VITAL Climbing Gym - Bellingham

Positive experience: Day pass is $24

Fantastic experience: Good walls, great setting! All the basics of weights, bands, and hangboards for climbing training are there. Don't love the mandatory video in the waiver, but a small price to pay for quality boulders and an overall good vibe

Fantastic experience: LOVE Vital! My daughter kids do their camps and after school programs and we love climbing together here as a family. The yoga is great too! Kids do have to be 5 years old.

Fantastic experience: Vital is hands down the best climbing gym I've been to. Great community, 24/7 hours for members and fair membership rates and numerous guest passes ($75 +$5 start up fee) especially when compared to runner up places like SBP where it's $95 + $50 start up fee which is absurd especially considering what you get when you compare the two facilities. All that's missing from vital, is more facilities (hopefully one in the Seattle area).

Fantastic experience: Really love this place! The staff are all super friendly! I was visiting Bellingham for two weeks and decided to get a membership, and it was well worth it - even only being in town for half of the month. They have a nice seated area to get an hour of computer work in, and then I would step away to climb and work out! In addition to the great bouldering facilities, it is also just a really neat and welcoming community space. Would recommend for anyone looking to start climbing or longtime climbers who want to stay in shape and have fun.

Fantastic experience: Awesome space with super kind staff

Positive experience: I mean, it’s the only gym in town so Not really worth going after 2pm because it’s small and gets really crowded. Limited workout equipment. Pluses: the staff is really nice and some of the yoga classes are great. Update: kilterboard is a fantastic addition. Bumping this to like 3.5 stars now.

Positive experience: I took an introduction to bouldering class here and it was pretty fun! The routes get changed, so it won’t always be the same paths. They do have plenty of easy and medium difficulty paths for beginners, so don’t be intimidated! Very welcoming environment and people. My only gripe is that a membership is $75 (though it is open 24/7 for members) and $21 for a day pass (you’ll be tired in 30 min). Shoe rentals are $5 but buying shoes will cost you $80+, though specific shoes aren’t required here. If you’ll come here often, it’s worth it. Once a week? Maybe not. I haven’t decided whether I will get a membership yet, since I want to try it a few times, but I will say it is very fun and works your whole body.

Fantastic experience: Fun climbing gym for bouldering and fitness training.

Fantastic experience: A cozy and cool climbing gym.

Fantastic experience: I love vital! staff are friendly and the climbing is fun.

Positive experience: Awesome little gym! Great atmosphere, fun routes and lots of cool features. Campus board, good hang boards, a snack line! Lots of other training equipment. Only reason I gave it 4 stars is because the grades are quite soft. The problems are really good and as someone who typically climbs V6/7 on good days their hardest problems were the perfect projects for me. Though I think a V8-V10 climber would have a harder time finding a challenge. Definitely check it out either way! The problems are really interesting.

Fantastic experience: All the staff and coaches are amazing!

Fantastic experience: Despite the size of this place I got a good workout in! This location might not be as cool as the Williamsburg one in Brooklyn but the staff here are much more friendlier and nicer. Also this location felt way cleaner. Price point is reasonable! This location is interesting as you walk down to the front desk and bouldering area. The front door is like a rest area/lounge. They have some cool paintings. two restroom at this location.

Fantastic experience: Favorite place to climb at. Nice community.

Positive experience: Great people. A little tight, but it has very good climbs/routes. A tiny bit pricey for a one day, but good prices for a subscription.

Positive experience: I only went to this gym a few times during my membership however I enjoyed it very much! The staff were always very kind and welcoming. There certainly are more busy times of the day than others if you don't like big crowds. I did have high hopes to use the fitness equipment more but it was crowded when I came so I steered away. I think they do what they can with the space they have. I would like more fitness space in the future there. Worth a visit and a membership; the price is extremely reasonable and you can come and go at any time of day.

