Whenever I spot a minivan cruising down the road with a discolored, duct-taped roof box on top, I can almost hear the sound of my family’s white car-top carrier rattling on the roof of our Toyota Previa while blasting down I-95 en route to our grandparents’ house when I was a kid.

Over the years, that thing got janky, with rotting straps tied in sketchy knots to hold the box down and bent nails latching the shell closed. It was ugly, cumbersome, and on more than one occasion flew open on the highway, but whenever it came out of the garage, even the dog knew it was time to go somewhere fun.

When I was in high school, we upgraded to a silver on top of our Ford Expedition, which was big enough to carry skis and snowboards and soiled roadtrip clothing (don’t ask). After two accidental garage door mishaps, we replaced that one with the deluxe Thule Evolution 2100, which I managed to commandeer after college for a five-month cross-country road trip in a minivan with a girlfriend, two dogs, a bicycle, and lots of art supplies.

The storage space allowed us to sleep in the van (this was before fancy #vanlife build-outs) and the box collected our collage of stickers from every national park, brewery, art collective, ski shop, and political activist we encountered. It sustained cracks, repairs, a burglary, and a near miss with a low-clearance parking garage. That one met its demise, along with the relationship, in an alleyway in Los Angeles from which it was stolen.

I eventually became a truck guy and didn’t have the means or need to mount a roof box atop my camper shell. But my new girlfriend’s Rav4 was a junk show of gear, so for her birthday, I found a used on Craigslist that had seen its days but was holding strong with several Bondo patch jobs and jerry-rigged fastenings.

We cruised all over Colorado during the pandemic, social distancing with a library of skis and snowboards on the roof. It essentially turned her SUV into a truck, which I thought was brilliant, until the cracked shell opened up and blew off the roof on the way back from a desert climbing trip.

With a lifetime of used cartop carrier lessons learned, I wanted to do it right this year when upgrading my girlfriend’s VW Tiguan to a spacious adventure mobile by way of a sturdy roof box that would go the distance with us. Her car has better gas mileage than my 2002 Tacoma, but its limitations on capacity and organization became a point of stressful contention, so I began a hunt for the ultimate solution.

Current-day roof box options have come a long way since my family’s first Sears version. Newer boxes can be installed in minutes with much more secure mounting systems and reliable locking mechanisms than past iterations. Some are , felt-lined, , and even come with .

But the durability of the hard plastic is the most confidence-inspiring when you’re shoving the majority of cargo up top to make things like the emergency snack bag more accessible in the car, so we went with Yakima’s most durable option: the . This one won us over after proving big enough to sneak in a few extra pairs of skis, including skate skis that usually don’t make the cut, for a pow-chasing mission to Utah last winter. It was quiet at speed, even on the interstate, without so much of a hint of those anxiety-inducing rattling noises I’d become so accustomed to.

The downside to this fancy carrier: So far, we haven’t made any new memories over roof box catastrophes to laugh about years later. But that’s just fine by me. At this point in my life, I’ll take the satisfaction of stability while relishing the freedom of space and vehicular versatility. But I can’t help but keep an ear out for loose parts rattling around up above.

More Odes

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In the eighties, nineties, and much of the early aughts, rock climbing gyms were little more than training grounds where climbers honed their skills in preparation for objectives on real rock. But these days are long gone. Over two percent of the U.S. population has in the last year; a growing subset of regular climbers (as much as 30 percent, by some estimates) exclusively climb inside; and there are many more for whom outdoor trips are rare vacations from near-daily trips to the plastic.

Despite the moaning of a few old crust kings, the recent proliferation of large, ornate climbing gyms isÌę simply a natural progression of our planet’s growing population and our sport’s growing popularity. It also means that many indoor gyms have become world-class destinations in their own right, as worthy of a visit as many a legendary sport crag or boulder field. Below are 13 of the world’s coolest climbing gyms, in no particular order.

The 13 Coolest Climbing Gyms

1. Kletterzentrum Innsbruck, Austria

We can’t have a list of the best climbing gyms in the world without (perhaps better known as “KI” for us Americans; looking at that first word gives me anxiety.) This sprawling Innsbruck training center is oft-touted as the world’s best climbing gym, due to the sheer size (60,000 square feet of climbing surface), variety (over 550 roped routes, 200-plus boulders), and world-class setting. It’s also the built in a single push (others have surpassed it in fits and starts), and a must-see if you’re in Innsbruck.

 

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2. B-PUMP Ogikubo, Japan

Japan puts out fiendishly strong climbers like Krispy Kreme puts donuts out on an assembly line—and when you visit gyms like , it’s easy to understand why.

The B-PUMP chain has a rich history dating back to 1993, and it now operates half a dozen gyms around Tokyo. Their Akihabara location is the largest gym in the country, but the boulder cave Ogikubo is perhaps the most iconic, due to its focus on top-shelf climbing, training, and diverse creative setting. You’ll see no shortage of Japanese IFSC pros on a visit to B-PUMP. (Be warned, the problems are notoriously stiff, even for Japan.)

 

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3. CATS Gymnastics, Colorado

The historic Boulder gym CATS () may be outshined by more modern gyms, but it deserves a place on any list like this for its history alone. Founded in 1988, CATS is one of North America’s oldest climbing walls (Vertical World edges it out by one year.)

The gym was built by gymnast and climber Robert Candelaria, and this history shows, because it’s as much a gymnastics training center as a bouldering gym. Where climbing is concerned, CATS puts a strong focus on competitive youth training and coaching, as opposed to casual climbing. American crushers from Brooke Raboutou to Daniel Woods have trained here, and pretty much every Colorado-based climber has hit the CATS spray wall at one time or another.

 

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As you can see, the holds are bad, the density is absurd, and the walls are never reset, which means you can test yourself on V14 testpieces that were first climbed decades ago. For instance, Bubble Wrap (V13/14), first climbed by Daniel Woods in 2013.

from on .

4. Climb BlueSky, Kenya

, in Nairobi, Kenya may not have the world-class facilities offered by the previous few gyms, but it’s noteworthy if only for the way it’s cultivated our sport, expanding access to climbing in this developing African nation. Bouldering and roped climbing are both available, and the gym offers classes, as well as day trips to crags like Hell’s Gate National Park and the Lukenya Hills. BlueSky also puts on an annual climbing competition, JamRock.

5. CopenHill, Denmark

The 280-foot outdoor wall at sits on the side of a building in downtown Copenhagen and is the in the world. Each of the wall’s five lead climbing lines offers two routes (10 total), and to get from the bottom to the top involves climbing four 65-foot pitches. This is no playhouse for newbies. A multi-pitch certification is required to climb the CopenHill, and although the easiest route on the wall goes at 5.9, most of the lines are harder, with difficulties up to 5.12c.

6. Excalibur, Klimcentrum Bjoeks, Netherlands

The eye-catching 121-foot Excalibur spire in the Dutch town of Groningen is often touted as the tallest freestanding climbing structure in the world. (As far as I can tell, this 137-foot tower at Georgia’s actually takes the cake, but for sheer vision and aesthetic value, you can’t beat Excalibur.) The tower’s silhouette is extremely imposing—at its steepest, the wall is 36 feet overhung—and the structure has both top ropes and lead routes up to 5.13c. And it is certainly a contender for the single coolest climbing gym in the world.

Excalibur is part of the climbing center, which also has an outdoor boulder park, home to over 200 problems on permanent concrete boulders. Per the Bjoeks website, camping on the grass beneath the tower is free, and you can also spend the night inside the tower by request. The gym has showers and a kitchenette with a microwave and refrigerator. It’s a destination gym if ever there was one.

7. Ouray Ice Park, Colorado

Ouray, Colorado’s —open every winter since 1994—is the largest man-made ice climbing arena in the world. Host of the legendary each January, the park houses more than 200 ice and mixed climbing routes along 1.7 miles of the Uncompahgre Gorge.

The ice park is open for around three months each year—-usually from mid-December to the end of March, depending on conditions—and is free for all climbers, though paying members get early access to the park each day. Although the park doesn’t offer ice climbing classes, there are a number of clinics run by commercial guides during the annual Ice Festival, so it’s a great place to pick up the sport if you’ve never climbed ice before.

 

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8. The School Room, England

The mysterious English School Room is invite-only, so you and I probably won’t be climbing there any time soon. But as far as gyms go, you’d be hard-pressed to make a case that there is a better rock guru den anywhere in the world. Almost everyone who is anyone in 1990s and 2000s British hard climbing—Ben Moon, Malcolm Smith, Rich Simpson, Stuart Cameron, Jerry Moffatt—cut their teeth here. And these days it’s still frequented by all-stars like Jim Pope, Molly Thompson-Smith, Aidan Robers, and Will Bosi.

The School Room was the iron that sharpened British hardmen to go outside and tackle some of the world’s first top-shelf 5.14s. It was also the birthplace of the legendary MoonBoard. First built in 1993 in the Anns Grove School, today the School Room operates out of a new warehouse space owned by MoonClimbing. If cool (for you) is a synonym for dingy, tweaky, historic, and hard, this is certainly up there (with CATS) as the coolest gym on the planet.

9. Edinburgh International Climbing Arena, Scotland

Built inside a repurposed quarry near Edinburgh, Scotland, the (EICA: Ratho) offers a unique take on indoor climbing, with a tarpaulin-roofed arena that feels like a blend between an outdoor crag and a gym.

In addition to several hundred roped and boulder problems on plastic, there are also on the exterior of the dolerite quarry, including classics of both trad—Shear Fear, Wally 1 —and sport—The Corrieman, and King Silly. Beyond climbing, the “arena” houses a cafe, and also offers aerial assault courses, fitness classes, and a soft play area for children. Gotta say, climbing outside while in a climbing gym is pretty cool.

 

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10. Parque de Escalada Los Silos, Chile

The mission of Chilean nonprofit Fundación Deporte Libre (Free Sport Foundation) is to transform abandoned urban spaces into public sports facilities. That’s exactly what they did with two derelict cement factory silos in Santiago de Chile in 2018. Now the “” is a colorful outdoor climbing gym, with 20 sport climbing routes up to 65 feet high along the walls of the silos, as well as a freestanding boulder with 500 square feet of climbing surface.

