Triangle Rock Club - Raleigh, NC

This gym is actually in Morrisvile, NC near the Raleigh/Durham airport. After arriving in Raleigh after flying in from Denver I had two objectives before heading out to the Red River Gorge for 10 days: 1) Get me some Bojangles 2) Check out the hype of Raleigh's new gym. Lets just say the best part of that night was climbing with my best mate Trent and eating me some of those Famous Chicken & Biscuits.

The Good
It's much better than Vertical Edge, Raleigh's original climbing gym. It has a pretty cool center boulder with the possibility of topping it out (just drop off the top it's not worth it). There is a nice leadable overhung wall that the Raleigh area was in need of. There is a pretty cool lounge for those parents that want to update their Facebook Status while supervising their kids. There is a training area with free weights, hangboards, and I believe a campus board.

The Bad
The walls are incredibly short. With all of the steep climbing in the Southeast and the potential for very strong climbers out of the RDU area if someone would just step up and build a gym with walls that are greater than 25-ft we'd have more 5.13+ climber instead of the 5.12 climbers we have in the area. It rains too much in the Southeast to have these sub-par 25-ft tall gyms. What happens when you get a 25-ft 5.9? Well it's just a sandbagged V2 boulder problem rated 5.9. The grading at this gym is a joke. The problems for the most part were just as gimmicky as other NC gyms. I did a 5.12 toprope with a freaking sit start. Oh yeah because I've done that before outside! I just wish the people setting the problems would spend more time analyzing what is going on outside and set accordingly. There were a few decent problems and routes, but it was just too hit, or miss for me. Not much can be done with the height of the walls, but I suggested to a local to convince the owners to install a system board.

In all fairness it's worth it to get a workout if your traveling, or a local because right now it's the best climbing gym in the RDU area. However I'll probably just drive a little further to Greensboro to hit up their gym instead if I really need to climb inside. That or I'll just visit my family instead.

Gym Overall: 2.0
Quality of bouldering: 2.5
Quality of routes: 1.5 (1 for the overhung wall, but the rest of the routes were crap)
Attitudes of owners/workers: 2.0 (Not very talkative, but maybe they were busy)
Attitudes of climbers: 4.5 (These are my NC peeps!)
Cost: 1.0 ($15 day pass for this?!?)