Kingston, Ontario has two very different places to climb: the Boiler Room, a 13,500 sq ft gym with 43-foot lead walls and what it calls Ontario's first full-size speed wall, and the Kingston Bouldering Co-operative, a small member-owned bouldering gym run by volunteers since 2010. Outside, Kingston Mills, a trad and top-rope crag on the Rideau Canal, is about 7 km from City Hall.
Photo: Boiler Room Climbing Gym
The Boiler Room on Princess Street has lead walls 43 feet high with more than 50 routes from 5.8 to 5.14a, ten top-rope lanes with two routes each, an auto-belay area and about 6,000 sq ft of bouldering. Its two-lane, 15-metre speed wall is, the gym says, Ontario's first full-size one. Every new visitor has an orientation, and the 90-minute Intro to Climbing, for ages 16 and over (14 and 15 with a parent), cost $75 in October 2026, including a day pass, rentals and a week's membership; a lead course runs over two evenings. It also has youth programmes and a competition team. Its Belleville branch has since closed, so Kingston is now its only gym.
The co-op on Cataraqui Street has been not-for-profit and member-owned since 2010: members become part-owners on their first climb, climbers built the walls, and members set all the problems. In about 800 sq ft it fits a near-vertical wall, overhangs of 15, 20 and 28 degrees, a 14-foot-wide 55-degree cave and a Tension Board 2, plus an upstairs training area. There are no fixed hours: it opens when a volunteer supervisor books a session on its shared calendar, and members can train to become key-holding supervisors. It also runs Pull + Pints nights, a ladies' night and trips to crags as far as the Red River Gorge.
In October 2026 an adult day pass cost $24.55 plus HST at the Boiler Room, and a monthly membership $84.75 by direct debit. At the co-op a drop-in cost $20, with shoes and chalk included, and a month $55; students who buy eight months get four more free.
Kingston Mills, a Rideau Canal lockstation just off Highway 401, has single-pitch climbs of about 50 to 70 feet, mostly trad with some sport routes and plenty of top anchors, a short approach and free parking. The main wall is sunny and usually sheltered from the wind. The Ontario Alliance of Climbers says that since August 2025 no permit has been needed, but check its page before you go. Climbing and ice climbing in Thousand Islands National Park are banned without a permit from the superintendent, under an order in force since November 2021. Further afield, Bon Echo's cliffs on Mazinaw Lake, about 100 km north, have multi-pitch trad routes reached by boat, and Calabogie's granite is about 120 km away: see climbing in Ottawa.
Queen's University has no climbing wall, but the Queen's Climbing Club, founded around 1984, holds climb nights at the Boiler Room every Tuesday, runs day trips to Kingston Mills and Calabogie and an "Intro to Outdoors" trip each September, and travels to the Red River Gorge. The Royal Military College has a wall in its SAM gymnasium, used by its climbing club and classes and not open to the public.
Kingston is the home of Ontario's speed climbing: the Boiler Room hosts the Ontario Climbing Federation's speed competition, for under-13s to seniors, on 22 November 2026 and the speed provincials on 10 January 2027, ahead of the national Speed Championships in Montréal on 30 and 31 January. See Ontario's 2026–27 competition season for the rest of the calendar.
The Ontario Climbing Federation's season runs from speed in Kingston in November to the youth provincials at Steel Peak, The Core, Gravity Hamilton and Hub Mississauga in spring 2027. Here are the dates and venues.
Joe Rushton