It’s free to climb at the Parque de Silos 365 days a year, and the gym also offers free climbing classes and free equipment rental for top roping. (Lead climbing is also available, but climbers must bring their own gear.)

In addition to the Parque de Silos, FundaciĂłn Deporte Libre operates around Chile, including other climbing walls, a skateboarding park, a mountain hut on the Calbuco volcano, and several traditional playgrounds and open spaces.

11. Diga di Luzzone, Switzerland

This isn’t a climbing gym, per se, but if you’re looking for audacious artificial climbing, you’d be hard pressed to find a cooler one than the , which is home to the tallest artificial climbing face in the world. The concave dam is climbable via a fully bolted, five-pitch 5.10b, and it costs 20 Euros per climber.

The final couple hundred feet are overhanging, so be prepared for some serious exposure! The bottom of the wall has no holds, you’ll need a ladder (locked up at the base of the climb) to reach them, which you’ll get access to after paying the fee.

 

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12. Gneis Lilleaker, Norway

This Oslo gym—which opened in the fall of 2023—houses 50-foot roped walls, 15 auto belays, and plenty of bouldering and training, but it’s the location that makes it stand out. Gneis Lilleaker’s walls are contained within a large glass atrium looking out on a waterfall and the river Lysakerelven outside. Per YouTuber Magnus Midtbö, is “the most beautiful climbing gym in the world.”

13. The Cave at CityRock, Colorado, USA

Housed in a former movie theater, Colorado Springs’ is a solid climbing gym in its own right, with 43-foot rope routes up to 5.14 and boulders at V12. However, the , dubbed “The Cave,” is something you can’t experience at any other climbing gym in the world.

A 40-foot vertical shaft and 225 feet of cave passages snake around and beneath CityRock. Treading lightly is the name of the game, since you’ll earn points based on how gentle you are when crawling through these artificial tunnels (sensors on the wall flash if you touch stalactites or get too close to a cave painting, for example).

Once you’re out, you can compare scores at the end to see which one of your party did the best job leaving no trace. Night-vision cameras let friends watch you while you’re in the caves, too. Admittedly, The Cave is more of a novelty for birthday parties, schools, and summer camps, but it also serves as a training ground for serious cavers, firefighters, and cave rescue teams. And it certainly makes CityRock unique.

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I bought my first tin camping mug from a gift shop in Yosemite Valley at the end of my first-ever car camping trip. I was a senior in college and traded the U.C. Santa Barbara Halloween party scene for a fall weekend in the trees. From the moment I picked up that blue mug with its white speckles off the shelf, I loved everything it represented: the experience I’d had that weekend breathing in the pine trees and campfire smoke, the crisp air and fluttering aspen trees, the massive granite walls and flowing rivers. I was in love—with the mountains, with camping, with my new mug.

I used that mug the rest of college. I’d fill it with my morning Grape Nuts and sit on the deck or couch chomping away, dreaming of how the low-in-the-sky fall sun lit up the wheat-colored Valley floor dotted with dark green pines. Every time I used it, I’d be reminded of the camping trip I’d had, and the many, many more I wanted to do. That mug signified adventure. Multiple moves, roommates, and life changes later, I don’t know what happened to my Yosemite mug, but any camping mug has (almost) the same effect, calling to me with the promise of a weekend in the woods.

With that promise in mind, here’s a gift idea for someone on your list: an empty cup. But not just any old empty cup. A camping mug (like the ) that’s lightweight, durable, ready for hot cocoa, coffee, granola, or whiskey—and overflowing with the idea of an unforgettable outdoor experience. Up your game by nabbing a summer car camping reservation (many book six months out, to the day), print it out, and stick it in the mug. Or fill the mug with a backpacking permit, or a laminated topographic map of the trails that lead from a campground. Voila—you’ve given the gift of daydreaming about summer camping in the middle of winter. You’ve given the gift of adventure.

Give an Empty Case

A couple of years ago, a friend organized a group of us to celebrate her birthday rafting down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. Leading up to the trip, she sent us each a bag and a copy of . (She is a very thoughtful friend.) The dry storage bag was large enough for a phone or camera and attached via Velcro strap to anything—a rope on a raft, the handle of a larger dry bag, the loop on a Nalgene bottle.

That dry bag represented adventure to be had, served as crafty functionality on that trip, and has kept my phone safe and dry on subsequent river trips, paddle board sessions, and more water-based adventures since.

For watermen and women on your list, consider the gift of a watertight bag or case of some sort. Fill it with a promise of SUP, raft, canoe, or kayak outings, or other splashy fun come spring.

Give an Empty Bag

For the person on your list who is perhaps tired of their regular gym routine, or could simply benefit from a new activity, a chalk bag can signify a winter of rock climbing indoors and all the strength training, ninja-esque playfulness that comes with it. And if you live somewhere climbing can take place outdoors in the winter, all the better. If not, climbing indoors through winter makes for great climbing outdoors come spring and summer.

Fill a chalk bag with
chalk, or with a punch card to the local climbing or bouldering gym. Or, write a sweet note promising to belay your partner, child, or friend on the rock or plastic wall inside or out.

These little gifts—a mug, a drybag, a chalk bag—carry big meaning and give your friend/family/loved one/adventure partner a whole lot more than something tangible. And can you really put a price on adventure?

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I hate myself when I uncoil new climbing ropes. I always mess it up and it ends up an impossibly tangled heap that takes at least 30 minutes to undo. I finally watched a YouTube video the other day and learned a lot. I realized that taking care of and managing ropes is a tad more nuanced than I initially gave it credit for, despite my years of experience.

I’ll never forget my first rope. It was a purple and yellow Edelweiss 9.8 that my parents gave me for Christmas. I lived in Dallas, hours away from any sport crag, but I had goosebumps. And my coach, who guided me along my competitive career, did her best to teach me the basics of rope care.Ìę

“Don’t step on it!” she snapped on our first outing.

“Why?” I asked.Ìę

“Because if you were wearing crampons, you could damage it,” she said.

“Why in the hell would I be wearing crampons?” I asked. I was 13 and had not one but two gym tags on my harness. It was a fair question, but one that she didn’t bother to answer.

To my coach’s credit, I have worn crampons exactly twice since then and have never stepped on the rope while wearing them. And not stepping on your rope is in general solid advice.

Below, more on that and other best rope-care practices.

Uncoiling

Most ropes that you will buy will be coiled in a spool. Duh, I guess. But the reality vs. imagined difference is evident when you picture unraveling a spool of T.P. If you pull from the end when it’s on the holder, it comes off nice and neat. But, if you were to rotate it 90 degrees and pull up, think of the twists that would occur—which is neither good for T.P. usage, nor for your climbing rope. That’s why when you just throw your new cord on the ground and then yank (as I may have done for the last *cough 15 years) it quickly becomes a kinky, knotted mess.Ìę

So here’s what you do: after cutting off the zipties and other factory attachments keeping the thing together, place both your arms through the middle of the rope (make your arms the holder!). Then, do the macarena (seriously) and rotate your arms in circles, keeping the rope tensioned on top. If you have a partner, it helps if they pull the rope out as you do the arms circles.

It’s not the end of the world if you mess this up. Most ropes are prone to some amount of kinking out of the box, even if they were perfectly uncoiled to begin with. If your rope kinks, here are a few tricks:

Ìę– Try pulling the rope through a set of anchors. This is good to do anyways, since you should really switch up which side you’re climbing on so as to even out the wear.ÌęÌę

Ìę– A slightly more complicated method: after your partner has finished climbing and reached the ground, tell them not to untie—they will serve as an anchor. Then coil the remaining rope. Have your partner back up until the remaining rope is slightly in the air. Watch it spin! Be sure to stop it from spinning the other direction due to momentum.Ìę

Coiling

It’s best not to leave your rope coiled, as that can cause kinks. But for carrying and temporary storage, coiling your rope is a great way to keep it neat. There are many ways to coil your rope. The main methods are:

Ìę– For storage: Grab both ends of your rope and hold them together in one hand. Drape one arm’s length of rope over your shoulders. Continue adding loops of rope of approximately the same length across your shoulders until about one arm’s length of rope remains. Take the stack off your shoulders and fold it in half. Then take the excess loop and wrap it around the outside of the bundle, along the middle. Then you can feed the last loop of the rope on a bight at the top of the rope to secure it.Ìę

Ìę– For draping across your backpack: Grab one end of your rope. As with the method described above, you’ll drape arms-lengths of rope over your shoulders until you have about one arm’s length of rope remaining. Then take the rope off your shoulders, and grabbing the rope in the middle, make a small bight of rope using the excess. Then wrap the tail end around the middle of the rope. When you reach the end of the rope, thread it through the bight and cinch the bite down.

Ìę– A helpful video can be found .

Storage

UV radiation and extreme temperatures can damage your rope. So can dirt (more on that below). And, as stated above, storing your rope stacked in a pile rather than coiled helps prevent kinks. For all those reasons, use a rope bag!

Here are some of our favorites:

Blue Ice Koala ($43)

Best For: Cragging

We don’t need to reinvent the wheel here. Rope bags should be simple. Straightforward. But I have to hand it to Blue Ice, the Koala has some worthwhile innovations. When worn alone, the bag slings over your shoulder to, as the name suggests, hug you like a Koala. It unzips down the middle, the tarp pulls out, you’re ready to climb. Packing it back up is where the bag really shines. A helpful “Stop,” maker shows you where to zip up to. After that, you pick up the bag by the handles on the tarp, the rope conveniently packs itself in, and then you can finish zipping the bag up. Easy peasy. The bag fits ropes up to 80 meters in length, although a smaller rope gives you room for shoes and a harness. There’s even a small zippered pocket on the side, great for your phone, chapstick, and snacks. At $43, it is comparable to other bags on the market.Ìę

Kavu Shapiro Rope Bag ($75)

Best For: Cragging

Professional climber Jeff Shapiro found himself dreaming of an improved rope bag, and, after some do-it-himself arts and crafts, created a prototype. One of his sponsors, Kavu, improved upon some of his original materials and construction and, voila, Shapiro’s eponymous rope bag entered their product line.

