Beast Fingers Climbing Gym Helps Kids but Now Needs Help

For the past six years, Aman Anderson has made his way to Beast Fingers Climbing Gym in the Globeville neighborhood. The facility sits adjacent to Interstate 25 in a warehouse that looks — at least from the outside — like many others in the area.

Inside, however, Anderson operates a full-service climbing gym with bouldering walls, weights and other training tools. It’s the fulfillment of his dream of “opening a [climbing] gym in the ’hood.”

But that dream is on the brink of collapse as economic strains, combined with a devastating car crash, have forced Anderson to fundraise in order to pay back rent for November and December and prevent Beast Fingers, located at 5280 Broadway, from closing its doors in the new year.

In September 2021, Anderson was rear-ended on Interstate 25 by someone in a vehicle traveling over 60 miles per hour. He says he was knocked unconscious, waking to the arrival of paramedics after bystanders had lifted him out of the car. His back was injured, and he suffered memory loss. His injuries left him unable to walk for two months, but he still tried to keep the gym going, often putting aside his physical therapy sessions to spend time at Beast Fingers.

The gym had just hosted its first BFL Climbing Combine, where professional climbers competed in various strength and agility contests, and things had been looking up. But then Anderson had to hit pause.

“It really forced me to have to look deeply as to how I can keep this gym going,” he says.

For most of its life, Beast Fingers has served as an after-school care program for children in the area. Anderson charged between $35 and $70 per month for the service, supervising and coaching young climbers until their parents could pick them up. After the car crash, he could no longer physically maintain the level of activity he needed to feel safe shepherding his students.

Anderson has since switched the model of the gym to selling $100-per-month memberships targeted at adults — who require less physical activity and supervision on his part — in order to get much-needed time to focus on physical therapy and healing completely without having to close the gym's doors. Kids are still welcome, but he’s now asking parents to be present with them.

“Since we've switched to the family-of-kid type of setup, a lot of kids and parents are coming, and it allows me to scale up the adult program and focus on keeping the doors open,” Anderson says. “Hopefully, if I can get the gym running stable with sufficient adult memberships, I can come back to youth.”

Youth has always been his primary focus.

Anderson played soccer as a kid, but about fifteen years ago a friend introduced him to climbing, and he was hooked. He started coaching youth athletes and working with USA Climbing, the national governing body of the sport, to build a competitive national circuit.

“Word got around, and people would call me and say, ‘Hey, can I get you to coach my kid?’” Anderson recalls. “Eventually it got to a space where I coached a roster of almost thirty kids.”

Adidas caught wind of Anderson’s work and endorsed him.

“When I picked up the Adidas endorsement, they asked me, ‘What project do you want to do? What are you passionate about?’” he says. “I said I would like to open up a gym in a marginalized community. They said, ‘All right, find a spot. We'll help get it started.’”

By that time, Anderson had moved to Colorado, and he thought Globeville could benefit from a space like the one he envisioned. According to the City of Denver, Globeville is 68 percent Hispanic, and the average household income in the neighborhood is about half of Denver’s average household income.

Adidas put thousands of dollars into the gym, but now it’s scaling back its contribution, directing its funds to help cover travel expenses for climbers from the gym who compete on the national circuit rather than on operating expenses, as it has in the past. Combined with Anderson’s car crash, the cutbacks have put the gym in a crunch.

“We're trying to do a membership drive and a fundraiser just to make it through January and hold off any evictions and demolition,” Anderson says.

Beast Fingers is working to raise $13,000 to cover back rent for November and December while building its membership base toward eighty members, which would cover expenses for 2023. Anderson says the gym needs $6,500 by January to stay open.

Eighty members would allow the gym to cover expenses and build wiggle room into the budget, but Anderson says the gym could scrape by with 65 memberships, which would provide enough for rent and insurance.

Anderson says he doesn’t pay himself much, just $1,000 per month. He says that’s enough for his rent, car payment and food. He also invented the Grippul Hangboard, a hangboard that can be fitted with different grips depending on the climbing training desired, and the Grippul 2, a smaller version of the tool.

He estimates that the Grippul has earned over $100,000 since he invented it in 2016, and he's poured as much of that money as he can back into the gym.

“Every business adviser has told me that's not how you do business,” he says. “But I've never done business the way you should do business, which is why I always tell people I'm not a businessman. I've got kids in college who weren't going to go to college or dropped out of school, and I'm getting them off the street, showing them that they can be great. It's stuff like that, and I couldn't care less about making money if I can get a kid in school.”

Beast Fingers has produced regional champions and sent many athletes to nationals over the years. Amayah Burgos, an eleven-year-old climber who trains at the gym, is on track to make the Olympics once she’s old enough to qualify.

“She's one of the only Black girls on the circuit,” Anderson says. “It's pretty cool. At her first competition, there were, like, no Black girls. She felt so out of place. Now people know who she is.”

Stories like Burgos’s are what draw people to the gym. Radhika Ratnabalasuriar, a Sri Lankan woman who lives in Golden and has been climbing for two decades, went to Beast Fingers after hearing about the gym on a climbing podcast.

“Growing up, through those twenty years, I certainly never saw professional climbers that looked like me, and that's changing, and I think it's really important that it changes," she says.

Ratnabalasuriar also notes that climbing can be expensive. Bigger gyms charge more for memberships; people need cars if they want to climb in the mountains, and there’s always new gear to buy. At Beast Fingers, no one judges climbers for wearing worn-out clothes or living in affordable housing. If a kid needs climbing shoes, they can get a pair for free.

“At its core, climbing is still a sport that connects you with nature and helps you challenge yourself and build community,” Ratnabalasuriar says. “It's important that the kids have access to it. My background is in public health and emergency medicine. So, particularly over the last few years, I've kind of seen the impact of all the change and trauma from the pandemic, and I just think it would be such a shame to see something like this close its doors, because it's really a much-needed outlet right now for kids.”

Anderson says climbing helps kids with problem-solving and critical thinking. Planning out the best route to get to the top of the wall or strategizing how to approach a tricky climb differently gives them mental strength.

“These kids apply this to their normal-day, life-based challenges,” he says. “Because they're constantly problem-solving in this space, they're problem-solving on their tests.”

Beyond giving kids critical thinking skills, Anderson sees the gym as a safe place for kids in the area to be kids, especially when they’re facing difficulties at home or school. He even purchased a trampoline and put it in the gym after some kids got into a confrontation with a neighbor who called the police because they had tried to jump on the neighbor’s trampoline without permission.

Anderson says he’s heard feedback from new members that although the gym is small, it has a personal touch that sets it apart from bigger gyms in the area. When you walk in the door, he’ll know you.

Contribute to the fundraiser or sign up for a membership on the Beast Fingers website.