Best college climbing walls?

College Search & Selection
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After seeing a picture of Colby’s amazing climbing wall on instagram I am working on making a collection of colleges with the best indoor rock climbing facilities.

I’m thinking this group could help me by calling out any schools they have seen on tours or heard have great rock climbing facilities… Would love your recommendations of schools with great climbing walls!

Also - did you know CC users can create their own college collections now? Share your campus tour notes, or your research on the best colleges for people with your interests or stats! Click for step by step guide to creating a collection.

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Seemed like most places we visited had them. Definitely remember Wake, Vandy, Duke, Cincy, and Penn State had what looked to be good climbing walls.

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CU Boulder looks like it has amazing climbing walls. Also U Dayton and Miami University (OH) had what looked to be good climbing walls on our tours.

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Whitman College climbing center has over 7,000 square feet of climbing for only 1500 students. Amazing center!

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Princeton has a good one also.

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Cal Poly has a nice one, not epic like some of the others though.

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Hamilton College has one. IIRC, it overlooks the football field (I know the gym does and students can watch games while on treadmills).

Colgate has one, too. Angert Family Climbing Wall | Colgate University

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Depends on whether you want top rope / lead or bouldering. I’ve found relatively few have great bouldering. Among small schools, Whitman and Colorado College come instantly to mind. And some are near good high end gyms (Reed, Oxy, Amherst, Wesleyan). More schools have good full walls, especially those with newer facilities (like many suggested here, including Colby and Hamilton).

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Purdue has a 55 ft wall: Climbing & Bouldering | Purdue University

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I think the guide on our tour at SMU said they have the tallest college wall in the country.

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James Madison’s was impressive.

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The Notre Dame wall was really nice. Suny-Cortland had a great new facility and also did a lot of outdoor climbing trips every week

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You mean the feature most emblematic of the college arms race?

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I’m not sure but that’s interesting… are climbing walls the new college status symbol?

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While most criticism targets lazy rivers, climbing walls are often right up there in articles talking about unnecessary college spending. As the parent of a competitive climber, I think that’s somewhat unfair (climbing is both a sport and fitness activity — are we going to criticize treadmills and weight rooms?). But I also feel like some schools are clearly spending in ways that are designed to show off (mostly super tall, but narrow, top rope walls build into student rec centers).

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