Rory Durock | Staff Writer
After years of planning, delays and dedication, the Baylor University graduates have finally realized their “really needed” business dream: Basin Climbing and Fitness, the Waco area’s first full-service rock climbing gym.
A grand opening ceremony was held to mark the official opening of Basin Climbing and Fitness in Hewitt on Sept. 20. Throughout the weekend, the gym also hosted events to celebrate the opening of the new business.
CEO and co-founder Trinity Robb said there will be a variety of climbing options, and Robb said the gym is more dynamic and larger than the one in the McLane Student Life Center.
“We have people who’ve been climbing for years who can come here and learn from each other,” Robb said, “and we also have different programs than what’s currently offered on campus.”
General manager, co-founder and Baylor University graduate Jessica Corley said the goal is to provide an environment where everyone feels welcome to train.
“Climbing is such a community sport, and Waco really needed a place where people could come together and be part of the community. Climbing is something you can do hands-on and together,” Corley said. “Our biggest goal is to bring that to as many people in the Waco area as possible.”
Corley hopes to expand the membership base and launch competitive and non-competitive youth climbing teams, in addition to an eight-week adult climbing technique class starting Oct. 1. She also plans to start more programs in the personal training and fitness areas, she said.
Robb said the idea of owning and operating a climbing gym dates back to his time at Baylor University, where he studied outdoor recreation and climbed throughout college. He said people had always muttered about the need for a climbing gym in Waco.
“The first seeds probably started in college,” Rob says. “A few years later, I helped start a bike and outdoor gear store called Outdoor Waco, before it became Bicycle World. At the time, I thought, ‘Why hasn’t anyone built a gym yet?’
Rob said he had begun looking at real estate for a climbing gym and had even looked at the Silo shortly before Chip and Joanna Gaines purchased it. In the end, he said, it was too early to start a gym.
Rob said he got in touch with a colleague in 2019 to try and bring the idea to fruition, but was forced to put plans on hold due to the impact of COVID-19. During the pandemic, he met the people who became his partners in founding the gym.
“They were interested in starting a gym and had already started working on it, so we heard about it,” Rob says. “The three of us were all working in parallel at different times, but we came together and Basin was born.”
Rob said what he likes most about the opportunity to start a business is that it’s an activity the whole family can enjoy.
“There aren’t a lot of activities that the whole family can do together that are challenging, get some exercise and are on the same level in a lot of ways, so something like this gets the whole family involved,” Rob said.
