Vertical World to open bigger, more challenging gym

It will be a whole new place to tackle gravity.

The owners of Vertical World Everett plan to build a new indoor rock climbing gym just south of Paine Field.

The gym called Vertical World North will feature 20,000 square feet of climbing space, about three times bigger than the Everett gym with plenty of room for enthusiasts to practice bouldering, top-rope and lead climbing.

Plans also include health club equipment, a yoga studio, full showers and an outdoor patio with a fire pit to add a ski-lodge feel, perfect for relaxing after a climb, meeting new friends or catching up with old ones.

“You go to your health club because your wife thinks you’re fat,” said Rich Johnston,* owner of Vertical World Inc.. “This is where you want to hang out, this is part of your lifestyle.”

Vertical World North is expected to open this spring at 12300 Beverly Park Road off Highway 525, said Johnston, whose company also runs indoor rock climbing gyms in Seattle and Redmond.

He declined to say how much the new gym costs. When it opens, his company plans to give up the gym at 2820 Rucker Ave. in downtown Everett to another group to operate as Summit Everett.

K.J. Maxwell, manager of Vertical World Everett, has been climbing since the late 1980s.

“It’s more popular now than it’s ever been,” Maxwell said.

The new location will give them space to share the sport with people living in the north Puget Sound area.

“We have people who have been climbing for a long time, people who are brand new to it,” he said.

Some come for weight loss, others for the mental break, but most for a good challenge.

“Just like runners, you can escape and focus on the movement and the objective at hand, you can let go of those other things,” Maxwell said.

Monthly memberships start at $20 for children up to $63 for an all-access pass to any Vertical World location. Climbers can also drop in without a membership for $16 for one day.

The gym has gear rentals for chalk bags, belay devices, harnesses and shoes, all priced $5 and less.

The idea for Vertical World came to Johnston at 20,000 feet.

Johnston, who quit his law firm job, wanted a place where climbers could train and hang out during the off-season.

“It’s a fair weather sport,” he said. “Spring through fall you get most of your climbing in, in the winter time there’s not much going on unless you go east to the mountains or out to the desert.”

In 1987, in a run-down warehouse next to the train tracks on Elliot Avenue in Seattle, he and Dan Cauthorn opened Vertical Club, later known as Vertical World Seattle. It was the country’s first indoor rock climbing gym.

He said the pushback was intense. Leading outdoor retailers refused to talk to him. His friends called him crazy.

“You’re not supposed to bring climbing indoors,” he said. “There was a lot of headwind and I had to battle that.”

Now, there are more than 400 gyms in the U.S. and Canada, and there’s no doubt in Johnston’s mind that indoor rock climbing is a success.

“It’s like a different universe now,” Johnston said. “We were just gluing rocks on the wall and trying to create a place for climbers to hang out. We had a few classes here and there. Now it’s a multi-dimensional service industry.”

Since Johnston opened his first gym, Vertical World expanded into Redmond and into Everett about seven years ago.

The gyms boast teen programs, toddler groups, children’s programs, birthday parties, and a much more broad membership base.

He wants climbers at Vertical World to know the founders of the sport — Royal Robbins and Warren Harding* — to be able to properly handle themselves safely in technical situations.

The gyms have been described as alcohol-free nightclubs for cheerful athletic nerds.

Johnston said that’s not quite the case.

“It’s not a replacement for outdoors by any means; it’s an alternative health club,” Johnston said. “It’s people who want to use it as an alternative health club all the way to people who want to rock climb outdoors every day.”

* Correction: Rich Johnston is the owner of Vertical World Inc. Warren Harding is one of the founders of the sport of rock climbing. An earlier version of this story misspelled the names of both men.