A new ropes course in Meridian towers 50 feet above I-84. How scary is it?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Vertical View opened a 50-ft ropes course in Meridian with 80+ obstacles.
- The self-belay system ensures climber safety through continuous harness lock.
- Owner Hart Beal hopes the course boosts climbing interest and gym traffic.
It was a semi-normal Friday afternoon, as commuters trudged through rush-hour traffic on Interstate 84. Only I, an Idaho Statesman suburbs reporter, was nearly 50 feet above, clinging to a wooden beam.
The beam swayed and tipped my head toward the cars below. I was at the twistiest point of the wood-and-rope bridge, its spiral like a DNA helix turned on its side. To move forward or backward, I’d have to let my weight sink further onto my wrists and risk going completely upside down.
“Are you stuck?” a man’s voice said, more bemused than concerned.
“Possibly,” I said, my ego ringing louder than the blood pumping in my temple. “But it’s chill.”
Roughly 30 minutes prior, my feet were planted where feet generally belong — the ground — and I was looking up at the climbers ducking through the labyrinth of ropes and obstacles that make up the new Vertical View ropes course in Meridian. The course opened Aug. 8 on the south side of I-84, the next head-turner after Top Golf heading west.
For the past few weeks since the structure went up, I’d been wondering, on my many drives to and from assignments in the cities surrounding Boise: What the heck is that?
And since I’m generally pretty game for an adventure, I became tasked with strapping on a GoPro and finding out: Is this thing as fun as it looks? And really, how scary could it be?
Orientation: Becoming ‘one with the course’
The first thing I had to get used to was the belay system. The course uses a self-belay system that gives climbers “total freedom,” according to Vertical View owner Hart Beal.
Once you strap into your harness, I learned during orientation, and attach your two “Clic-It” belay clips on each end of your harness to the rope at the beginning of the course, you essentially become attached to the climbing structure for the duration of your climb. You can unclip one clip at a time to move from floor to floor, obstacle to obstacle. But one clip will always stay locked, until you “unlock” it on the ground floor again.
You essentially become “part of the course,” said Josh Blaisdell, our orientation guide and a recent Brigham Young University grad. Poetic, yes, but also practical: It means you can’t fall. The harness and self-belay clips can carry a minivan, he told me.
“Do we get helmets?” I asked as we approached the entry, partly because asking questions is my job and partly because I was stalling.
“You can if you want,” Blaisdell said, sporting a flat-bill hat and polarized sunglasses. I tightened my own hat and proceeded.
On the first level, called the “playground” (it’s safe for kids ages 4-7), I mainly practiced clipping and unclipping and getting the hang of moving around in the harness. Meanwhile, my editor, an avid climber who also had volunteered to get the inside scoop on the course, raced to the second level, bypassing the playground altogether.
The course is entirely self-guided, as Blaisdell explained. It was like exposure therapy for indecision as much as for heights, I thought.
Gaining comfort with the rhythm of the belay system, I moved to the second level, letting myself be guided by whatever looked fun. Luckily, that was in no short supply: The course boasts over 80 “obstacles” on four levels, with room for over 100 climbers at once, according to Beal, who joined me on the second level near the zip line.
$1 million course offers ‘magical experience,’ owner says
Beal had the idea for a ropes course since opening Vertical View’s climbing gym in January 2020, just weeks before the coronavirus pandemic, he said in an interview. A visit to a similar free-standing course in St. Louis nearly a year ago pushed him to finally make it happen, he said.
The Arco native teamed up with German designer Mark Da Costa and his crew at Aerial Attractions to create the course, with a few custom nods to the Treasure Valley, including a ski-lift chair facing north toward Bogus Basin. The whole thing cost just over $1 million.
Beal said he hopes the course, which took just three weeks to construct and is already seeing roughly 300 people a weekend, will help attract new people to the gym — and to the sport of climbing.
“People drive by our building” and may or may not know about the climbing gym, he said. But “with the ropes course, it’s very obvious what it is … and they’re coming to check it out.”
And what he loves about the course? “It’s a total body workout, and it is so much more engaging and fun than regular exercise,” he said. “When I’m up there, I’m so focused on what I’m doing that everything around me just kind of disappears. And it’s a magical experience.”
Beal showed me how to clip onto the zip line, then slid across with ease. I followed, much less gracefully, as I couldn’t stop my body from rotating. I landed backward at the platform, but with a grin on my face.
“Fun, isn’t it?” he said.
Leveling up and free-falling
By the third level, I was ready for a challenge. I traversed a rock wall, fingers throbbing, while the roar of cars emanated from the freeway.
A strange feeling started to kick in, where I’d forget that I was harnessed in at all. “Total freedom,” Beal had said.
My editor began to make her way down the levels to continue the rest of our reporting on the ground, literally.
But there was another method of descent in store for me. I made my way to the top level where the finale waited: a 45-foot “free fall,” also the most efficient way to get back to your car.
First, to get to the free-fall platform, I just had to cross the last few obstacles, namely the helix-like wooden structure I’d later learn was called the “Swedish bridge.” Which is how I ended up nearly face-down four stories above the freeway, deflecting an inquiry into whether I was officially stuck.
The question came from another climber, whom I’d passed by the rock wall one level earlier. I gave him a sheepish smile. He returned an encouraging one, and I felt the camaraderie of two strangers who had both been drawn, for whatever reason, to make this their Friday night.
I took a deep breath and shimmied my hands forward, leaning my weight onto my wrists. My limbs, arranged somewhere between a high-plank and a down-dog, shook, and my ego melted away. I shifted so the ball of my foot rested on one of the ropes, then rotated on it, grabbing the next beam.
One more rotation, and I was on the other side of the helix. Another step, and I was safe on a podium beyond the bridge.
Making Tom Petty (and my editor) proud
At the free-fall platform, I hooked onto a rope as instructed. By that point, though there were more obstacles I wanted to try — particularly a skateboard you can ride across the sky — I’ll admit I was feeling a little nostalgic for solid ground. Plus, I had an interview to get to.
“Step off,” the instructor said, a young man whose name I forgot to ask in my wired state. “Don’t jump.”
I repeated his words back to him, then to myself. Seemed easy enough. I’ve done my fair share of cliff jumping at small swimming holes, and I know that the edge of the jump is the worst part. I shut off my brain and pictured my older brothers egging me on. Don’t think — just do, I told myself.
I walked to the edge of the platform, took one more look at the freeway 50 feet below, and stepped off. After 5 or 10 feet of a Tom Petty-worthy free fall, the rope caught, and I descended gently to the bottom.
I unlocked my belay system at the exit key and was officially no longer one with the course.
From where I stand, now gratefully on the ground, the course was as fun as it looks, as scary as you want it to be, and as silly as you let it.
“Do you get any ropes-course fanatics?” I asked Beal after the climb, people who keep returning to the ropes course, rather than getting into climbing inside the gym. Vertical View only offers day passes for the course, but Beal said he hopes to make a ropes-course membership option in the future, along with adding another zip line.
He laughed. “Not yet,” he said. Key word: Yet.
Idaho Statesman Accountability Editor Hayat Norimine contributed.
This story was originally published August 29, 2025 at 1:11 PM.
