For my first after-work climbing experience, I led a group of relative novices deep into the heart of downtown Atlanta, seeking the warehouse dubbed “Atlanta Rocks! In-town.” It’s conveniently located for me, about 15-20 minutes by car along routes that aren’t terribly clogged with traffic. After some interesting automotive gymnastics, so as to avoid taking four vehicles in the place of one, we shot down the I-85 and pulled into an business park. Atlanta Rocks! is a tall warehouse amidst a number of low-slung industrial buildings, identifiable by the full parking lot and giant neon sign.

Inside, it’s a decently-sized gym, certainly well over 10,000 square feet of climbing space. However, they only utilize two out of the four walls, and there’s nothing really built out far from a wall. There’s a bouldering arch set in the middle of the climbing area, and a small caving alcove built within the facade of a top-roping section.

Signing in was simple - waiver, clipboard, pen, write down the usual info, pay the $15 day pass fee. A complimentary belay test was offered and refused - today was a bouldering day, as my companions were not entirely confident in their belaying skills. Fair enough. The locker room was simple, clean and professional. Standard sets of 12 double-height lockers on each side of a small room.

The climbing floor itself is surrounded by a tall lip, which serves both as impromptu seating and to keep the gym’s padding contained. This gym uses an unusual variety of padding, which I’ve only heard of once before, from Mundy up in Seattle. It’s essentially black rubber chips, the same general size and shape as woodchips, piled several inches deep. It works pretty well, although it has the nasty tendency of flying into your chalk bag if you’re not careful.

The bouldering arch is where we started. As is becoming an unfortunate trend here in Atlanta, there are no formal routes marked on the arch itself. Like Wall Crawler, there are a bunch on unranked traverses marked with numbered tape. Aside from that, there’s no tape or other markings on the rocks themselves at all.

Undeterred, I introduced the climbing group to Add-On, which went fairly well. I had to take special care to not be an asshole, but there were sufficiently good holds and feet to make the routes we created generally accessible to all. Some impromptu general clambering around also made for a good workout. The rocks and backing were in excellent shape; I was rather surprised at how well-cleaned the rocks themselves were. Almost chalk-free, really.

I decided to try the caving alcove next. I personally hadn’t used one before; it’s somewhat similar to the extreme overhang sections and arches on a normal bouldering area, but you can get damn near horizonal and almost always have a wall on one side of you to push off of. I managed to clamber from the far, low end of the cave to the entrance. Given that overhang work is my weak spot, I felt pretty accomplished for having done it.

Overall, I enjoyed Atlanta Rocks! In-town, but the lack of taped bouldering routes was disappointing. There’s one more gym in the area I intend on trying before settling into a membership. If I can get some folks belay-certified, then AR could be a decent option.

Recommendation: Visit it. If you’re all about boulders, this is probably not the best place unless you play a lot of Add-On or like making up your own routes. The top-ropes looked pretty good and they had a cool top-ropable “naturals column” that was almost entirely made of sculpted features.