The Stanford Climbing Wall

Only $ 5 a person! You can’t beat that for a climbing wall! The friendly and helpful staff is a definite bonus! Also, it is a great date idea for the budget friendly :)

I’ve been climbing this gym for months now and absolutely love it. It’s not a big gym, but it has some really good route-​setters and they constantly change things up, so it never gets boring. Sometimes the hours can get a little random because of the university’s schedule, but that is a minor inconvenience compared to the quality of the climbing experience. I consider this my «home gym» and use it as a benchmark against which the others are judged. It really is great and is only rarely crowded. I recommend it!

Located in the Arrillaga Family Recreation Center on the Stanford campus, my daughter will tell you that this was the location of the most adventurous birthday party she’d ever had. While I agree with her that it was fun and very different from parties her classmates were choosing for their birthday celebrations, my experience at the Stanford Climbing Wall tapped more project management skills than I wish to put into a kid’s birthday party.
In all fairness, the Stanford Climbing Wall’s foray into kid’s birthday parties is very recent. However, there are quite a few quirks that need to be ironed out for them to have long term success with the concept.
First of all, the staff is difficult to get a hold of by phone particularly in the summer months as the climbing wall is staffed by students and managed by Stanford Outdoor Education, which seems to be constantly farming staff to outdoor excursions through out the year. You will need a great deal of patience and a dash of persistence in your communications efforts with them.
This same crew lost my deposit check. Written and sent about 6 weeks ago, no one is able to tell me where it is, only that it hit the office in-​box at the same time as a flood of student checks for some other outdoor adventure. «Perhaps it fell behind a desk,» I was told. As you can imagine, that was not a comforting excuse. I recommend you deliver a check personally, never mail it to the group.
There is also no where to store a cake while the kids climb. Your party guests will enjoy 90 minutes of climbing after which they are able to go outside the rec center and enjoy cake at the picnic tables. But, where to keep a cake in that 90 minutes? Luckily as an employee in the alumni center across the street, I was able to use my ID to access the building and store a cake in one of the kitchen fridges there. Not everyone will have that advantage though. One staff member did tell me that there is a fridge in one of the rec center training rooms but, the group that utilizes that room won’t let them use it. Tsk! Tsk! When you are all from the same university, sharing should be a no brainer kids!
I would also recommend that you bring two to three adults with belay experience with you. While we were given three wonderful instructors to help the kids climb, I had fifteen 8-​year-​olds spending too much time having to wait for another turn. Luckily, I had three Dads with belay experience on hand to get more of the kiddos on the wall.
All-​in-​all I do think the experience was fun and the kids enjoyed themselves, I simply think Stanford Outdoor Education needs to make some small organizational improvements to make throwing birthday party here a bit smoother.