Tips for your first visit to Summit City Climbing Co.
“We want to make it as inviting and easy as possible.”

Fort Wayne’s long-awaited first climbing gym is finally open to the public. If you’ve been following the saga on social media, you’ve probably seen that setbacks involving the state’s building department caused delays in its opening for about six months. Co-Owner Edwin Chow tells us much of the “headaches” had to do with how the gym was incorrectly classified as a “play structure” by the state. Thankfully, the issue has been resolved.
Here are a few quick tips for your first visit:
- It’s technically a bouldering gym. When you picture a climbing gym, you might think of ropes, anchors and belays. But with bouldering, the walls are lower (10-20 feet), and you have no equipment – just climbing shoes and a thick pad beneath the wall, so if you fall, you're safe. “Since this is Fort Wayne’s first climbing gym, we wanted to start with bouldering to teach people the basics of technique," Chow says.
- There’s already a sizable climbing community in Fort Wayne. Chow and his partners, Collin Jester and Ryan Perkins, are local entrepreneurs in their 20s, and Chow says that before starting Summit City Climbing Co., they and their friends would travel to Indianapolis and other cities, sometimes multiple times a week to climb. A Facebook group for Fort Wayne Rock Climbing also has 550+ members. Chow and his partners think there’s room for more climbing gyms in Fort Wayne’s future, too!
- It accommodates climbers of all abilities. Along with free-climb space, Summit City Climbing Co. offers classes for beginners on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. “We want to make it as inviting and easy as possible,” Chow says. To appeal to advanced climbers, they’re also partnering with 10 regional climbing gyms to bring route setters from other cities to Fort Wayne to create challenging routes that change regularly. “We got route setters from North Mass in Indianapolis to do our opening set,” Chow says. “Then, every other week, we’ll reset a section of the wall with route setters visiting from gyms in Chicago or Ohio.”
- Logistics: Hours are Monday-Friday: noon-9 p.m., Saturday: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. and Sunday: 1-6 p.m. Cost is $17/day, $20/week, $75/month or $55/month for students, teachers, veterans/military, nurses, first responders, social workers and nonprofit leaders.