There, they rendezvoused with Anker along with two more pillars of wisdom-Manoah Ainuu and Dr. Malik tha Martianīy early 2020, backed by Anker, Shadyac and a coalition of The North Face, Black Diamond, YETI, TRUBLUE Climbing and Fat Tire, Martin and the Soulsville crew were ready to go out west for a test unlike any they had faced in the city, to the snow-covered mountains of Montana’s Hyalite Canyon. The snow-covered mountains of Montana are a stark contrast to the flat, delta topography of Memphis. “Conrad took a liking to the place, and he said he would love to get us out to ice climb.” A song of soul and ice “The North Face sent Conrad Anker to us for global climbing day.” Anker is a worldwide mountaineering and rock climbing icon who led The North Face climbing team for more than two decades, the kind of climber for whom Everest is only a footnote in a long list of summits. “When the gym first opened,” adds Martin. Inside and on top of its walls, Memphians of all races began to learn the ropes together. In short order, Memphis Rox became an epicenter of climbing activity in a city with no natural routes.

By design, the gym offers locals a pay-what-you-can model that gives members of the South Memphis community a chance to climb and train on world-class indoor climbing routes with professional quality harnesses and gear. Memphis Rox, located across the street from the former home of Stax Records, was his gift to home. The gym’s founder, Memphis-native Tom Shadyac, scored international success as a Hollywood director on films like “Ace Ventura,” “The Nutty Professor,” and “Bruce Almighty” but abandoned a materialistic lifestyle in 2010 to focus on philanthropy and teaching. Memphis Rox was no cherry on the top of an affluent suburb, it was a life raft deployed right in the middle of one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods-Soulsville. Just one of dozens of new gyms sprouting up around the country, its opening would have likely been lost in the fray had it been built in any other neighborhood. In 2018, an abandoned commercial building in Memphis was repurposed into a rock climbing gym named Memphis Rox.

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