Fantastic experience: Memberships give you access to climb 24/7 plus yoga in the mornings. There's a walled off room to work with fast WiFi too if you want to get a climb in between meetings. Classes and personal training is also available.

Fantastic experience: lots of routes which are rotated by section weekly, very friendly to beginners like me, the other climbers are respectful and don't hog the routes. i injured myself there (sadly won't be climbing again for a while; it was my mistake) and they were very prompt in helping me. I'd been climbing for a couple months before i injured myself and i can't wait to get back!

Fantastic experience: Friendly staff. Always a good vibe there no matter the time of day. They change up the routes frequently. Always something new when I go!

Fantastic experience: Always a good time. New sets rotate weekly. Great yoga teachers. would recommend.

Fantastic experience: Great climbing gym and very friendly and supportive staff.

Fantastic experience: Great place to climb! Love the member climbing hours feature, and the yoga classes are always amazing!

Fantastic experience: Wonderful place. I love the atmosphere here at vital, everybody is patient and courteous, willing to help out and give pointers if you're a beginner. It has a lounge area upstairs which includes a fridge and a microwave so that you can even warm up meals or work there if you work online. They change up the climbing routes on the walls every few weeks so that there is always something you to explore, definitely impossible to get bored here. Membership is $70 a month. It costs $20 to come here once, plus $2 for chalk bag rental and $5 for shoe rental.

Fantastic experience: If I’m being honest - the price is too steep for space utilization. For a gym at similar cost you get more gym equipment. But the setting is quality and consistent, and the quality of equipment is definitely nice. Cool location as well.

Fantastic experience: I love vital! I go a couple of times a week. I love the diversity of problems. It's so much fun to go with a few other people.

Fantastic experience: Rachel greeted my son and I at the door and immediately we were impressed with Vital. She explained everything, got us checked in with a really simple waiver system. Then we warmed up and hit the walls. This place was great. Lots of routes to choose from. Cool people from regulars to first timers like us made a great vibe. The place is clean, not crowded, and very reasonably priced. Definitely recommend.

Fantastic experience: Stopped by on vacation for fun. Rachel was on staff and was super friendly helping get me and my dad started. The problems were very fun and had alot of unique holds and moves I don't see often in the 2 gyms where I live. The other climbers were courteous and supportive, even cheering for my dad on one send. I might be biased coming from jersey, but all this you can't beat, especially for the rate. Would highly recommend for any locals, tons of fun problems, friendly staff, great atmosphere. 5/5

Fantastic experience: Great amount of beginner-intermediate routes. Definitley worth giving it a shot.

Fantastic experience: Climbing here is really great, routes are rotated regularly always clean and the staff are very pleasant and knowledgeable

Fantastic experience: Staff is observant

Fantastic experience: Great community great route setting great facilities solid climbing gym for its size

Fantastic experience: Great bouldering gym! A variety of problems, treadmill wall and a top-out-able boulder! Also, campus board, hang boards, weights. Everything you for a solid training session.

Fantastic experience: Wonderful place. I love the atmosphere here at vital, everybody is patient and courteous, willing to help out and give pointers if you're a beginner. It has a lounge area upstairs which includes a fridge and a microwave so that you can even warm up meals or work there if you work online. They change up the climbing routes on the walls every few weeks so that there is always something you to explore, definitely impossible to get bored here. Membership is $70 a month. It costs $20 to come here once, plus $2 for chalk bag rental and $5 for shoe rental.

Fantastic experience: Best flexible gym in bellingham. Get an unlimited yoga and climbing membership for super reasonable amount. Yoga instructors are friendly and keep classes interesting

Fantastic experience: Great place! We took our three girl's and they absolutely loved this place. The staff where super help and super friendly, we will be definitely coming back.

Fantastic experience: Great gym, friendly staff, well maintained equipment, pleasant culture.

Fantastic experience: Vital is an awesome climbing gym for everyone. Good space, great top outs first class bouldering.

