Climbing in Japan from Mike

My work is done for this trip. I’m on the final train ride back to Tokyo to spend the night and come home (finally) in the morning. I have a beer in hand. Tonight’s damage has begun.

When in Tokyo I climb at 2 different locations
Pump 2
Pump has a number of different locations in Tokyo area and throughout Japan. Including some B-Pump gyms which are bouldering only. When I first started traveling to Japan I found Pump 2 first. It always had excellent bouldering. It was closed for a while during construction in the area and moved across the street to a facility build specifically for a climbing gym. It is world class! Huge roped area with arches and steep walls. All very tall and 90% lead!!! The boulder area is excellent. Many different wall angles and caves. Huge selection of problems from V0 through V10 (Japan has its own rating system for bouldering). The also have several route problems from 5.9 to 5.12+. These are typically 25 to 40 move problems. Enough said, I’ll make a 1.5 hour trek on 4 different trains plus some walking to visit.

T-Wall
T-Wall also has several gyms in Tokyo. I’ve been to two of these but typically go to the one near Kinshicho station. These gyms are not as fancy as Pump 2 but provide excellent training. T-Wall Kinshicho is in a long narrow warehouse type building. One evening I was bouldering next to Dai Koyamada. He was CRUSHING. When he was on the wall everyone else stopped to watch!

This gym can be as close as a 5min walk from my hotel. However, on weekends it had been worth the trek to Pump2. Lately I’d been staying half way between T-Wall and Pump2 so I always went to Pump2. This trip I was at the hotel 5 minutes away. Given that I just traveled 20 hrs from Europe I walked to T-wall after checking into hotel. Big surprise they added an upper mezzanine to double the amount of bouldering. The new walls have super cool features. Steeps, slabs, verts and caves….. I’ll start requesting the hotel near T-wall and spend a lot more time here.

General thoughts on Japan gyms.
Lead climbing dominates roped climbing. At least 80% if not more of routes are lead only.
The taping is immaculate. Each piece is perfect and exactly where it belongs. They probably spend more time taping than setting!
I never feel like a piece of tape is missing.
The boulder problems are extremely high quality and professionally set. I can not comment on roped climbs since I only boulder. Communication is a challenge….
T-wall and Pump 2 have huge numbers of problems at each level. I’d estimate 10 minimum and up to 20 problems for each grade (V0, V1, V2, ….. V10)
They pick a color for a boulder problem level of difficulty and then have different shapes of tape for different problems and/or number them.
Pink V0
Green V1
Etc
Like traditional Japan, you remove your shoes at the door and wear slippers or go barefoot between climbs.
Here is the link to Pump2. It is a cool Website.