After checking in at the front desk at Rocksport Climbing Gym in Jeffersontown on a cold January day, Sophia and Angela Barondeau greet other climbers and put on their harnesses. Climbers talk to each other, suggesting footholds and routes, and the familiar HVAC rattle fills the 12,000-square-foot space. It’s not uncommon to see a climbing couple pushing a stroller between climbs, or toddlers learning how to safely descend the 30-foot walls.
It’s similar to how Sophia started. She was part of a program run by the gym’s founder, Rob Butsch, that met on Saturday mornings before the gym opened to the public. Sophia’s mom, Angela, says it was about sustaining the climbing community.
“Rob was trying to invest in the next generation of climbers,” Angela says.
After nearly 30 years fostering Louisville’s climbing community, Rocksport, is set to close at the end of the month. With the closure of another rope climbing gym last year, Rocksport is currently the only gym in the city offering walls tall enough for climbers to train for outdoor climbing – and for those with disabilities to climb with ropes safely.
When it opened, Rocksport was part of the first wave of indoor climbing gyms in the country – a now multi-million dollar industry. Louisville climbers quite literally built the walls themselves.
It slowly developed a reputation as a place for serious climbers to train for Kentucky’s world-famous outdoor climbing in Red River Gorge, and for younger athletes to get started.
Rocksport offers climbing walls that are tall enough to require ropes for safety.
Angela has controlled the rope, or belayed, for Sophia since she started climbing.
“Every time you let someone belay you, you are giving them trust,” Sophia says.
And Angela held that rope tightly for years.
“Until she met people, and I met people that we trusted. And then at that point, you know it was like you have a community established on trust,” Angela says. “It’s not just individuals wandering around climbing freely.”
But, the support doesn’t stop where the rope ends. Sophia says she used to struggle with anxiety, especially test-taking in school. She noticed things feeling easier when she started climbing.
“It’s just like this great community that I know I can always count on,” she says.
A similar sentiment came up through multiple interviews for this story. Climbers say Louisville is losing a community, not just a climbing facility. Many say it’s been a support system; a lifeline even.
A note of transparency, this reporter has been coming to Rocksport for many years.
After more than a decade in this community, Sophia Barondeau says she’s learned the importance of being there for other climbers.
“You never know what someone is going through, and I think just trying to understand that everybody has something internally.”
Sophia chokes up remembering her mentor and Rocksport founder Rob Butsch. He struggled with health issues for years before he died in 2019. Though many people dropping in to climb wouldn’t have known.
It taught her that a person’s struggles can be invisible.
“If I can help in any way, I will,” she says.
That help started to look different when Sophia began side-climbing, a process where a companion climbs right alongside someone with a disability.
After being trained in this technique, Sophia began volunteering for the Saturday adaptive meet-ups at Rocksport.
“Yeah, that was a big turnaround for me.”
Chuck Winstead, who’s blind, says climbing with a disability is like scuba diving; you need a buddy.
“You know, you’re trusting your dive-buddy to make sure you’re gonna come home,” he says.
Sophia acts as Chuck’s buddy, side-climbing with him. But, for others, a buddy might simply be someone holding the end of your rope. Chuck and Sophia climb together at the adaptive meet-ups hosted by Catalyst Sports, a gathering that will now have to move to Lexington, where they still have a rope gym.
After Rocksport’s closure, Louisville will be home to one climbing gym, Climb Nulu on Market Street which offers a style of climbing on shorter walls with no ropes. Many cities comparable in size to Louisville boast three or more gyms. Louisville climbers say this is particularly remarkable given the proximity to the Red River Gorge.
Chuck Winstead, the climber who is blind, says the timing of the closure is particularly impactful. Indoor climbing meetups are one of the only options for adaptive sports and recreation in the winter.
“So, we lose this, we’re gonna lose something that’s open for people that’s adaptable for a wider group of people,” he says.
The gym owners say they're closing due to financial struggles. Their last day of operation is set for Feb. 28th.
After that, Catalyst Sports , which has gathered at Rocksport for four years, will meet in Lexington, and climbers looking for height will have to wait until the weather warms to climb outside.