Fantastic experience: The only problem with Vital is that there’s not more Vital. Crowded at times, but even then it’s still a relaxed atmosphere. The youth climbing team is absolutely fantastic, but because of that you can expect to spend some time on the waiting list. Coach Ryan and his team bring all of the values I love within climbing culture to my kids, and because it’s not coming from me, it actually sticks. Thanks for everything, Vital!

Fantastic experience: Awesome climbing gym with great and friendly staff. I love this place.

Fantastic experience: Best climbing gym in the community! This place provides a great atmosphere and very friendly staff. The place caters to people of all abilities. Highly suggest checking it out!

Fantastic experience: This is a fantastic bouldering gym! There are lots of problems and the local climbers are absolutely fantastic people.

Fantastic experience: Excellent bouldering gym. Great COVID safety precautions and wonderful climbs.

Fantastic experience: Great place to Boulder! Routes for all levels. Great helpful staff

Fantastic experience: Rachel and her coworker (I can’t remember his name for the life of me) were extremely kind and helpful. My friends and I were traveling from out of town, we rented equipment and were greeted with smiles and lovely conversation. We all are more familiar with our local climbing gyms but had a great time.

Fantastic experience: I love vital! It's full of fun and challenging bouldering problems.

Negative experience: A decent place to go and climb, but make sure you get any shoes or equipment elsewhere. If there is any sort of problem with what you purchase, you will simply be told all sales are final. I'm out over a hundred dollars on climbing shoes I cannot use.

Positive experience: Great place!

Fantastic experience: Amazing team, good climbing, good vibes.

Fantastic experience: Excellent bouldering gym. Great COVID safety precautions and wonderful climbs.

Fantastic experience: This climbing gym is handling the covid situation very well. Climbing is still easily possible while maiming safety measures. The routes are still enjoyable to climb as well.

Fantastic experience: John was incredibly helpful and kind. Love the wall too.

Fantastic experience: Great experience. Clean and professional during these Covid times.

Fantastic experience: Great climbing gym and very friendly and supportive staff.

Negative experience: Dirtiest gym I’ve ever been to. Routes are soft. Super crowded. No roped climbing. Small weight area. No training walls such as a spray wall or moon board. The $70/mo membership fee for this below average facility is what really gets me. But being the only climbing gym in bellingham I don’t ever see that price changing.

Positive experience: It's a great space with great routes and features. A good amount of useful amenities and available 24/7 for members is a plus. A little expensive for day passes, I think they increased prices recently. But not bad overall as a monthly member, and maybe they offer discounts for annual passes?

Fantastic experience: Great spot to stop and get a sesh in. Small and bouldering only but what is there is quality. Staff was super friendly! Worth a stop if you're in the area.

Fantastic experience: We have been visiting Vital for years when we would be visiting family in the area. We've been super excited to finally be members now that we live in the area. The bouldering is always great and the yoga classes next door also very enjoyable.

Fantastic experience: When you join Virtual you become a invested owner, who can climb or work out 24 hrs a day. The staff is all laid back and do anything to ensure your time there is good. You can even play your own music. The climb routes have many varies holds and difficulty levels all within the same color.

Positive experience: This place is awesome for those that love to climb. Everyone there seemed to be enjoying the environment and the space! Unfortunately it is OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive. I was no shocked. It was $20 a person + shoe rental fee. I wish there was an hourly rate maybe? I know its a 24 hour pass, that's why it costs what it does, but we stumbled here for a double date, thought it would be fun and it was. I just was so shook at the cost, my fault all in all, but it's a cool space for those that like to climb!

Negative experience: Would be good if they would train staff to have any customer service skills. Hire 20 year olds with attitude and you're going to have a bad time. Upon arriving for our first ever visit a female employee was so shocking brazen and outwardly hostile and rude that she made my child cry. Her behavior was absolutely uncalled for - hopefully management take the right steps in this situation but I have found that usually those kind of attitudes trickle down from the top so I'm not hopeful.

