Overview of Rock Climbing gyms in Singapore, with a focus on bouldering.

For each gym, I list:

• level of difficulty,
• highlight special facilities,
• notable route-setting features,
• crowd (based on weekday evenings and weekends, which is the period I usually visit).
• grading

Rant on grading: almost every gym has its own system of grading. It’s usually numeric (easy to remember) but does not map in anyway to established systems like V or Font.

Short list of gyms by experience level.

Bonus section at the end for visitors from out of Singapore.

Can you trust my opinions?.

By Gyms

BFF Climb Bendemeer

• difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced
• highlights: large gym (something for every level), auto-belay top rope system,
• facilities: beginner area, small training area (hang board, campus boards), 2 Moon boards (2016 and 2024 kit)
• route-setting: diverse and varied, slab wall, small overhang feature
• grading: 1 to 15 (15 is V8)
• crowd: high

Boruda

• difficulty: intermediate, advanced
• highlights: spray wall (hard)
• facilities: ping pong table, small training area, hang boards, campus board
• route-setting: technical, tricky feet, beta-intensive
• grading: 9-kyu to 2-dan (JP system)
• crowd: high

Lighthouse

• difficulty: advanced
• highlights: spray wall, kilter board, Moon board, tension board
• facilities: campus rungs, hang boards, large training area (free weights)
• route-setting: powerful, technical, beta-intensive
• grading: 1 to 9 (Mah Jong tiles) (roughly equals to V)
• crowd: low

Boulder Planet Taiseng

• difficulty: intermediate, advanced
• highlights: Moon board 2024
• facilities: multiple steep sections, hang board
• route-setting: modern, dynamic
• grading: 1 to 12 (12 is V8)
• crowd: medium

Boulder Planet Sembawang

• difficulty: intermediate, advanced
• highlights: large gym
• facilities: multiple steep sections
• route-setting: modern, dynamic
• grading: 1 to 12 (12 is V8)
• crowd: medium

Boulder+ Aperia Mall

• difficulty: intermediate, advanced
• highlights: large
• facilities: spray wall, endurance wall, training area
• route-setting: powerful
• grading: colors, white to black + wild-card (black is V8)
• crowd: high

Boulder+ Chevrons

• difficulty: intermediate, advanced
• highlights: probably the largest air-conditioned bouldering gym
• facilities: kilter board, training area, steep cave, varied wall features
• route-setting: varied, mostly modern style, routes are spread out
• grading: colors, white to black + wild-card (black is V8)
• crowd: medium

Ground Up

Disclaimer: only been here once. Notes below are only for bouldering sections of this gym.

• difficulty: beginner, intermediate
• highlights: well maintained pads that are hard
• facilities: hang boards, kilter board, training area
• route-setting: bad feet, technical
• grading: V scale (only gym I’ve been to in Singapore that does this)
• crowd: low

Climba

Disclaimer: only been here once, Sat afternoon.

• difficulty: beginner
• highlights:
• facilities: grasshopper board, training area
• route-setting: varied
• grading: colors (blue, yellow, red) (red is V7)
• crowd: high

By experience level

• Beginner: BFF Bendemeer, Climba, Boulder Movement (not listed above as I haven’t been there for a long time)
• Intermediate: Boruda, BFF Bendemeer, Boulder+, Boulder Planet
• Advanced: Lighthouse, Boulder+, Boulder Planet

Visiting

If you are visiting Singapore and want to climb, you are probably an advanced or humble intermediate climber. As such, you will enjoy any gyms marked advanced above.

Lighthouse has the most comprehensive training area and system boards. For serious training, go there. The route-setting is complex and hard as well.

BFF Bendemeer gets a good crowd of people with all sorts of levels (though you will find the stronger climbers huddling at the Moon boards). If you are in for small talk I find this to be a chatty community.

Boulder+ Chevrons and Boulder Planet Sembawang are the most spacious with scattered routes. They have more modern route-setting, so if you like jumpy jump, pick one of those. Boulder+ Chevrons has the highest wall, However, these gyms are a bit far from the city central, so their other branches (Boulder+ Aperia Mall and Boulder Planet Tai Seng) can give you a similar experience.

Disclaimer

I offer my take on mapping each gym’s grade to V scale. For comparison, I’ve been climbing since 2020, my max grade at Dogpatch Boulders (San Francisco) is V10 (2 routes, double digit sessions on each). My max grade outdoors is V7 (Go Granny Ho, Grandma Peabody Boulder, Bishop, CA) (I don’t go out very often).

My max grades at each gym is:

• BFF: 14
• Boulder+: Black
• Boruda: 1D
• Boulder Planer: 11
• Ground Up: V8
• Climba: Red
• Lighthouse: 7

Reach out if you would like to see more gyms on this list.