Conor Mulvaney contributed to this article.
It’s 11 a.m. at SLO-Op Climbing Gym, a warehouse comfortably tucked near the end of Prado Road that houses a perennial playground for climbers and athletes alike. Music bounces off the hardened concrete walls and reverberates through the gym, creating an astute warmth where the most talented, sponsored climbers assist beginners, giving them support with the more basic routes. Each climber is there for different reasons, but the fact remains that SLO-Op Climbing Gym provides a haven for all shapes and sizes based off of a simple fact: a love for bouldering.
“You will see some of the most advanced climbers there totally cheering on the total beginners,” head route setter Chris Bersbach said. “It’s not one of those communities where if you don’t climb as strong as someone, you can’t hang out with them. SLO-Op is very inclusive of a wide range of abilities; there is an openness to all climbers.”
SLO-Op is filed as a “501(c)7 non-profit social club” where the majority of its income comes directly from membership, and all profits go directly back into the gym’s funds for improvements to the gym. It is the country’s first non-profit climbing gym.
Because of the gym’s sturdy business model, best-selling author Chris Guillebeau has included SLO-Op Climbing Gym in his newest book titled “The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future,” which features the uncommon techniques followed by many entrepreneurial start ups.
Yishai Horowtiz founded SLO-Op, which was originally based out of a self storage unit, in 2002.
“When I moved to San Luis Obispo, there were no real climbing gyms,” Horowtiz said. “I remembered a gym in a basement in New Zealand that was a co-operative, and it inspired me to start one here.”
The gym itself rests in a 3,500-square-foot warehouse surrounded by 16-foot walls with various holds that make up a route (a hold is a grip placed upon the rock wall; a route is a series of holds that lead to the top of the wall). Routes vary from V0 (set for beginners) to V15 (set for experts). SLO-Op tops out at anywhere from a V11 to 12 depending on the current routes set by their route-setting team.
“If you are new, you’ll be right in there with people who are super good,” Bersbach said. “People having the right attitude, being friendly makes people less shy about being a beginner. It makes getting better much easier because you don’t have to worry about being judged.”
To showcase the abilities of their climbers, SLO-Op holds approximately two competitions per year with the most recent of which was in April. The event displays the level of camaraderie throughout the climbing community as it isn’t one climber against the next but more so a group of individuals cheering on the successes of one another.
Prior to the competitions, nearly three days of route setting takes place completed by local and guest route-setters whose goals are to set a series of routes with a varying level of intricacy. Each route merits a different point total, with the more difficult ones being worth more points and the less difficult worth less points.
“You will see two people who want to win,” Bersbach said. “But when one is climbing on the boulder, the other will be cheering him on and helping him get to the top.”
When the initial round is completed and scores are totaled up, the top five men and women from each division with the highest point total advance to the finals, where three completely new routes are set that participants have never climbed.
With nearly the whole gym surrounding the routes cheering on the competitors, the finals begin. Screams and music fill the air, amping the finalists up as they chalk their hands in preparation of their last climbs; however, everyone hopes for the success of their fellow climbers in the competition.
“There was a huge support system in the crowd,” environmental engineering senior Corissa Bellis said. “The climbers were going at it and all the people watching were cheering them on, making them climb really hard.”