Like other rope bags, the Shapiro Rope Bag has an internal tarp that folds out for the rope to sit on. But unlike many rope bags, the tarp is removable: it zips off, allowing you to burrito-up your rope and move it from belay stance to belay stance without restacking the rope (read: somehow getting it hopelessly tangled) into the bag each time. If you did want to re-bag it each time though, the Shapiro’s bottom and sides have enough stiffness so as to allow it to function as more of a rope bucket. The Shapiro forgoes the cinch-up drawstring that many rope bags rely on, instead using three strategically-placed straps of webbing—one vertical, two horizontal—that tidily buckle everything up. The closure system makes this bag a solid choice for cragging, but rules it out for any multi-pitch adventures unless you want to risk exploding your pack at every belay. Read on .

Mammut Magic Rope Bag ($70)

Best For: Gym bag, sitting mat, rope bag

Good things come in threes, or so we are told. Let’s see 


The Mammut Magic Rope Bag is tri-use. It makes a nice solid, handy gym bag. Room for a couple pairs of shoes and a jacket. Over-the-shoulder carrying sling. Large interior zip pocket to try, might as well try, to contain the chalk dust — anyway, it holds a chalk bag, and tape or whatever else you like. Wrist-deep exterior zip pocket works for keys, phone, sport bar or other snack.

The bag is padded, with thin foam sides, to make a comfortable mat to sit on and stay out of the dirt for putting on shoes. Or perhaps just basking and chatting. The instructions say to pull the drawstring for converting the bag to a mat, yet that seems not to make an appreciable difference. I’d just turn the bag on its side and sit on it.

Some people really like stand-up bags for, again, keeping things out of the dirt, but I prefer tarps and, usually, a big ol’ backpack for hiking to crags. So I have not used this item as a rope bag. The climbing gym, on the other hand, is a pleasant mile walk from where I work and elsewhere in town, and for that this bag is an easy carry, especially with just the usual few light gym items in it. Read on Ìę

Bonus Favorite: In a pinch, Ikea bags work great. Something is better than nothing.

Dirty Secrets

Dirt can work its way in between rope fibers and abrade it while the rope stretches and contracts. This is the real reason why you shouldn’t step on your rope, as that can really work the dirt in. A 2010 study conducted by the International Technical Rescue Symposium demonstrated that a rope can lose 20 percent of its strength after just one soiling, and 40 percent after eight soilings. Yikes!Ìę

Luckily, washing your rope is easy. The most important thing to remember is: never use detergents or bleach. Stick with dedicated rope cleaning products or just water. You can wash your rope in the tub, a bin, or the sink by soaking it and massaging it with your hands. Rinse and repeat. Or you can wash your rope in a front-loading washing machine. Be sure to run the washing machine with nothing in it first to rinse it of detergent residue. Then before tossing it in so that it won’t tangle.

To dry your rope, you can lay it out in a shaded area outside or a ventilated room indoors. Do not leave it in the sun or expose it to high temperatures.

Notes for in the FieldÌę

Sharp rock edges present the greatest threat to your rope, especially when it’s under tension. Inspect your carabiners and quickdraws, as they, too, can damage your rope if worn sharp. Use rope protector sleeves if you’re fixing your line.Ìę

Regularly inspect your rope for signs of damage, which include excessive fuzziness and flat or soft spots. If you see white it ain’t right. In other words, if the core is exposed, it’s time to cut the damaged section off. More than likely, this kind of wear will be towards the ends of the rope, where knots are tied and where falls actually happen.Ìę

To chop your rope, first wrap the spot you intend to cut with some basic finger tape. Slice through the rope and tape and then burn the exposed end with a lighter so that the tape, core, and sheath melt together. You can write on the tape the new length of your rope, but be sure to use a rope-specific marker, as regular ones can damage the cord. Also, consider marking a new middle point, as that will have shifted (or just cut both ends).

Speaking of rope length: Did you know that your rope will shrink with usage? As it swells in diameter over time, it may decrease 2 to 3 percent in length after just a few uses and up to 10 percent in length over its lifespan. Be wary of this and be sure to tie a knot at the end of your rope!

Like dirt, water can reduce the strength of your rope by up to 30 percent! It will regain this strength once it dries, but try not to get it wet when out at the crag, and never store it wet.Ìę

Bonus Tip: When cragging, keep your rope away from Fido, as .

When to Retire?

With regular use, most ropes will last you about a year. After that, you may be able to get away with using it in the gym or for top roping on short pitches. Based on how often you climb, here is what to expect:

Ìę– Frequent use (a few times a week): up to 1 year

Ìę– Regular use (few times per month): 1–3 years

Ìę– Occasional use (once per month): 4–5 years

Ìę– Rare use (1 – 2 times per year): 7 years

Ìę– Never used: 10 years

When the life is gone, recycle your old rope by making it into a rope rug, bracelets, or a dog leash.

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Rock shoes have evolved light-years since the early days of the 1980s, when there was just one option: board-lasted high-top boots. Today shoes for the sport come in so many flavors, with new models being developed every year, that it takes concerted research to find the niche rock shoes you want. Not to worry, though: we did the work for you, and here present the most interesting, highest-performing climbing shoes of 2023.

The Winners at a Glance

Editor’s Choice: Scarpa Vapor S

Butora Gomi

Black Diamond Aspect Pro

Black Diamond Method S

Five Ten NIAD VCS

La Sportiva Katana Lace

La Sportiva Skwama Vegan

Red Chili Voltage LV

Scarpa Quantix SF

Tenaya Indalo

How We Test

Number of Testers: 10

Number of Shoes Tested: 16

Number of Vertical Feet Sent: 40,000-plus

Lowest Grades Climbed: 5.6, V0

Highest Grades Climbed: 5.14a sport, 5.12 trad, V10

Most Accessible Testing Venue: A backyard garage gym with a side-by-side MoonBoard and Tension board

Least Accessible Testing Venue: Bugaboo Mountains, British Columbia

Number of Times Our Lead Tester Threw His Shoes at the Rock Because He’d Punted on His Project Yet Again: At least once—maybe more (but who’s counting?)

Our climbing-shoe philosophy rests on two pillars. First: consider each shoe’s stated niche, and test it on the appropriate terrain. Second: take each shoe outside its comfort zone, to see if it has any surprise attributes. We also emphasize testing each model on as many climbs as possible, both to generate the most thorough feedback and to break in the shoe to see how it really performs. (Any reviewer who offers an opinion after a few gym sessions is full of it.) Testers will also climb the same route or problem repeatedly in different pairs, to see how the shoes stack up against each other on the same footholds and sequences.

This year, ten testers (including myself)—all experienced climbers ranging in age from their twenties to their fifties—considered 16 new (and newish) rock shoes, and narrowed our final selection down to ten. We tested on routes between 5.6 and 5.14; we tested at the climbing gym, on outdoor sport routes and boulder problems, and on MoonBoards, Tension boards, and Kilter boards; and we tested on trad climbs, sport climbs, and multi-pitch alpine rock climbs. Our crew covered almost all rock types—sandstone, limestone, granite, basalt—on everything from slabs to caves, and on cliffs in British Columbia, Colorado, California, New Mexico, Utah, and Kentucky.

The main factors we considered were fit, break-in period, comfort, precision, edging, smearing, hooking, scumming, and jamming. We also considered durability—how well a shoe holds its structure and last after heavy use. (Does it stay pointy, precise, and sharp, or does it “slop out” too quickly? Are the uppers and other components still intact?)

In this list, we kept the focus on intermediate and advanced climbing shoes, which are typically priced around $150 (but can run into the $200 range) and built for high performance. There is such a glut of undifferentiated, entry-level shoes on the market that it didn’t make sense to consider them in this review—and, to be honest, even newer climbers might do well to consider higher-end offerings after their initial months in the sport, to see what precision footwear is all about as their foot muscles strengthen.

Meet Our Lead Tester

Matt Samet, the former editor of Climbing, has been an avid rock climber since the mid-1980s, the era of high-top FirĂ© rock shoes. He lives in Boulder, Colorado, where he primarily sport-climbs, boulders, and trains on his home wall, and has been testing climbing gear for more than 20 years. The Climbing staff (Delaney Miller, Steve Potter, and Anthony Walsh) were also key testers for this review, as were husband-wife duo Chris and Heather Weidner, who are also based in Boulder and boast decades of climbing experience, as well as a shared hardest redpoint: Stockboy’s Revenge, a 5.14b in Rifle, Colorado.

The Reviews: The Best Climbing Shoes of 2023

Editor’s Choice: Scarpa Vapor S ($229)

Weight: 8.3 oz
Pros:

>Insane sensitivity
>A vacuum fit and lots of rubber make for epic steep-rock footwork (hooking, grabbing, and scumming)
>Zero dead space

Cons:

>Squishiness and asymmetry can be distracting on slabbier terrain

Don’t let the low-key aesthetic fool you: the Vapor S is a powerful, muscular slipper. The key is a sticky, full-length XS Grip 2 outsole married with a surprisingly flat last and touch of asymmetry that curls your big toes inward like talons. None of these attributes alone scream high performance, but consider them alongside the shoe’s overall flexibility, glove-like fit, gummy M50 rubber over the toe box, semi-stiff heel cup, and a low-profile, rounded toe that deforms preternaturally into tiny pockets, slots, and thin cracks. The collective result is one fierce steep-rock beast. Like a total beast, the kind you can maneuver into subtle heel-toe cams that would feel clunky in any other shoe. For a slipper, the Vapor S is also surprisingly versatile, as Heather Weidner can attest: “I was very impressed with the ability to toe in on small edges on more vertical terrain, as well as smear on slopey, sandy feet, but was also able to pull and grab on steep footholds.” Personally, I had the best gym session of my life in these shoes: I couldn’t get them to slip, whether on jibs or slopers, and I felt everything underfoot. Ditto on Red River Gorge cave climbs, where this shoe dug into the holds but offered just enough heft to see me through edging (smedging!) cruxes on the slabbier outros. The removable Nano Strap closure system looks nice, and I always ratcheted it down, yet it doesn’t seem to do much more than help angle your toes slightly one way or another.