Fantastic experience: The greatest climbing / chilling spot in all of Bham

Fantastic experience: While it's been a year since I was last here my experience with this climbing gym was very positive. The wall is constantly being adjusted to allow for a different climbing experience every week, and their monthly membership rate is affordable if you plan to make weekly use of it. There are also some stationary bikes , a slack line, and other equipment you can use to warm up or try something different.

Fantastic experience: Good bouldering gym but kind of a waste if you're more of a rope climber. The facility is well maintained and the staff are nice, can be very cliquey though and hard to break j to the "scene" which is the problem with climbers these days

Fantastic experience: All bouldering; no rope climbs. With a student ID card, you can get monthly access for $50/month. Also have small side-gym with bikes , squat bars, etc. Oh and a sweet slackline. And finally, everything from chalk or tape to climbing shoes or clothing are available for purchase 24/7 (with the monthly access). Best bouldering gym i have ever attended.

Fantastic experience: I enjoyed climbing here while visiting Bellingham. Nice gym and the other climbers were friendly. The only surprise was that the route grading was massively inflated. Things that would be a V1 or V2 at (some) other gyms or outdoors were supposedly a V4 or V5. I joked that I improved 2 or 3 grades just by showing up there for the evening! In all seriousness though, it was fun and people were friendly. Thanks again!

Fantastic experience: Enjoyable climbing gym with a limited selection of other equipment. They change up the walls quite a bit so there's no worry about the workout getting repetitive.

Fantastic experience: Great little gym! They have done some really innovative things that make the gym more fun!

Fantastic experience: A great workout area that is centered around bouldering, with sections being rotated out and replaced frequently to promote coming back. Along with all that, they have machine to workout either legs with, bicycle machines, or arms, with pull up bars or weights, to help round out anything that you think isn't worked enough.

Fantastic experience: Best climbing gym I've been to! The atmosphere is so amazing here. I've never been to a gym where everyone is so positive and supportive of each other. The bouldering is great for a range of skills, staff is friendly and attentive. There are weights, a slackline, gear to rent and buy and a great lounge area upstairs. After hours the gym is still open to members which is nice if you want to have some gym time to yourself and bump your tunes on their audio system. Oh, and memberships are super affordable and include free yoga, how can you beat that!?

Fantastic experience: Great place, lots of routes, lots of shoes to rent at a reasonable price. Not cheap overall but worth it.

Fantastic experience: Yoga is on point!

Positive experience: I am totally new to indoor climbing and am getting a slow start, but anticipate that will change. I totally enjoyed the Bouldering 101 clinic and felt really uplifted to accomplish my first climbs. I joined Vital at first, for the Yoga, which is great, also. I recommend any age try it out!!!

Fantastic experience: Climb on

Fantastic experience: Love it

Fantastic experience: Great place to boulder downtown! Just go there and send it!

Fantastic experience: Yeeeeeeee

Positive experience: I heard of bouldering before, but I certainly never considered doing it until my friend asked me to come with him. Rock climbing without ropes?? Sketchy!!! Although, after spending a couple hours here, I warmed up to it. I even fell pretty far a couple times, but the 2 feet of padding (literally everywhere) makes for a somewhat comfortable landing. It was decently busy when I was there, and if I went again, I'd go during a slower time. That way you don't have to worry about falling on someone, being fallen on, waiting for a certain section of wall, or just be able to flounder around and not have people silently judge you on your obvious lack of climbing experience. The price for a day pass and shoes is a bit high unless you're there for several hours, but other than that it's a cool place.

Fantastic experience: My home away from home :) great place to work out, learn, meet new people and get inspired!

Positive experience: First time checking this place out. Came down here from Vancouver for the day. Nice little gym. Interesting problems, good height, good atmosphere, decent training area, and cool they have a slackline. Only complaints are the mats are a little hard, so I wouldn't want to take a fall from the top, and some of the holds were super dirty and slick... But overall, great gym! Can't wait to come back!

