Fall (17 weeks) 

• Starts Week of: September 9, 2024

• Break Weeks of: December 23, 2024-January 5, 2025

• Ends week of: January 13, 2025

Winter/Spring (17 weeks)

• Starts Week of: February 3, 2025

• Break Week of: April 14, 2025-April 20, 2025

• Ends Week of: June 2, 2025

Summer (9 weeks)

• Starts Week of: June 23, 2025

• Break Week of: June 30, 2025

• Ends Week of: August 25, 2025

Our two main climbing seasons are the Fall and the Winter/Spring. These two seasons most closely align with the Pittsburgh Public School schedule. While we encourage our climbers to climb as much and as often as they can, we do recognize that taking some time off from climbing for other activities, camps, family vacations, etc. can be a good way to clear the head. For this reason we will continue to offer our Summer A-Team season for those climbers who want to continue climbing within the structured setting of the team over the summer, but it will be a shorter season than our Fall and Winter/Spring offerings.

During each season, our coaches will work with our team climbers to subdivide the teams into working groups based on age, ability level, and commitment to climbing and training. We will then focus on the core concepts of climbing, training, strength, and mobility to help each climber grow as a person and develop as a climber. We offer the opportunity to climb with the A-Team once, twice, or thrice per week. Each A-Team ticket comes with a membership and rental gear for access to all Ascend facilities. We encourage all of our A-Teamers to climb as much they want outside of practice!

We highly encourage our climbers to come to every session as the A-Team is designed as a progressive program that builds week by week. As climbing coaches we will ask all of our climbers to push themselves to the edge of their comfort zone and beyond. It is imperative that climbers trust their coaches in order to explore this edge. We have found that when our youth athletes are unable to make their normal A-Team session, coming in for a make-up session is not conducive for that student to continue on their upward trajectory and it requires our coaching team to adjust practice plans in order to integrate the new climber. If a climber is unable to make a session (we get it, life happens), you are welcome to take advantage of your membership to come to any facility outside of practice time to ensure your child does not fall behind their fellow A-Team climbers. Please let your coaches know the week before if you can so that they can give the climber some activities to pursue on their own.

Our INT Team will continue with the topics covered on the REC Team, as well as an introduction to the next set of higher level concepts around climbing and community. The INT Team is also the team where our climbers can explore what it means to them to be a climber. The INT Team is the “bridge” team of youth climbing at Ascend. Climbers on the INT Team are encouraged to try all aspects of climbing, including outdoor climbing and competitions. Our INT Team climbers must have a strong base in the physical and mental aspects of climbing on a team. They must also demonstrate the necessary level of commitment required to progress in this more goal-oriented environment. On this team, climbers will work with coaches to determine specific, attainable goals for each season. Our coaches will then work directly with each climber to achieve those goals.

Along with the technical aspects of climbing, we will continue to foster and grow the supportive community of the A-Team. On our INT Team, we will work with our climbers to help create “good sending energy” for themselves and everyone else on the team. This will be facilitated by careful monitoring of our climbers by the coaching staff, ensuring that our training groups are appropriately organized by age, ability, and level of commitment. We will ask more of our INT Team climbers in terms of finding intrinsic motivation and ownership of their participation in the climbing team. This ownership over one’s growth and development we hope fosters a lifelong love of climbing and the community surrounding it.

• Prerequisites: In order to join the INT Team, we ask that our athletes have participated in at least 1 season on the REC Team.

• Minimum Age Requirement: 8 years old

ASCEND South Side - INT Team - Current Offerings

• Tuesday Nights 5-7p

• Thursday Nights 5-7p

• Saturday Afternoons 12-2p

• Sunday Mornings 9-11a

ASCEND Point Breeze - INT Team - Current Offerings

• Monday Nights 5-7p

• Wednesday Nights 5-7p

• Saturday Mornings 9-11a

• Sunday Mornings 11a-1p

ASCEND Erie - INT Team - Current Offerings

• Wednesday Nights 5-7p

• Saturday Afternoons 3-5p

As we are still building our Erie A-Team, we are please to offer prorated A-Team Tickets in order to join at any point throughout the season. Please email [email protected] for more information.

The COMP Team is heavily focused on training for and competing in the USA Climbing (USAC) Youth Series throughout the year. This team requires the highest level of commitment to attending team practices and competitions throughout the season. This includes three 3 hour climbing sessions each week, and a commitment to attend enough competitions to qualify for regional rankings. The COMP Team will roughly follow the same A-Team season schedule; with specialized training for those athletes competing in Divisional and/or National level USAC competitive events. As such this team is only open to athletes who have demonstrated the highest level of commitment to climbing and training and have been invited by the COMP Team coaching staff. Along with higher levels of climbing training, there will be more emphasis on pushing limits and practicing mental resilience strategies that support competition at the highest level.

A commitment to the COMP Team is a commitment to intensive training on a consistent basis. We want our COMP Team climbers to make that commitment to repeated intensive training. In order to facilitate this, we ask that climbing takes a front and center role in terms of after school activities. We recognize that many kids participate in a variety of after school activities; however in order to be a COMP Team member we ask that the commitment to climbing over the course of each season takes a prominent role in the lives of each climber.

• Prerequisites: In order to join the COMP Team, please reach out to [email protected] to express interest.  Priority will be given to those who have previously qualified for the USAC Regional Finals.

Please email [email protected] for additional information and for Registration Instructions.

Fall ‘24-’25 and Winter/Spring ‘25

• Once Per Week (17 coached sessions) = $595 

• Twice Per Week (34 coached sessions) = $1020 

• Thrice Per Week (51 coached sessions) = $1275 

• COMP Thrice Per Week (51 - 3 hour coached sessions) = $1,530

  • participation in USAC Divisional and National competitions may incur additional fees

Summer ‘25

• Once Per Week (9 coached sessions) = $315 

• Twice Per Week (18 coached sessions) = $540

• Thrice Per Week (27 coached sessions) = $675 

• COMP Team athletes who have qualified for further competitions over the summer will have opportunities for more focussed training sessions.

  • Additional training sessions may incur additional costs

NOTE: Our 2025 season schedule improves on last year's by expanding the length of the fall and winter/spring seasons (from 15 to 17 weeks) and shortening the summer season (from 15 to 9 weeks).  Season prices have been adjusted accordingly. These seasons now better align with school seasons and the USA Climbing competition schedule.

We understand that the sport of climbing can be a financial commitment and we seek to minimize as many obstacles to participation as we can. To that end, we have an Equity + Outreach Fund that can be utilized to financially support A-Team climbers. To learn more, please visit the Financial Assistance page of our website.