The Lab
Boulder, Colorado
Specs: The Lab—a 24-hour, training-focused bouldering facility—is opening in Boulder, Colorado, in the coming months and is founded and owned by Madison and Michael Hafner. According to Michael, the gym will consist almost entirely of training boards, in terms of the climbing, and is designed for the “longtime crushers to the quiet obsessive.”
Before working on The Lab, Michael worked for six years at Movement Boulder as a front desk employee, the Assistant Gym Director, and a routesetter before transitioning to working on The Lab full time last November. “When you work in the industry for this long, you wear a lot of different hats, and with those hats, you have a lot of different experiences,” Michael said. “What I was finding is that there was a group that was being left behind, and it was a group you weren’t really expecting to be left behind.” With a desire to serve that group—climbers looking for intentional, focused training sessions—Madison and Michael decided to move forward with their gym plans. While Michael expressed gratitude for the ways the industry has become more inclusive over recent years, he wanted to design The Lab “free of distractions, free of gimmicks,” with “clear transparency and mutual respect for the sport and the process,” he stated.
Madison and Michael had moved to Boulder years ago for the climbing and “fell in love with the community,” Michael said. “When we wanted to open a gym, we did look all over the country because when you’re in that stage and you’re so driven, you just want to make it work,” he added. The pair then had to reset during COVID and joined a local first responders’ group. That experience led to the conclusion that their community and home are in Boulder, so the Hafners pondered how they could make the gym work without moving. “I think the stars started to align when we realized that that demographic was being underserved,” Michael said. “You have an opportunity here with the innovation in the sport to carve out a very intentional, very narrow form of climbing. Boulder lends itself to that. It’s a very intentional place.”
The Hafners decided they did not need “any flashy frontage” for the facility and looked for a quiet, cool, well-insulated space off the main road. Nearby, there is a Blackbelly Market, Ozo’s coffee house, and housing developments and offices being built. The 6,300-square-foot gym will feature 2,011 square feet of climbing wall surface, split between six training boards and a 55-foot-long spray wall. The lineup of training boards will entail 12×12 Grasshopper, Decoy, Tension Board 2 Spray and Tension Board 2 Mirrored sets—adjustable from 10 to 65 degrees—as well as a 2016 and 2024 MoonBoard. The spray wall will include 20-, 35- and 45-degree sections and will be reset by different routesetters every six months. There will also be hangboards, free weights, pull-up bars, and a campus board in the completed gym.
Memberships to The Lab will be available for individuals 18 and older. The gym will have a membership limit in place, but the number is still a work in progress. “We want to give people a community, but we don’t want to sacrifice it being busy,” Michael said. “It’s a fine balance between getting people into the space but also preserving the intent that we built this for.” Members will have guest passes, which will be usable during most staffed hours (11am to 7pm, Monday through Friday, by Michael and Madison). All memberships will include 24-hour access—a factor that did require the Hafners to jump through extra hoops—but Michael said he believes they are ultimately in a good position now, with a custom security system in place. He also noted that being a first responder helped inform their preparations for emergency responses.
Walls: Kumiki, Dreamwall
Flooring: Dreamwall
CRM Software: Redpoint
Website: www.thelabclimbing.com
Instagram: @ClimbTheLab
In Their Words: “Be intentional and be honest about what you’re building and who you’re building it for. Don’t chase growth for growth’s sake, or don’t chase trends unless they serve the climbers that you’re after and that you’re trying to serve. Don’t be afraid to not offer everything all at once. Don’t be afraid to be excellent at one thing rather than average at five. And don’t be afraid to leave people out. If it doesn’t align, the right people will find it. And that’s what we’ve seen, is the right people are coming out of the woodworks.” – Michael Hafner, Co-Owner and Co-Founder of The Lab