Fantastic experience: Friendly and clean facility that is 24/7 access for members

Fantastic experience: Home away from home. Best place in Bellingham!

Fantastic experience: Very modern space with a some awesome climbing! Worth going if you are in town!

Fantastic experience: I've been coming here regularly for about 8 months. I'm very happy with the membership I have, which allows me to use the facility 24/7. The staff are always super friendly and helpful. New routes weekly, slackline, campus board, small workout equipment area. Great atmosphere, lounge area overlooking the main gym area. Snacks/tea/coffee are all self serve and $1. The only complaint I might have is that the space is reletively small, and when it's crowded you have to wait for routes to open up. Would reccomend to climbers of all skill levels as well as new climbers.

Fantastic experience: Great place to stay in shape if you can afford it! Everyone is friendly and willing to help you learn.

Fantastic experience: Friendly atmosphere, good mix of beginner and expert terrain. It's a fun and effective gym.

Fantastic experience: Fantastic place to go if you like climbing. The routes change often and you can stay for as long as you want until you get tired. Cheap drinks too if you get thirsty.

Fantastic experience: Awesome, challenging courses and a very friendly atmosphere. I loved it and I will definitely be going back.

Fantastic experience: 24/7 access for members! You can come in the morning or late at night to avoid a crowd, or whenever best fits your schedule. Rotating weekly resets means you've always got something new to project.

Positive experience: I think this is a nice bouldering gym. They reset walls regularly and do their best to keep it interesting for frequent visitors and newcomers to the climbing community. I like that there is a good variety of routes for climbers of all abilities. I think $60 a month is pretty average, if not, a low price for a monthly membership which automatically grants members with 24-hour access. That is unheard of back in Denver, where I recently moved from. So why not a full 5-star rating? The lounge area is nice and seems to get a lot of use, but I wish they made better use of the overall space to include more room for people who want to stretch or do other workouts. It is a gym, and I wish they could eliminate the "meeting/conference room" to make the facility more accommodating of climbers who want a more private space to stretch, do some yoga, or other workouts. Those taking a climbing break have the smallest amount of space to try and work around each other. On a different note....I was recently disappointed when I went back to work on a problem, but they had already taken down the entire cave despite communicating to me that it would be up for another full day. Perhaps it was a miscommunication among the staff? I understand these things happen, but i was so bummed because I made a trip there with the sole intention of checking that problem off my list! Such is life....there are plenty of new ones up though, so I can jump right into those routes. Other than that, this is a good gym and the staff has always been friendly and helpful. I'm happy to be a member and really enjoy the 24-hour access.

Positive experience: Awesome rock gym. Lots and lots of routes, fun setters. Relatively expensive at $50-60 a month, but well worth it if you enjoy regular climbing. They also have a slack line and other workout equipment. No rope climbing, only bouldering.

Fantastic experience: Good routes and good staff.

Positive experience: Vital's 24-hour member access makes it an easy sell for any local climber, but the wall configuration and setting leave something to be desired if you are looking for a variety of steeper walls with creative movement. It's a bouldering-only gym, but their treadwall and other exercise equipment can offer cardio to supplement your routine. They also provide a campus board, hang boards, and a slackline. At the price they had when I was last an active member, I would not hesitate to renew my membership should I find myself in Bellingham again for a week or more of climbing.

Fantastic experience: Always new routes and simple to follow rating system.

Fantastic experience: Great route design, decent prices, good membership perks.

Fantastic experience: Amazing staff! Best place to climb!

Fantastic experience: 24 hour access for members, mellow vibe

Positive experience: Fun place to go climb at, however you have to be fit to do most of the climbs here. Comes with workout equipment.

Fantastic experience: Nice location for climbing gym with lots of choices for routes and styles!

Positive experience: I am not a climber, but this place was fun to try it out and do something different. They have a few different things you can try besides climbing like the slackline that is fun too.