As a introduction to climbing, I was very pleased with the experience I recieved. My two sons (7), my wife and I all went on a intro together and were able to climb and also learn quite a good deal about it. Its harder than you think! Our guide, Doug, was very calm and collected. He was patient with our children and helped them not feel frightened when on the rocks, while offering information about the area and showing us cool things along the way. Definitely an experience to remember.
We booked a lesson and guided climb on our recent trip to the Black Hills, and LOVED it. I'm a solo dad with three kids (14,12,7) with almost no climbing experience. Our guide, Chris, was exceptional in keeping things on a very beginner level for us, but giving the kids a ton of confidence in what they were doing on the climb (Chris mentioned he's been doing this for 21 years!). On the way home my 12-year-old daughter was literally checking out where she can get into rock climbing in the Twin Cities, she enjoyed it so much. Plus, we climbed at Sylvan Lake, which is an incredibly beautiful setting. Booking was easy. Pricing was very reasonable for a half-day experience, and I mean... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ everything in the Black Hills is "tourist pricing," so if you're going to penny pinch, maybe don't come to the Black Hills. Could not have been happier with the experience, and we will definitely be back.
Excellent guide service! We did one day of guided climbing out of a whole week of climbing on our own in June 2021. I was impressed by how Sylvan rocks tailored our guided day to our goals. My wife and I had goals of working on dialing in our systems during multipitch climbs. We had some minimal trad climbing and multipitch experience going into our day. Jeff, one of the co-owners, took us up spire two and spire four and provided education on rope and climber management at every step of the way. He tailored the day, taking into account our past experience and our goals. We got to go on some great climbs and added to our toolbox of skills. I was very appreciative of the extra time Jeff took to discuss climbs we could consider for the rest of the week after our guided trip had finished. The beta was much appreciated and added a lot of value to the rest of our week in the black hills.