Bottom Line: The Vapor S is for slipper aficionados who gravitate toward bouldering, gym climbing, and sport climbing. It’s pricey, yes, but all the elements are done right, and the shoe conforms to the foot like a second skin.

Butora Gomi ($160)

Weight (all weights listed are per shoe): 8 oz
Pros:

>Soft, intuitive, socklike fit makes for a quick break-in
>Regular version accommodates wide feet
>Excellent “all-shoe” sensitivity—good feedback in the toe box, heel, and scumming patch

Cons:

>Neo Fuse rubber felt squishy for long sport pitches, especially when sustained edging was involved

This nearly all-rubber boot had some of the best all-shoe feedback of the test. Translation: it’s sensitive everywhere, from the toe box to the heel cup to the scumming patch. (Most rock shoes only offer supreme sensitivity in one or two of these spots.) One tester confirmed this on a modern-style gym problem that involved rocking over a sloping jib screwed onto the side of a triangular volume. The hold was angled in such a way that you could only drop your heel—not toe—onto it. The Gomi did better than just about all the other shoes I tried on this problem, mainly because I could feel the jib through the molded heel cup and thus trusted the shoes on this bizarre move. Ditto for scumming and toeing into tiny jibs on gym boulders and overhanging rock. The socklike fit and tensioned Power Rand drive you down into the big toe, despite the Gomi’s merely mild downturn, offering an almost prehensile grip. On the flip side, this pair of shoes is not incredibly supportive, so I experienced some calf fatigue and squish on longer edging pitches, and the toe is a bit too rounded for micro crimps. That said, as a bouldering or sport-crossover shoe fit for wide dogs, the Gomi is one of the better, friendlier-priced options out there.

Bottom Line: This is a well-rounded boulderer-friendly shoe that also crosses over into sport climbing—especially steeps.

Black Diamond Aspect Pro ($200)

Weight: 10.6 oz
Pros:

>One of the kinder fits for a performance trad shoe
>Solid long-term comfort and incredible stability at stances
>Narrow toe profile great in cracks
>Thick, sticky Fuse rubber outsole was grippy on slabs

Cons:

>Toe box could be sharper, for better precision
>Lace eyelets caused foot pain in deep jams

We began by testing this shoe on a mixed bolt-and-gear granite slab with a strange, leaning, flaring crack, followed by thin nubbin stepping and faith smearing—exactly the type of climb it’s designed for. The big news here is that the Aspect Pro has such a kind, cushy microsuede footbed, and a softer demeanor than similar trad shoes, that it performed amazingly out of the box, needing almost no break-in period. On its inaugural voyage, the shoe felt grippy and reliable—and even had a dash of sensitivity, despite the full-length bilayer midsole. On smears, one tester found himself enjoying the Fuse rubber—a kind of thick, softer outsole that wouldn’t usually be my jam. It deformed nicely to rugosities in the rock. At 21.1 ounces, a pair of Aspect Pros is heavy, but in exchange you get stability and calf support, priceless for stances where you’re fighting calf fatigue while hunting for protection. The leather footbed promises long-haul comfort, bolstered by a sweat-wicking, knit tongue and thick, ropy laces that hold tension well, ensuring a dialed fit. However, tester Chris Weidner noticed a painful pressure point on the overhanging 5.10+ hand crack of Beach Buzz in Indian Creek, Utah. “After lowering and taking off the shoe, I realized that the combination of small lace coverings over such thick laces caused a single point of lace to be jammed against the crack, and thus also against my foot,” he noted. He did like the narrow toe profile, which shone while climbing Hail of a Beach, a baggy-fingers, thin-hands 5.11- crack also at Indian Creek. “I could stuff the tiptoe into the crack, twist, and stand on it reliably,” he noted.

Bottom Line: The Aspect Pro is a great option for trad and multi-pitch climbers seeking stability for long leads and mid-ankle coverage for cracks but favor a soft feel with greater emphasis on smearing than edging.

Black Diamond Method S ($144.95)

Weight: 8.8 oz
Pros:

>Comfortable fit, even when sized tightly, making for great bouldering-session wear
>Designed with a soft, pliable last that’s ideal for smearing, steeps with big footholds, and volume climbing
>Eye-catching camouflage aesthetic

Cons:

>Some bagginess over the forefoot hampered toe-scumming performance
>Black Label Fuse outsole feels too thick for a performance slipper

A softer sibling to Black Diamond’s all-arounder, the Method, the Method S is an ideal comfort shoe for long gym sessions and steep routes, thanks to its mild downturn and cozy footbed. It’s also one of the flashier shoes on the market: both the men’s and women’s versions sport a camouflage heel cup and tension rand that tend to be conversation starters with others. Two testers felt the Method S was great for grabbing extruded footholds on gym boulders and board climbs. “I was surprised by how well this shoe toes in on MoonBoard plastic and Tension board wood,” noted tester Chris Weidner. The shoe is sensitive (reason: the Soft Flex midsole is 0.9 millimeters thick, comprised of a small horseshoe in the toe box), making it a choice pick for smearing and steep grabbing. And it’d be even more so if the outsole wasn’t so thick—an odd choice for a slipper. (This issue that resolves over time, as you grind the sole down.) The sensitive squish means almost nonexistent edging performance, so you have to learn to toe in to holds, not on to them. Testers noted there’s no break-in period, and the shoes held up well, minus some minor toe flattening. My major complaint was that the scumming patch was baggy (albeit amply sized and nicely ridged). On a double-toe-hook parkour move, I slid down before the shoe caught. Though it did eventually snag, and I did send the problem.

Bottom Line: The Method S is the shoe for gym boulderers, board climbers, and cave boulderers who appreciate sensitivity married with a soft fit for long-session wear. It’s also adapted for smearing and big footholds, resulting in a solid steep-rock shoe that’s simply fun to climb in.

Five Ten NIAD VCS ($150)

Weight: 9.5 oz (men’s) / 8.5 oz (women’s)
Pros:

>A very stiff, precise toe (though surprisingly rounded) allows for edging and micro-edging support
>Sticky 3.5-millimeter Stealth outsole yields surprisingly good smearing for a shoe with a full-length midsole

Cons:

>The flat last coupled with dead space midfoot hampered a precision fit

Five Ten’s Anasazi line has enjoyed a cult following since the 1990s. The NIAD family—Lace, Moccasym, and the VCS—is a reimagining of that line. The VCS is the most well-rounded of the three options, occupying middle ground between the stiffer Lace and the softer Moccasym. It’s a beast of an edging shoe, with the kind of old-school support (read: a flat last coupled with a full-length, two-millimeter midsole) and precision you want on long, vertical face climbs and trad pitches. “I hadn’t climbed in Eldorado Canyon for a couple years, and I’m always surprised at how small the toe edges are and how much you have to trust your feet,” said tester Heather Weidner of the Colorado hot spot. “In the NIAD VCS, I was able to be precise in my toe placements. The stiffness of the toe edge made it easy to weight my feet without too much calf pump on vertical, technical terrain.” Another tester, Yosemite local Chris Van Leuven, described the toe as “chiseled,” and commented on how well it let him lay the shoe against offset seams but also stand on micro edges and granite nubbins. For such a stiff shoe, it offers quite decent smearing performance, thanks to ĂŒber-grippy Stealth C4 rubber. As with so many Five Tens, these shoes are better for long, narrow feet, although the toe box is more rounded than, say, the brand’s Hiangle. Weidner, who is flat-footed, experienced dead space midfoot and had trouble eliminating it with the straps. “The flaps under the Velcro need to be arranged perfectly while buckling, which I found annoying, especially on multi-pitch climbs where you take your shoes off and on constantly and have many other logistics to think about,” she said.

Bottom Line: This option is perfect for climbers who tend toward old-school edging, as well as mixed and traditional pitches, and who value support over sensitivity. The fit is geared more for flat, narrow feet, though it’ll accommodate wider feet after break-in.

La Sportiva Katana Lace ($219)

Weight: 8.8 oz (men’s) / 7.5 oz (women’s)
Pros:

>Offers extreme precision for edging and micro-edging
>A long toe box and laser-cut sole promote access to thin cracks, pin scars, and seams that elude other shoes

Cons:

>Very stiff: smearing takes real trust and visual inspection of the foothold

The Katana Lace is among the highest-performing all-around and thin-face shoes on the market, overbuilt for durability, support, and performance in that unique Italian way. Trad aficionado Clayton Laramie wore them to flash his hardest climb ever, a 5.12c gently overhanging a mixed-face-and-seam route in the Tan Corridor of Colorado’s Staunton State Park, about an hour south of his home in Boulder. “I love this shoe,” he said afterward. “It’s my personal favorite for hard trad and vertical face.” Meanwhile, Climbing’s digital editor, Anthony Walsh, lauded the thin toe profile. “Both vertically and horizontally, It provided unparalleled access to thin cracks and a ton of precision,” he said. Walsh said the shoe shone on Zap Crack, a 5.12+ crack line in Squamish, British Columbia, where the crux centers on two parallel, left-leaning seams: a right-hand seam that takes 0.1 cams and a toe jam and left-hand offset seam that you crimp. “The Katana was the only shoe that could meaningfully jam the right seam while my left foot edged hard on granite chips,” he said. The key with such a long, thin toe is that it’s also supportive, with no flex. The Katana held its rigidity and shape over months of testing, in part due to the full-length 1.1-millimeter midsole. On the downside, even after breaking these in, the shoes remained stiff, and you often had to take smears on trust, visually confirming your foot placement. For me, the low-volume women’s version, with its four-millimeter XS Grip 2 half-sole (versus the men’s full-length four-millimeter XS Edge sole), climbed much better; its deliberately inbuilt flex and softer outsole rubber render greater versatility while still keeping the precision toe.

Bottom Line: Need a stellar precision shoe for thin face climbs (pockets and micro-edging) and thin crack routes? The Katana Lace is it and will especially appeal to anyone who prefers long, narrow, supportive toe boxes.

