If you can’t go to the mountains, why not bring the mountains to Brunswick?
Michael Gowen and Jared DiVincent, owners of Southeast Adventure Outfitters and On The Fly Outfitters, respectively, asked themselves that very question a few years ago. The answer is Brunswick Rocks, a bouldering gym in the currently under-renovation Kress Building on Newcastle Street.
During a Dec. 15 tour of the then-empty space, DiVincent already had the layout clear in his head, starting with a check-in desk at the front, a long bouldering feature running along the southern wall of the building and a more challenging, expert feature on the northern side. Cushioning pads 16-20 inches thick will wait at the bottom of each wall to catch those with slippery fingers.
A lounge-style seating area overlooking the gym floor, a conference room and director’s office occupying two glass-walled rooms, a kids alcove featuring easier walls for initiate climbers and a small kitchen for events round out the back of the gym.
DiVincent described bouldering as “free-climbing.”
Bouldering walls do look similar to rock-climbing walls, DiVincent said. In a rock-climbing gym, though, you have ropes and harnesses to make sure you don’t fall off the wall. That’s not such an issue at a bouldering gym, where the surfaces aren’t as tall the climbing routes can be as horizontal as climbing walls are vertical. Harnesses aren’t necessary, as cushions on the ground provide a soft landing.
Much like rock-climbing walls, Brunswick Rocks’ features — currently being manufactured by Bulgarian company Walltopia — will have handholds colored green, yellow and red to indicate the level of challenge each route represents. The feature on the north wall will differ from that on the south. It will jut out from the wall and completing the route will require some serious skill and upper-body strength to complete.
It’s true of both bouldering and rock climbing that it takes a substantial degree of skill but everyone starts at square one.
“It’s a great equalizer,” Gowen explained, joking that, “even the scrawny kids can shine at bouldering.”
Routes will change on an interval of a month or so, to make it fresh for frequent visitors and members.
More important than the business venture aspect is the charitable side.
Brunswick Rocks is a passion project for DiVincent and Gowen, who founded the organization as a nonprofit. Gowen said something like this has been at the back of his mind for nearly 20 years. Ideally, its profit will go back into the community, most prominently by making sure people who can’t afford a membership still have an opportunity to experience bouldering.
“No one will be turned away from here because they can’t pay (for a membership),” DiVincent said.
It’s based loosely on Memphis Rox, Gowen said, a nonprofit founded in Memphis, Tennessee, in 2018, with a similar mission.
It’s not entirely free, as some volunteer work will be required in place of a membership fee — five hours per month, to be exact. But volunteering at the gym will be a chance to learn and grow for those who do, Gowen said.
Aside from simply a fun activity, DiVincent said bouldering and rock climbing are good metaphors for overcoming life’s challenges. That sense of accomplishment when completing a tough climbing route after much hard work can be used to spur personal achievement in other areas of life, he believes.
“It is overcoming obstacles,” DiVincent said. “It’s a good way to teach trust, community and involvement. Everyone has our own route or path.”
Visit the gym’s website, brunswickrocks.org, for information on sponsorships and individual, group and business memberships. DiVincent said he and Gowen are hoping to secure 200 founding memberships, enough to pay for the membership of many, many more people who can’t afford it normally.
Founding memberships are $1,000 for families and $500 for individuals and come with discounts on classes, day passes, an engraved plaque on the gym wall and an invite to the launch party, among other things.
When the gym opens it will have daily, monthly and annual rate structures.
As currently planned, the bouldering gym will occupy one half of the first floor of the Kress Building and retail space the other. The second is an upscale hotel and the third flood and rooftop will play host to a local restaurant. Ideally, the whole building should be open in the new year.
Behind the scenes, this partnership, or one like it, has been a long time coming. Rather than being competition, DiVincent said the two enterprises helmed by himself and Gowen are complementary. When he and a business partner opened On The Fly in 2017, Gowen and others welcomed him to their world. DiVincent already had a foot in the door downtown thanks to Social Compass, a social media marketing company he started prior to the fly-fishing and camping store.
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