We typically are staffed on Monday through Thursday from 6-11 pm for visitors and new member sign ups. These hours are subject to change without notice. We are never open Fridays through Sundays. Non-members may not accompany members outside of our staffed hours.

Members enjoy 24 hour access with their monthly membership.

Check out Ladies’ nights on Tuesdays and Under 18 night on Wednesday – climb for $5!

All visitors/members must sign electronic waivers before climbing. Monthly memberships are a 3-month minimum contract. We offer membership suspensions for absences longer than two months.

We also have corporate memberships. Contact us for more information!

We are available for group bookings – NO birthday parties.

Directions

We are located at 289 Prado Road in San Luis Obispo

From the north -

• Exit Madonna Road, bear left but turn right onto Higuera St.

• Left on Prado Road – we’re the last commercial complex on the right before the cattle ranch.

• Look for the purple and grey buildings.

 From the south -

• Exit Prado Road, continue across Higuera street

• We’re the last commercial complex on the right before the cattle ranch.

• Look for purple and grey buildings.

History

We here at SLO Op are proud of our rags-to-riches story.

SLO Op I at Alamo Storage, before a competition.

In answer to the limited local climbing opportunities, SLO-OP (a loosely formed co-operative bouldering gym) was established in a Self Storage unit in 2002 by founding members Paul Hatalsky, Julie Workman, and Yishai Horowitz. Horowitz conceived of the idea after a trip to New Zealand where he saw something similar.

Despite the odds against it: small size – only 400 square feet and ten feet tall, the very overhanging, bouldering-specific homemade walls, financially broke even within its first month of operation, and no advertising budget, SLO-Op continued to grow and attract new climbers until the loss of its lease in July 2005.

SLO Op 2, another competition

No one wanted the good times to end. SLO-OP served as a meeting place for climbers and hosted four successful climbing competitions. In the interim, Dan Delisle’s rental property provided an outdoor wall for us to meet at, dubbed the “Dan-Op.” Waning light and increasing wetness made it begin to lose popularity.

Finally, in March 2006, Horowitz found a new location and galvanized the community into action, using volunteers to construct a steel-framed building using money on loan from interested climbers. The result? SLO-Op II. We filed as an LLC and a non-profit and became the country’s official first non-profit bouldering gym.

The new SLO-OP Climbing expanded on what the first SLO-OP Climbing started while taking advantage its increased size, legal entity (now an LLC and 501(c)7 non-profit), and extended membership base.

And then it got bigger and we got better. And now we’ve moved again, to a bouldering facility that boasts about 3500 square feet of sick bouldering with top outs, a crack machine, slackline, and hangboard. The idea has spawned a huge movement toward smaller co-op-type bouldering gyms all over the world and we couldn’t be more honored.