Late last night, after a delicious dining experience involving beer and sausages, I headed out with a climbing companion to Adrenaline Climbing, way the hell out in Suwanee, northeast of Atlanta. This was my last, best hope for peace finding a decent rock gym in the area, and some folks had talked it up. Hopes were high.
Despite the lengthy drive, Adrenaline was situated in a shiny office park not too far off Interstate 85. When we arrived, the gym was nearly empty. In fact, were it not for the brightly-lit, flashing LED “Open” sign, I probably would have turned the car around instead of stopping. This was good, though, as a nice empty gym lets you explore the available features, unharried and at your own pace.
Adrenaline demands $14 for a day pass on a weekday, and $16 on a weekend. A decent decision, although I’ll probably limit my weekend visits. The slight disparity in price implies quite a bit of overcrowding. The gym does not, however, have lockers of any sort. Two unisex restrooms double as changing areas. Fortunately, with so few people around, I didn’t mind leaving my stuff beside the rough-worn overstuffed couch near the front of the gym.
The gym itself is a converted warehouse, far longer than it is wide. It’s probably about thirty or thirty-five paces across the short way, and easily double or triple that the long way. At the fore of the gym is a large, bulky, flat-topped wide arch. This is the gym’s bouldering feature and it goes up much higher than any other bouldering surface I’ve encountered. I’d guess it was a good 15 feet tall.
The bouldering routes are well-maintained and clearly taped; in fact, they go a step further than I expect and color-coded the route tape by difficulty. This makes locating appropriate routes much easier and is a feature I wish other gyms would adopt. The difficulties range from V0 through about V6, with a VB rank for beginners. There may be higher ranks - I wasn’t checking closely for them. Many of the routes seemed a bit sparse on feet, at least compared to what I’m used to. The bouldering feature is a “top-out” feature, meaning one is supposed to climb up onto the finished upper surface instead of merely grabbing a finish rock or zone. It’s an interesting variation that I haven’t encountered before.
Interestingly, the routes seem to be ranked a little lower than I would expect. There were a number of V1s that gave me considerable trouble, and most of the V2s I found myself incapable of completing. I also noticed that the routes had longer reaches and more dynos than I would expect for the routes I tried. One V1 was particularly notable; a middling V1 climb up to a pair of slightly-negative knobby holds, with the final hold being essentially a half-sphere the size of a golf ball. That final hold is also placed far far beyond my reach - a good four to six inches beyond - and there’s no good feet much above ankle level, aside from the two knob-holds, which are your only support at that point. Conceivably, I could mantle up on those holds and do some kind of crazy gymnastics balancing to get a foot onto one, but I never quite managed it.
The rest of the gym is split between top-roping and sport-leading surfaces. The walls had a good spread of routes between 5.7 and 5.12, and also had a decent amount of features built onto them. I’d like to give them a shot, once I get a belay partner.
Recommendation: Climb it. All in all, a good value, despite the drive. I’ll probably be making this place my regular location while I’m in Atlanta.
Tags: adrenaline climbing, atlanta, bouldering, georgia, gym reviews, reviews, rock climbing
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