La Sportiva Skwama Vegan ($199)

Weight: 8.1 oz (men’s) / 7.1 oz (women’s)
Pros:

>A new vegan option for what’s a proven, high-performance slipper
>Versatile
>Extremely sensitive
>Perhaps La Sportiva’s most forgiving last for wide feet

Cons:

>Break-in takes time and patience

The Skwama has a huge fan base for a reason: it’s a high-torque, highly sensitive slipper that gets the job done—and done well—on just about any terrain, even the slabby stuff. The downturned last drove energy into the forefoot. The XS Grip 2 outsole and pointy toe provided stick and bite on tiny holds, especially bouldery steeps. The bulbous, geometrically patterned heel held its own in stiff hooks—arĂȘtes and heel-toe cams—but also deformed for technical hooks on crimps and rails while bouldering. This shoe dominated on everything from the 40-degree MoonBoard to a gently overhanging pocket climb called Triple Sec, 5.12d in Kentucky’s Red River Gorge that involves precision high steps into tiny pockets and smeary feet. The synthetic upper stretches less than leather and complements what La Sportiva calls its SkinLike insole: an interior 0.6-millimeter odor-reducing microfiber layer that’s adhered to a 1.6-millimeter microfiber upper. These shoes may feel a little squishy to some, especially climbers who haven’t yet developed strong slipper feet, and they aren’t great for endless edging routes. But for everything else, the feedback married with power is 100 percent on point.

Bottom Line: Designed for advanced climbers with strong feet, the Skwama Vegan is ideal for those who value feedback, a high-torque fit, and are consciously looking for a shoe with a synthetic upper for ethical or fit reasons (or both).

Red Chili Voltage LV ($180)

Weight: 8.3 oz
Pros:

>A forgiving fit and stretchy elastic tongue meant almost no break-in period
>High marks across the board for smearing, edging, hooking, and grabbing

Cons:

>The uppers and closure system need better integration, to increase tension down into the big toe

Made by a small European brand not often seen in the U.S, the Voltage has long been a sleeper classic. It’s one of the friendliest downturned shoes available, with a low-key fit that’s good for steep-rock neophytes, a precise and supportive toe, and a suction heel. Now it comes in a low-volume (LV) version for narrow feet. Our LV tester, Scottie Alexander, mostly bouldered in this new shoe. He praised its precision toe, giving it an eight out of ten on technical demands presented by fussy sandstone and quartzite boulder problems, a seven out of ten for edging, and an eight out of ten for grabbing and smearing. “This shoe gets the soft-versus-edging balance as close to optimal as any shoe I’ve worn, and it does so out of the box,” he noted. However, Alexander thought the soft uppers and orange knit tongue were too flimsy to properly impart tension from the double-Velcro-closure straps (especially the upper one, which he felt was misaligned with the plastic eyelet). Red Chili either needs to stiffen the uppers or remove the straps altogether and recast the shoe as a slipper. On the other hand, my wide feet felt happily snug in the regular Voltage, which features a socklike upper and stretchy knit tongue.

Bottom Line: The Voltage LV is a good steep-climbing and bouldering quiver for narrow-footed climbers determined to enjoy a more comfortable fit.

Scarpa Quantix SF ($189)

Weight: 8.1 oz
Pros:

>Extremely precise toe box held both shape and bite over months of use
>The combination of a stiff forefoot with overall flexibility and a soft PAF heel made this shoe a jack-of-all-trades
>A precision all-arounder, marked by its light weight

Cons:

>Pumpkin-orange color may not be for everybody
>Toe-hooking patch is so small that it’s nearly nonfunctional

The most remarkable thing about the Quantix SF is how much precision you get for such a light, low-key shoe. °ä±ôŸ±łŸČúŸ±ČÔȔ’s digital editor, Steve Potter, concurred—we both gave the Quantix SF a perfect ten for edging, thanks to a sharp, pointy toe box that digs into micros. However, unlike other precision masters (say, the brand’s Boostic), the Quantix SF is not overbuilt. The forefoot is stiff—despite having a gummy XS Grip 2 outsole—but the rest of the shoe is super malleable, so you can drop your heels to vary your angle of contact with the rock. It was superb at toeing incuts on a steep wall, particularly when using low feet, yet also solid on slabbier edging. Potter put this versatility to good use on a granite V7 block in the Adirondacks that started with overhanging smears, compression, and heel hooks, finishing on a tech-nine slab that required a pistol squat on a slanting three-quarter-inch edge. The Quantix SF “bends enough to allow you to stand on your toes without the surface of the shoe changing its alignment on the foothold,” he said. My ultimate test was a 50-meter lead at Staunton State Park. The bottom half was slabby 5.10, while the top half required precision edging—with all that rope weight dragging you down. On the upper crux, the shoe flexed as it was meant to, but stayed locked in on the tiny holds nonetheless. Two dings, in my opinion: the toe-hooking patch is just a thin strip, so you don’t get much stickum, and the toe box’s beak-like shape means toe hooks hurt.

Bottom Line: The Quantix SF is a sleek, airy, low-profile best friend for sport climbers, boulderers who climb like sport climbers (or cross over into sport climbing), and anyone attempting hard trad.

Tenaya Indalo ($215)

Weight: 11.3 oz
Pros:

>Well-balanced and precise forefoot structure locks in on small holds
>Forgiving fit for a performance shoe
>Sets up great grabbing, overhanging edging, and smearing, thanks to the XS Grip half sole
>Molded heel cup excels at hooking

Cons:

>Toggles on Draxtor closure system are hard to adjust, due to small components

Like the La Sportiva Solution, the Tenaya Indalo is a downturned, slightly asymmetrical, semi-stiff quiver and bouldering shoe that scored good to great on just about everything. As someone with wide, high-volume feet, I was initially skeptical about the Indalo. It’s a pointy shoe, and I figured I’d have to contend with dead space in the toe. But Tenaya nailed it this time, building just enough softness into the microfiber upper and lateral stretch on the bilayer perforated tongue so wide feet can spread out and fill the toe box. The Indalo shone on a hyper-techy, gently overhanging granite project at a secret crag near Estes Park, Colorado, which I ultimately sent in this shoe, after a month; I was able to dig into the smallest divots and micro-edges (the dual-construction double midsole—a 0.5-millimeter textile-and-thermoplastic layer superimposed on a braided-polypropylene layer—is just stiff enough) but also toe down and grab sloping footholds. Yes, the toe box is long, but it’s also just the right amount of heavy, and the feedback was off the charts. I also dug the thermally-molded heel cup and its full-wrap rubber panels, which kept me locked in around arĂȘtes and on bouldery moves. Tester Anthony Walsh appreciated the stretchy, thin-mesh tongue for hot gym sessions, and he noted that the vegan material “didn’t tear or fray despite yarding on them far too hard a couple times.” My single complaint is that the Draxtor closure system, while highly effective at letting you customize fit, is hard to adjust with fat or pumped fingers.

Bottom Line: This is an amazing, quiver-of-one shoe for sport climbers who lean toward technical, gently overhanging routes and mega-steeps. It’s a bit soft for dead-vertical edging-fests, but still has enough big-toe bite to squeak by on spots of slabbier terrain.

How to Buy

With brands offering so many rock shoes, including “families” of shoes (lace, Velcro, and slippers all built on the same last), it can feel overwhelming to pick out a new pair. Really, there are no wrong answers; only the wrong fit or the wrong shoe for the wrong job. Here are some parameters to help refine your search.

Intended Use

This is a big one, with two facets: you should know both how you intend to use the rock shoe and what the brand’s intended use was when they designed it. These don’t necessarily need to match up, but it’s better when they do. First consider what you want the shoes to do for you, then take a look at the product information to see where there’s overlap. Rock shoes are super niche these days; shop accordingly.

Gym Bouldering and Board Training (Moonboard, Tension Board, Kilter Board, Grasshopper Board, Etc.)

For gym bouldering or board sessions where you’re frequently removing your shoes, you want a slipper or a Velcro-closure shoe that makes for easy on/off. You’ll also want a versatile shoe that performs both on radical steeps and for volume smearing on comp-style problems. To that end, look at soft shoes with only a mild downturn; you need jib-standing power, but you’ll mainly be smearing, hooking, scumming, and glomming, whether it’s on the holds or the actual wall surface.

Gym Lead Climbing

It’s rare to see people wearing lace-ups in the gym, as they’re often too stiff and too cumbersome to take on and off frequently. Instead, you want a softish, jack-of-all-trades performance shoe, usually a slipper or Velcro version that’s one notch stiffer than your gym-bouldering shoe. A semi-stiff all-arounder gives you options on your gym’s lead terrain, which typically varies from vertical to very overhanging. Some climbers like shoes they can keep on for the duration of their session, and there are now purpose-built models for exactly these scenarios (including the ).

Performance Sport Climbing

This is likely the largest category on the market, with each brand offering multiple options. Sport climbs come in all flavors, from radical cave ascents on tufas to techy granite faces and arĂȘtes to pocketed limestone. Consider where you’ll be climbing frequently. What attributes do you need the most? A pointy toe for micro-divots and pockets? A neutral (i.e., not downturned) last and a stiff outsole for performance on vert and slab? A slight downturn and medium-sticky rubber for grabbing power on semi steeps? Major downturn, radical asymmetry, and squishy rubber for cave climbs? Or are you looking for a “quiver of one,” pretty good at all disciplines and/or able to excel in just one or two?

Bouldering

There are countless high-end bouldering shoes out there. Most are designed to encase the foot in rubber, for fluency with futuristic, non-big-toe-focused moves like heel-toe cams and toe scums. These tend to have an aggressive fit—an asymmetrical “banana” shape and a radical downturn—to help you bite into small holds on overhanging terrain. They are not meant for edging-intensive climbs or long-duration wear.

Trad Climbing/All-Around

In general, these shoes are flat-lasted so your feet and toes sit in a more neutral, less activated position, for the longer-term comfort you’ll need on traditional and multi-pitch climbs. Trad shoes are meant to be stiff and supportive, so that the small muscles in your feet and calves don’t fatigue on long, vertical leads. Trad shoes will also often have higher heel cuffs or ankle protection, for wider cracks. They can be very precise, but will typically lack flexibility and sensitivity.

