Triangle Rock Club is opening its largest facility yet. Here’s what members can find inside
Scaling a cliff, a canyon or a mountain isn’t for everyone. It may require taking time off work, traveling to a remote destination or facing harsh winds, rain and sun. That’s where Triangle Rock Club comes in.
The North Carolina-born chain of rock-climbing gyms is preparing to open its newest and biggest facility (by about 7,000 square feet) in Raleigh’s Salvage Yard, inside an old steel manufacturing building.
Located next to Raleigh Iron Works, off East Whitaker Mill Road, Salvage Yard will also house NOCO Beverage (a new brand from the brothers behind Cary’s Bond Bros. featuring craft beer, coffee and other items), Jaguar Bolera’s pickleball concept and Cannonball Music Hall.
“There’s one thing that all of our customers are when they’re done. They’re hungry and thirsty. So being co-located with restaurants and breweries is just an amazing blend of kind of what we are,” said Andrew Kratz, a retired Marine and founding partner of Triangle Rock Club.
This location is the sixth for the company and the fourth for the Triangle. The first opened in 2007 in Morrisville, then on Duraleigh Road in Raleigh in 2013, in Fayetteville in 2014, in Richmond, Virginia, in 2018, and in Durham in 2019.
Even though there’s already a gym in Raleigh, TRC isn’t worried about a lack of interest.
“The area continues to grow, and the popularity of rock climbing continues to grow,” said Joel Graybeal, a self-described “reformed banker” who’s now a managing partner at TRC. “So we might be a smidge ahead of ourselves, but this area is growing so fast, and we have hundreds of existing members that live closer to here than they do to the other gyms.”
Kratz and Graybeal said they expect some members from other TRC locations to move to the Salvage Yard gym. However, the new location, which will be more accessible and convenient to a different population, will also bring in new members.
And it will have plenty of parking, which is a necessity during peak hours.
What’s inside Triangle Rock Club at Salvage Yard
The new TRC will have dedicated spaces for fitness and wellness, complete with a cold plunge, a dry sauna, kettle balls, medicine balls, free weights, dumbbells and a yoga room.
There will also be a retail space with climbing equipment such as shoes and harnesses; showers and changing rooms; lounge areas; and outdoor gathering spaces for yoga or just hanging out.
“When you come into one of our gyms, everything’s different. And that’s intentional,” Graybeal said.
But the main attraction is the climbing spaces.
Bouldering walls and top-roping walls fill the main section of the 40,000-square-foot building. There’s also a room with a floor-to-ceiling window with tall walls for top-roping and lead climbing, where climbers clip themselves to a series of anchors as they ascend.
In bouldering, there are no ropes, but TRC has pads more than 12 inches thick to cushion falls.
Along the bouldering terrain, climbers follow routes with climbing holds that are color-coded for difficulty. If one is so inclined to climb it, there’s an arch, which would invert the climber before emerging head up again on the other side.
The terrain also has a top-out feature, which allows climbers to get on top of the boulder after they reach the top and walk off, if they want. Alternatively, climbers could climb down and then jump off to the pads.
Top-roping routes change periodically, just as the bouldering routes do.
“When you see people in our facilities, no one has headphones on because it’s a community-type event. You’re not normally doing it by yourself, and our customers generally average about two hours per visit,” Graybeal said.
Making the climbing terrain
It took a while for Triangle Rock Club’s bouldering, top-rope and tall walls to come together.
First, TRC sends Bulgaria-based Walltopia the building plans. Then the wall designers create a rough layout with bouldering and top-rope walls. After that, TRC and Walltopia collaborate virtually for months, modifying wall angles, features and color schemes.
Engineering teams get the design once it’s finished and work their magic to make sure everything is structurally sound.
The panels are manufactured in Bulgaria, loaded on a boat and delivered to North Carolina. Walltopia sends crews to unpack the containers and assemble the walls.
“It’s a big jigsaw puzzle,” Kratz said.
Triangle Rock Club location and opening
Triangle Rock Club’s newest location will open at 1249 Wicker Drive by the end of 2024.
