second home! Everyone there is so nice, and they put up new routes weekly. FRIGGIN SWEEEEET! I heart this place

Came here with a groupon, left with torn calluses, fatigued muscles and some hearty respect for serious climbers!
Tons of fun, very open floor plan especially in the bouldering area and not a lot of «railroading» so you can kind of do your own thing, which I definitely appreciated. I will agree there isn’t a ton of problems for a bone-​stock beginner like me but I found some doable ones with a little searching.
Their normal rates seem pretty darn cheap though, they offer some discount for emergency services personnel and they seem to have a gym on the second floor. Pretty awesome place, I’ll probably be back.

I purchased a month membership for ½ price ($ 30) at Groupon or Livingsocial or one of those sites thinking this will be fun and some good exercise.
The positive: it’s a great place to meet folks and form some friendships. Everyone was really nice and helpful. There are definitely regulars and they don’t appear to be territorial at all. In fact they all want to help you get better. It’s definitely challenging and a great workout as I was totally sore for a few days afterward.
The negative: I agree with Roxanne, the walls were definitely not intended for beginners as they were very difficult and all were at an angle. Also, the shoes hurt like hell given they are so tight in order to climb, but everyone said their feet hurt so that really has nothing to do with this place. My membership came with shoes and chalk bag. I made the assumption that chalk bag meant it had actual chalk in it. WRONG. It’s just the bag, no chalk. When I asked the staff about chalk they really didn’t seem to care and said to «just look through the bags» and maybe I would get lucky and find some chalk. The staff really doesn’t take good care of the chalk bags or shoes so I can see how they could stink as they definitely weren’t in the best of shape. As a whole, the staff appears to be very young and apathetic, but I think that is probably just a lack of leadership to give them direction.
There is no intro training, unless you pay extra, or handholding at all by most of the staff so if that’s what you want then you will feel very ignored and frustrated. If however, you can jump in the crowd and make new friends then you’ll have a good time and get some on the job training by other climbers.
One of the staff, a young blond guy (Patrick? maybe), was very helpful and always checked in with me when he was there and would give me a few pointers plus he greeted everyone and really seemed to enjoy what he did. He’s a 5 star employee so if you need help or have a question then find him as the others are mostly useless and are more like fellow climbers than employees as they are overly chill.
As a whole, I’m not completely sold on it and am open to trying other climbing gyms, but at the end of the day I liked my month at Dallas Rocks and would recommend it to others.

If you want to train hard to climb in dallas, then this is the only place to climb. Best bouldering in dallas
If you want to fool around for a few hours well then yes it smells like socks and is often very hot, however it will always be fun
As someone who boulders v7/​8 this place was a godsend when i moved here
Also the kids having birthday parties look thrilled

The staff are very friendly, the gym has a good vibe. My gf has been climbing all over the DFW area and she seems to enjoy it here. This is my first and only experience at a Rock Climbing gym. But so far so good, there’s never an issue with not finding a new route to climb. Never an issue with having to wait on others to get off the wall either. If we spend an hour up there, all of it could be on a wall w/​o having to wait for anyone else. I don’t know that this is an issue at any other place, but I can see how it could be.
I see that Roxanne K. complained about the condition of the shoes. I agree they do look well used. I could see how updating the stock more often would be a good idea. But I don’t have any issue using them, and I’m somewhat of a clean freak.

Do you like the smell of nasty ass feet while you climb? I made the mistake of renting shoes here… WOE… I threw away my socks when I finished. Don’t do it… I told the young lady behind the counter I threw them away and I got this wide eye’d stare with the «we try, but there is only so much we can do»… um, how about buying some new f’n stock? Thats disgusting… and you think bowling shoes are bad?
It was a sleepy sunday afternoon and we opened the place. If you don’t pay, they don’t give you the beginner lesson and your totally on your own. I’m used to having to watch a safety video and getting some reminders at each new climbing gym. Here, you can sign the waver and get busy… maybe there’s an upside to that?
I found some loose holds on the walls, didn’t really like that much and we felt like the bouldering setup was really hard. Most gyms will have progressive walls of difficulty and I felt like these guys didn’t really do that well. Most of the walls are a higher level of difficulty and you’d have to kill to find a straight wall… they almost all lean back. I, with a recently healed broken wrist could have seriously used more practice on lesser difficult climbs.
We killed a couple hours but will NOT return here… we will try another place. God, that damn smell is still in my nose!

Until this weekend, I’d never tried my hand at rock climbing either indoor or outdoor. I lack what they call «upper body strength», but a friend talked me into it & I’m always up for trying something new. Little did I know that the people I was going with are practically monkeys & would be hanging from walls while I struggled to get up the easier routes. I did make it to the top of a few walls a few times, so we’ll call that a win.
This gym has both bouldering and top rope options, though I think I like top rope the best. Bouldering was good to warm up on, but I got pretty frustrated when I kept falling from the same points on some of the climbs. At least with top rope, I could hang there for a minute and regroup. I’ll still do both, though, even if I kinda suck at it. At first, the gym was a little noisy because there was a kid’s birthday party going on, but that cleared up after a while. The other climbers are pretty friendly & I doubt you’d be without company even if you went by yourself initially.
I like the location which is easily accessible from a few highways. The gym itself is pretty big and there’s plenty of space, so I never felt crowded or in other people’s ways. Price wise, it wasn’t a bad deal, either. A day pass runs you about $ 12.99 and I think that gets you in & out privileges (twss!). Equipment rentals are a few bucks more in case you need shoes or a harness. They also have monthly pass options, but I haven’t quite talked myself into that just yet. The staff is pretty friendly & they will give you a quick lesson if you’ve never tried this before.
For my first time out, I survived at least. I wasn’t a natural, but I guess I didn’t totally embarrass myself either. I’m afraid I’ll have to go back just to beat some of the climbs I couldn’t get past *shakes fist*

This is my gym, I prefer bouldering over Sport and Top rope and this is hands down the place to be for boulderers!
They have some of the best setters in the metro, so the problems are actually good, not decent, but straight up fun and challenging to do.
I will say that I have had one horrible incident with one of the managers (not the owner). I only mention this because it directly ties into his work ethic, not because I do not like him personally, even though I do not.
However, the rest of the guys and gals are great! BA is in fact a registered Bad Ass, and Kolby is pretty kickin’ too.
The gym itself is a HUGE place with a lot of problems that get switched out pretty regularly. If you ever need a spot, just holler and someone will come running, a lot of the time though there is always someone watching out for you though.
Lots of high quality pads and ropes are all still very new.
Every once in a while they have tried horrible gimicky things to bring in more customers… but I will not use that as a complaint because climbing gyms have really been struggling in this economy. They also do birthday parties. Normally Kolby or Brian will do them (teach you how to belay, show you some basic tips and spot you while you climb sort of thing). They’re both great with the kids and the parents seem to dig it as well.
So come on Dallas! Lets get out and climb! Who says Dallas is one of the most obese and inactive states? Let’s prove them wrong.

I’m gonna have to downgrade this place a notch now that I’ve tried out all the others in the metroplex. This is just based on my own personal taste, and it’s closer to 3.5 stars still…
It’s probably the best gym around for bouldering, if that’s your thing. I happen to suck at bouldering, so take that bias into consideration. If you’re into the regular climbing with the rope, harness, etc, you can definitely do better than this place.
But the upside is that this place is walking distance from this kickass Ethiopian restaurant called Lalibela (great food, great price, and an ambiance that will make you feel like you’ve been transported to a different continent)