Fit and Break-In Period

Fit is personal and varies from shoe to shoe and genre to genre. If I really love a particular shoe, I may even buy two different sizes: a looser, more forgiving fit for warm-ups, long pitches, multi-pitch climbs, and gym sessions; and a tighter pair for sport climbs and boulder problems at my limit—short-duration wear. Here are a few rules of thumb.

Go by Volume

Some brands make shoes that favor wide feet, and some that favor narrow feet. So you may discover that some shoes just work better for you. That said, many climbing shoes now come in regular and low-volume (LV) models, or may be labeled as men’s or women’s versions (women’s fit usually translates to LV). It pays to try on both options. There may also be a difference in midsole support between the two: a thinner or half midsole for lighter climbers (often marketed to women), and a stiffer, full-length one for heavier climbers.

Know How Brands Size Their Shoes

Some brands design their shoes to correlate with your street-shoe size; others design them to be sized down. Check the manufacturers’ websites, or go to a shoe demo or retail store, before you commit. For my wide, high-volume feet (street size ten), I’ve figured out the corresponding size by brand, which may help you on your search:

Black Diamond: 9.5

Butora: 9.5

Evolv: 10

Five Ten: 10

La Sportiva: European 40.5 or 41

Mad Rock: 9

Red Chili: 9.5

Scarpa: European 41-42, roughly two to four European sizes off street shoe size

Tenaya: European 41

Unparallel: 10

Again, these are just rough guestimates, but after intensive shoe testing for the past 15 or so years, they continue to serve me well.

For women’s sizing, I asked Heather Weidner, who wears a women’s street-shoe size eight (equivalent to a European size 39). For the sizes she’s sure of, she said:

La Sportiva: 37.5

Five Ten: 39

Scarpa: 39

Recognize the Right Fit

You never want your climbing shoes to fit so tightly that you immediately lose circulation—not even during break-in. In a shoe that fits perfectly, your big toe will sit flat or slightly curled at the very tip of the toe box, and your heel will slide all the way into the heel cup. If your big toe or other toes are so curled that you can barely weight the shoe, or if your heel doesn’t drop down fully into the pocket, the shoes are too tight. At the same time, you don’t want loose or baggy shoes, except maybe for warming up and long gym sessions. If a shoe is too comfortable out of the gate, it’s likely too big and will slip on smaller holds, especially as the shoes stretch. Most synthetic shoes only stretch a little (to become a quarter size larger), while those with leather uppers can stretch up to a half size, so take that into account when making your purchase. Finally, with performance sport and bouldering shoes, listen for a vacuum whoosh noise when you put them on—that signifies a good, conforming fit.

Don’t Skimp on the Break-In Period

Some models—especially high-performance shoes that run $200 and up, with their numerous sewn panels, special materials, and tension rands—are meant to have a long break-in period. Most performance shoes come with plastic sheets, to facilitate sliding tight, new shoes on over your heels. (You can even climb with the plastic hanging out the back. does it!) I’ll usually wear a tight pair at home (including the plastic sheets) for a night or two in front of the TV, then do a few gym sessions in them, then finally take them on the rock when they’re more pliable and better shaped to my feet.

The post The Best Climbing Shoes of 2023 appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Climbing hardware is tricky to review because, well, gear is pretty damn good these days. Many manufacturers rely on iterations of the same tried-and-true conventions, so it can be hard to find standouts. Still, some items are slowly shifting the narrative, from high-tech iterations on classic gear that approaches perfection, to products made following a greener manufacturing process, to niche items we didn’t even know we needed. Below, you’ll find our picks for the most interesting new climbing hardware of the season.

The Winners at a Glance

Editor’s Choice: Ocun Hawk QD Wire Bio-Dyn Ring Quickdraw

Edelrid HMS Bulletproof Belay FG Eco locker

Fixe Hardware 10mm Dyneema Anchor Sling-240cm

Grivel Plume HMS K3GH carabiner

Metolius Captive Quickdraw

Metolius Ultralight Master Cam

Petzl Nano Traxion pulley

Petzl Spirit Express Quickdraw

Trango Superfly Evo Autolock locker

Wild Country Zero Friends cam

How We Test

Number of Testers: 6

Number of Products Tested: 22

Number of Vertical Feet: 35,000-plus

Number of Years Climbed by Our Most Veteran Tester: 49

Least-Punishing Testing Venue: “Valmont Canyon,” aka the corridor in east Boulder, Colorado, that’s home to the city’s four rock gyms

Most-Punishing Testing Venue: The Bugaboos, British Columbia

Worst Weather: An epic thunderstorm at the Monastery, Colorado, that had two testers (and one dog) cowering under boulders while the gully flash-flooded

We tested 22 products, then narrowed down our final selection to 11 finalists. Our six testers put each piece of climbing gear through its paces in as many venues as possible, including the climbing gym (for things like belay carabiners); front-country cragging in Colorado (the granite around Estes Park, the sandstone of the Flatirons and Eldorado Canyon, the limestone of Rifle), North Carolina, Squamish, and Kentucky; and alpine, backcountry routes in the Bugaboos and Canadian Rockies. Our testers ranged in age from their late 20s to early 60s, all with years and even decades of climbing experience.

The goal when testing any climbing hardware is to determine how well it performs for its intended use—so, for example, we sent the Metolius Ultralight Master Cams with our resident alpinist, Anthony Walsh, who put them to work on trad climbs in the Bugaboos. Since I’m primarily a sport climber myself, I tested things like quickdraws and wire brushes on the local crags. Although we considered factors like weight and appearance, the main criteria with hardware are always reliability and durability. Our goal is to answer questions like, “How well does this gear do what it’s supposed to?” and “Does it perform over weeks and months of hardcore use?”

Meet Our Lead Tester(s)

Matt Samet, former editor of Climbing, has been an avid rock climber since the mid-1980s, the era of high-top rock shoes, Hexentrics, and early camming devices. He lives in Boulder, Colorado, where he primarily sport climbs, boulders, and trains in the gym. He’s been testing climbing gear for the past 20-plus years. Two other key hardware testers were Anthony Walsh, a digital editor at Climbing based in Golden, British Columbia, who has a deep love for Canadian granite—be it the smooth gray rock of Squamish or the alpine splitters of the Bugaboos. And Duane Raleigh, the North Carolina-based, former editorial director at Climbing and a climber of nearly five decades, who’s seen gear come and go during his tenure in climbing media.

The Best Climbing Hardware of 2023

Editor’s Choice: Ocun Hawk QD Wire Bio-Dyn-Ring Quickdraw ($110 for a five-pack)

Weight: 2.7 oz
Pros: Bio-Dyneema is an ecologically friendly, light sling with dogbone material for weight-conscious climbers; Easy-clipping action on the wiregates was welcome on crucial clips—lots of tension and spring
Cons: White coloration, also found on regular Dyneema, could be confusing in a fixed-draw situation, in which you’re not sure whether the draw was dyed and has faded (and is thus a safety risk) or whether the dogbone was white in the first place.

We’re big proponents of Dyneema—it’s great for saving weight on multi-pitch climbs or when starting up a long onsight while carrying a ton of draws. But, as with so many synthetic materials used in climbing, standard Dyneema comes from non-renewable fossil fuels. Bio-Dyneema, on the other hand, presents a better alternative: It’s made from waste products upcycled from the pulp and timber industry, but with regular Dyneema’s weight, strength, and UV resistance. (Ocun, for now, is the only company using bio-Dyneema for their dogbones.) The draw we tested the material on, the Hawk QD Wire, rates to a very high 25 kilonewton breaking strength—i.e., more than enough holding power, and plenty of toughness for high-wear situations (like the dogbone sitting over an edge or while alpine climbing). “They’re little, they’re light, they’re strong—like Mighty Mouse,” said one tester. The wiregates have fast, snappy action—while in a pump crisis on a roofy climb at the Solarium in Kentucky, the same tester slapped the draw on, dropped the rope in, and kept going, all within a few critical seconds.

Bottom Line: This is a more eco-friendly, multi-use quickdraw that works for all genres and all climbers, but is especially good for alpinism given its light weight and freeze-resistant wiregates.

Edelrid HMS Bulletproof Belay FG Eco carabiner ($40)

Weight: 3.1 oz
Pros: Steel insert in the basket aids carabiner longevity; Spring bar consistently prevented cross-loading; Gate action is stiff and snappy; not anodized for greener footprint
Cons: The gate is so stiff and snappy, and the keylock closure so small, that one-handed use can be painful on your thumb

We’re so used to seeing anodized carabiners that we were initially taken aback by the old-school aesthetic of the gunmetal-gray HMS Bulletproof Belay FG Eco—and going bare gets rid of toxic chemicals in the anodizing process. Once we got past the looks, however, we loved the carabiner for belaying at the crag and gym—it’s nice to have a big, beefy HMS locker. The ample basket (plenty of room for your device to cant from side to side) and the steel insert there—a trademark of Edelrid’s Bulletproof carabiners—are big selling points, as this main wear point on a belay carabiner often scuffs or thins on a standard aluminum basket. But you can barely ding this steel. On the flipside, this makes the Belay FG Eco heavy, but it’s a big clipper meant for cragging and gym use anyway. Testers liked the stiff, snappy gate, though the keylock closure was rugged on our thumbs, given how hard you have to press down to slide it open; we also kept snagging on the nose. It seems like the ergonomics could be refined there.

Bottom Line: Minus some thumb wear, this is a strong, eco-minded, anti-cross-loading belay carabiner that’s ideal for gym use and cragging.

