Best of Boston

A huge industrial loft in Woburn, the Boston Rock Gym is carpeted with 20 tons of chopped-up car tires, the walls are studded with tiny gargoyles, dinosaurs, and rocklike footholds, and the place looks like a preppy torture chamber. One of the best-equipped climbing gyms in all of New England, the rock gym has 30 different climbing routes of varying complexity, ranging from beginner to impossible. Check out Hades—a bouldering cave in which climbers hang upside down, suspended by their fingers and toes—as well as the Treadwall (imagine a treadmill that’s a vertical wall). Patient instructors keep an eye out for your safety and offer group classes and individual instruction.