Fixe Hardware 10mm Dyneema Anchor Sling-240cm ($26)

Weight: 3.1 oz
Pros: No anchor-equalization “knot fuss”; Supple Dyneema is easy to knot; Packs down small for harness and backpack carry
Cons: More expensive than a cordelette

A sling is a sling is a sling, but this light 240-centimeter anchor sling from Fixe solves an issue we didn’t realize had been bugging us: namely that of the knot in our cordelette always ending up in the wrong damned place—hanging up on a carabiner—when we equalize a trad anchor. Made of supple ten-millimeter Dyneema that’s a snap to knot (and that unknots easily with some minor back-and-forth tugging after it’s been weighted), Fixe’s anchor sling coiled for easy harness carry (you can quadruple it for shoulder carry too), and, thanks to the the low-profile, three-inch-long bartack, was much easier to work with than an unwieldy cordelette knot. On a tricky, spread-out cam anchor atop a Colorado granite dome, one tester was glad he had the sling—the anchor equalized first go, and he was on rappel before he knew it. It’s rated to 22kN.

Bottom Line: This is a compact, easy-carry anchor-equalizing solution for multi-pitch and alpine climbing that does away with the dreaded “knot fuss” you get with cordelettes.

Grivel Plume HMS K3GH locker ($15)

Weight: 1.5 oz
Pros: Compact and lighter than a screw-gate locker—great for alpine and multi-pitch climbing; Opposed double-gate closure system reduces the risk of accidental opening
Cons: Gate closure takes some getting used to and is a tight fit with certain belay devices

With its two opposed wire gates, the HMS K3GH doesn’t look like a “locker,” lacking the twist-lock or screw gate we’re accustomed to seeing. (It actually looks like a giant paper clip, which makes it a great conversation starter.) Yet, it is a locker. The Twin-Gate system is interesting: You pop open the outer gate, floss the eye of your belay device or the ropes over it, and press down on the inner gate to get it all the way in. While testers initially struggled to pull this off one-handed, they reported they eventually got quicker. The HMS designation means this piece is suited for belaying with either a belay device or a friction hitch (MĂŒnter), and it did both well, with just enough room in the basket for a Grigri, though it was a somewhat tight fit getting the device on. (The HMS K3GH has a gate-closed strength of 23 kN and a minor-axis strength of 7 kN.) The HMS K3GH would also be a useful tool in fast-and-light situations, such as part of an anchor system on an alpine climb.

Bottom Line: The HMS K3GH brings locker functionality to a small, light package, making it ideal for multi-pitch and alpine climbing (particularly for building anchors), though it works just fine for belaying, too

Metolius Captive Quickdraw ($30)

Weight: 3 oz
Pros: Captured-eye technology on both pro-side and rope-side carabiners is 100-percent effective at preventing carabiner rotation; Snappy gate action; Steep angle on basket creates room for rope plus fingers for fast clipping
Cons: Dogbone could be thicker for scenarios where one needs to grab the draw

Metolius has always put great thought, effort, and energy into the safety engineering of its gear (e.g., the Safe Tech Trad Harness with two belay loops, or locking Anchor ‘Draws). The company’s new Captive draws continue that tradition, solving the issue of quickdraw carabiner rotation, which can happen when a draw is clipped to your harness or, more annoyingly, up on your project when you pull the rope. Throughout our testing, whether on granite sport and mixed climbs in Colorado or clip-ups in the Red River Gorge, Kentucky, none of our testers could get the carabiners to rotate, even when whipping the rope down through a long, steep line of draws. So you can leave them up on crux clips with total confidence. The six-inch sling length is nice—good for mitigating rope drag—but the sling itself is skinny, making it tougher to grab when your arms are pumped.

Bottom Line: The Captive is an especially great redpointing clipper that eliminates the carabiner rotation. And at three ounces, it’s also light enough for onsight use.

Metolius Ultralight Master Cams ($275 for #1–4 set, $285 for #5–8 set)

Weight: 1.6–4.5 oz
Pros: Remarkable weight savings (20 percent) over the original Master Cams makes these ideal for long-approach, multi-pitch climbing and alpine routes; Flexible stems are good in horizontal placements; Range Finder feature helps with assessing placements, especially for newer trad leaders
Cons: Flexible stem makes it harder to place the cams when pumped, especially in the larger sizes

Understood as a genre—and not simply a goal for all gear—“ultralight” has its place, namely on longer climbs where weight savings add up. Our tester Anthony Walsh put the Ultralight Master Cams through their paces in perhaps the perfect venue, the Bugaboos of British Columbia. “The approach was multiple hours, and our packs were loaded with two-and-a-half days of food, fuel, and a lot of climbing gear,” said Walsh. “I brought a single set of these Master Cams and, while stuffing them into my overloaded pack, I noticed how low-profile they are compared to my other camming units.” This build paid off on the harness, too, where Walsh noted how light the cams felt on one side versus a competing brand’s ultralights on the other. “The route we were trying was long and technically easy, with few opportunities to place gear,” he said. “When there was a crack to plug a cam, we were usually at a comfortable stance. This sort of terrain is where the Master Cams shine.” Walsh felt like the trigger action required extra pressure to retract compared to other ultralights, though once partially retracted, the action was smooth. He found the cams’ narrow head particularly appealing on thin granite cracks and seams, especially in the smaller sizes where you want deeper placements. The biggest ding is the minimalist thumb loop, which, along with the pressure-sensitive gate action and flexible stem, made it harder to place the units when pumped, a drawback more prevalent in the larger sizes.

Bottom Line: The Ultralight Master Cams are great for gear-intensive rock and alpine routes with long approaches, where you can take your time with placements.

Petzl Nano Traxion Pulley ($100)

Weight: 1.9 oz
Dimensions: 48mm x 52mm x 21mm
Pros: Ultra-light and portable hauling option; Tiny—takes up almost no space on a carabiner; Silky smooth progress-capture action
Cons: Small size makes it easy to fumble when you’re pumped silly; Lacks the cam-open lockout feature of the Micro Traxion

One of our testers owns every generation of Petzl’s Traxion progress-capture pulleys and uses them primarily for toprope soloing, something climbers have been doing for more than a decade. (Petzl lists rope ascent as one use of the Nano Traxion, plus they offer their own for solo toproping on their website.) The idea is that the devices cam against the rope in one direction, letting you pull slack through (or ascend a fixed line, as in a toprope-solo or rescue situation) without having that slack drop back down through the device. Each iteration has gotten smaller, and now we have the Nano, which weighs next to nothing and is about the size of a Matchbox car. It’s easy to bring one along on a multi-pitch climb. One tester used the Nanos to haul bolting gear and a day pack on long climbs, and they clamped down reliably. He also used one as a secondary, backup device for toprope soloing (they work on ropes from seven to 11 millimeters), and it slid ably along under his Micro, even on his fatty 11 millimeter static line. As someone with big fingers, our tester’s one caveat would be that the Nano can be fussy to remove up at your anchor, especially when you’re wicked pumped.

Bottom Line: This is an indispensable tool for weight-conscious, multi-pitch free climbers hauling the crag pack from belay to belay, or as a backup (secondary device) for toprope soloing.

Petzl Spirit Express Quickdraw ($24 for 11cm, $25 for 17cm)

Weight: 3.1 oz (11 cm), 3.4 oz (17 cm)
Pros: Lighter weight than previous iteration; Bolt-side carabiner is less prone to flipping due to smaller dogbone eye; Clips just as smoothly, if not better, than the previous version; Gates have improved ergonomics
Cons: Premium pricing may be too high for casual climbers

Petzl Spirits have been a gold standard in performance quickdraws for years. Known for their buttery gate action and light, ergonomic handling, you’ll see them hanging on routes at almost any serious sport area. The latest iteration builds on that legacy with two big visible tweaks. The carabiners (straight-gate and bent-gate) are slightly smaller, shaving weight off their previous counterparts (eight grams per draw with the 11 centimeter dogbones; or, for a rack of a dozen 11 centimeter draws, 96 grams—roughly the weight of one more quickdraw). There are a few other updates as well: The clipping divot in the straight-gate is closer to the keylock nose, which makes for better handling but no snagging; the size of the keeper eye in the straight-gate side of the dogbone is smaller, reducing flipping; and the bent-gate has a friendlier curvature that makes for faster clipping action. One tester, pumped out of his gourd on a 30-degree-overhanging cave climb at the Red River Gorge, was beyond grateful to have a draw that clipped so quickly.

Bottom Line: These are stylish, premium quickdraws for hardcore sport, trad, and alpine aficionados, with fast-clipping, ergonomic action that’s notable for how light the draws are.

Trango Superfly Evo Autolock locker ($17)

Weight: 1.9 oz
Pros: Nearly perfect balance in hand (weight-to-size-to-thickness) makes this a user-friendly belay carabiner; Twist-lock gate closure is fast, responsive, and reliable; Carabiner has ample room to accommodate any belay device
Cons: The edges on the semi-circle cutout on the twist-lock mechanism (the sleeve) are a tad sharp, and would be better milled down.

There are so many lockers on the market, it can be difficult to single any out for special notice—they all have the same function and they all do their job pretty well. What stood out with the Superfly Evo, however, was the marriage of utility, balance, and bright, flashy style. Two of our testers noted how well balanced the carabiner is: It’s just the right thickness to feel natural in hand while belaying, while the twist-lock gate is reliable and responsive. The barrel is a good, grabbable size—it just feels solid under your thumb. “Many locking carabiners, particularly auto-lockers, seem to suffer from a lack of friction on the sleeve or have over- or undersized sleeves,” said one tester. “The Superfly seems to walk a perfect line of these two attributes, making repetitive operation seamless.” Also noteworthy are the bright color schemes—with the fluorescent turquoise-and-green Superfly Evo, you’ll never have any trouble finding the carabiner and belay device amidst the chaos of your crag pack.

Bottom Line: The Superfly Evo is an ergonomic crag companion for belaying and gym climbing. It’s also small, portable, and multi-functional enough for other general locking-carabiner use (anchors, etc.).

Wild Country Zero Friends cams ($230 for 0.1–0.3 set, $230 for 0.4–0.75 set)

Weight: 1.8–2.91 oz
Pros: Buttery-smooth trigger action; Cable stem flexes but still has enough heft to reduce floppiness, allowing for deep placements; Extendable sling reduces the number of draws you need to carry
Cons: Spendy (though $5 cheaper per cam than a competing brand’s thin-crack pro)

Duane Raleigh was the perfect tester for these cams—he’s been climbing for 49 years, since the pre-cam era—so he’s seen every generation of spring-loaded camming device since the original Wild Country Friends came out in the late 1970s. He took these sleek, thin-crack pieces out to a local granite area, the Narrows, near Carbondale, Colorado, to test on its bottoming cracks and funky seams. “The Zeros were excellent in micro placements,” he said. “The stem flexes to keep rope drag and flex to a minimum, yet is stiff enough for easy triggering.” He also appreciated the teeth machined into the cams’ non-anodized working faces, noting how well these helped placements stay put. By comparison, Raleigh said, he “used cams with anodized cam faces and they skipped around; I hated them.” As with comparable, high-end thin-crack pro (Metolius Master Cams, Black Diamond Camalot Z4s), the Zeros will ding your wallet, but after months of testing, the trigger action remained buttery, justifying the cash outlay for a full set.

Bottom Line: The Zero Friends are for trad climbs with thin pro and where a narrow head width and semi-flexible stem are key, as in Eldorado seams, Yosemite thin cracks, and Gunks horizontals.

How to Buy

Climbing gear is such a vast category, but we always come back to the obvious: What is your intended use for the gear? And: Is the gear built for that use?

Weight

For climbers, the primary consideration with hardware is almost always weight. You have to schlepp the gear to the cliff, and then clip it to your harness or carry it in a multi-pitch pack. Thus, a school of thought that lighter is better has emerged, and manufacturers seem to be constantly on the hunt for ways to lighten their gear; in fact, they’ll sometimes offer a regular and an ultralight version of the same product.

Durability

What buyers sometimes fail to consider, however, is that lighter doesn’t by default equal better; it just equals better in certain situations, typically for alpine climbing, multi-pitch climbing, or onsight cragging where you’re placing pro or hanging draws. And there’s the physical reality that lighter gear—hollowed-out or drilled-out metal, thinner-diameter slings and ropes, smaller pulleys and belay devices, etc.—will be less resistant to wear-and-tear, thus prone to wearing out more quickly, or even, under extreme forces, failure. In certain cases, beefier gear that’s more resistant to friction may in fact be better, and usually only adds a pound or two of weight in your pack, a minor consideration for front-country climbing.

Materials

Finally, there’s been the recent acknowledgement that the ores we use to make metal aren’t infinite, and that the nylon and other synthetic fibers in our slings, quickdraw dogbones, and ropes comes from another nonrenewable resource: oil. There’s also the fact that the dyes and processes used to make our gear bright, smooth, and sexy—as with anodization—create toxic byproducts, and may not be necessary. So if environmental impact is a consideration for you, there are now more options than ever.

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Hitting the crag with your pup allows you both to get the zoomies out. But dogs require a little bit of extra care in these environments: Without taking steps to keep them safe and comfortable in the backcountry, a day of climbing can quickly turn into a vet visit. This list of basic crag dog essentials will prepare you and your canine companion for a day or weekend-long adventure.

Ruffwear Doubleback Climbing & Rappelling Harness ($125)

Part harness, part safety device for unexpected rappels, the allows you to take your dog to hard-to-get-to places. This 420-denier ripstop nylon harness has a 2,000 Ibf/8.9 kN strength-rating—essential in a technical climbing environment. It’s specifically designed to prevent pinching and chafing and has extra padding to minimize squirming during technical operations. With leg loops that are similar to those that you’ll find on a human climbing harness, you can expect this rig to keep your pet secure, even in challenging situations.

Mountainsmith K9ÌęDog Pack ($75)

Finding a doggy backpack that’s actually comfortable for your dog and has plenty of storage space is harder than it sounds. Thanks to a tapered torso, distributes the load evenly across your pup’s spine, which lets them to stay comfortable even when they’re carrying your climbing cams. Mesh panels and perforated EVA foam helps keep your pooch from overheating. The pockets on this pack each have a five-liter capacity, which means that you can stash jackets, snacks, and other essentials. The K9Ìęholds up to thorns and abrasion without issue thanks to a mix of 420 and 630-denier nylon PU-carbonate—critical for off-trail romps. But our favorite feature is the interior weather-resistant coating, which allows you to pack things like climbing chalk and pet food without worrying about the rain turning it into a soggy mess.

Burt’s Bees Paw and Nose Lotion ($7 for 4 oz.)

It’s not uncommon for crag pups to end up with cracked or dry feet from the heat and sharp terrain after a long trip. On top of that, it can be tough to successfully apply lotion to their paws since they have the tendency to lick it off. The is a lifesaver in that regard, with a film-like texture that resists licking. And if your dog doesÌęmanage to remove the lotion, you don’t have to worry about them getting sick, thanks to a 100-percent non-toxic ingredient list headlined by rosemary and olive oil.

Nite Ize Spotlit Rechargeable Collar Light ($20)

Keeping track of your pups at the crag can be a challenge while you’re on the wall and the sun starts to dip. The makes it a whole lot easier. This little rechargeable light has a 10-hour run time and can hold up to rain, mud, and dings thanks to a stainless-steel carabiner that easily clips to your dog’s collar. When it’s dead, it fully charges via USB in just 1.5 hours. Four different color options make it easy to differentiate between your dogs while they’re bounding through the bushes, or to have an impromptu pup-poweredÌęlight show.

Atlas Pet Lifetime Collar ($44) and Leash ($78)

Crags tend to be places where delicate petwear goes to die. Since they’re often full of snagging brush and prickly plants, it’s not uncommon to lose items entirely. But the and come with a life-long warranty to repair or replace them—ideal for the most active pups. Both the collar and the leash use dry-treated climbing rope forÌęa durable, stylish look that’ll be the envy of all the other crag dogs (or more realistically, their owners).

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I have noticed that hardly anyone wears socks in theirÌęrock shoes. Hardly is an understatement. Actually, I may be the only climber on Earth who wears socks. To me, socks make sense. Rock shoes, even expensive ones, are uncomfortable and socks add a bit of cushion and a hygienic layer. Am I wrong to wear socks?

—Jesse Dank, Enumsclaw, Washington

The style choice of not wearing socks—or going “commando,” raw doggin’ it, etc.—in rock shoes is, like the jellyfish haircut, a recent phenomenon. When I started climbing in 1973, almost everyone wore socks with E.B.s or P.A.s, non-sticky rubber shoes that were smart accessory footwear to the thumbscrew, but of limited value on rock. When you wear these shoes, which were said to have been cast on a men’s dress-shoe last complete with point, socks provided padding for your tortured dogs.

Yet sometime around 1983, when sticky Fires hit the market, most climbers refused to give up their socks. This might have been because we had been trained to wear them, or we wanted to look like John Bachar, who famously sported calf-high tube socks with his Fires.ÌęPerhaps it was because everyone climbed long routes and had to carry sneakers and socks anyway for the certain-to-be-really-long descents.

Then, curiously, some climbers began rocking their shoes bareback, and after this happened, wearing socks branded you as a noob. This holds true even today.

Assuming you are merely a practical person rather than one who falls into the above category, wearing socks, as you noted, does protect your feet from a shoe’s harsh stitching, seam tape, and other interior sharpies. If I were climbing El Cap, or any bit of long stone, or cracks, I’d size my rock shoes slightly larger and wear socks for comfort.

There is, of course, the question of sensitivity. Performance demands a skintight fit, and that demands that the skin of your foot press right against the interior of the shoe. It can be said that going sockless gives you a better “feel” for the holds, that socks dull the sensation, like wearing a raincoat in the shower.

Pshaw. Saying that you can feel the rock through a slab of rubber and a midsole is to confuse “sense” with “feel.” You do develop a sense for how your shoe contacts the rock, how the edge sits on holds, for example, but it is a stretch to believe that you can actually feel the texture and shape of the holds through the shoe sole. This is especially true for board-lasted shoes, which have the feel of wooden clogs (and which I prefer, really).

In most cases, there is no rational reason for not wearing socks. Instead, it all comes back to fashion, and as they say, “fashion changes, style endures.” If you like socks, fly them with pride. Next!

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Elliot Vaughan, 21, a climbing-gym employee, packs up to go bouldering on the high granite blocks of Independence Pass, Colorado. Shoes, chalk, crash pad, fan 
.

In the last several years more and more people are bringing fans to cool and dry themselves and the surfaces where they ply their hard sequences. Moisture in the air can dampen those little tiny holds you must, must minutely progress on. We are talking portable nine-inch fans—more the kind of thing you’d look for at Home Depot or on ($120) than from Petzl or Black Diamond—with rechargeable batteries that cost more than the fans. Climbers (not this one!) take fans to boulders, seeking those cool sending temps even in some dank cave. Some lug them around at competitions. Some even them.

I’ve been climbing longer than you want to know, and it used to be that you’d take a rope and rack, shoes of course, the jacket on your back—and maybe a nail clipper—to the crags. OK, a roll of tape. Today you’d still take those, but climbers may also bring these accessories:

Leaf Blowers

Again to battle the dread humidity. They are portable and can be aimed, as if you were a sci-fi character with a laser gun.

Humidity Gauges

Handheld meters, that is, are used perhaps not widely, but internationally. “Conditions aren’t good!” someone might say in consternation. It’s unclear whether, psychologically, that information helps or hurts.

Stick Clips

These extendable sticks (named after the actual branches climbers used to tape a carabiner to) with a notch or clasp for a carabiner allow you to clip a rope into the first bolt of a route from the ground rather than going ten feet up with no protection. Some climbers traditionally scorned this resource: they were cool characters, fine climbing a few feet off the ground. Yet as far back as early Rifle, Colorado, days in the 1990s, some routes were designed to be stick clipped, because they had hard moves right off the deck. Moreover, holds can break, or you can slip Today everyone is walking around like a shepherd with a crook.

Oh, and if you want to connect elements, you can put a fan on the end of a stick clip, and hoist it up high to dry off that s0-key hold.

Belay Glasses

“Cheaper than surgery,” as Roger Schimmel, a lifer climber, has intoned. These are shelf-like open reflecting specs that allow you to hold your head level rather than craning up to watch and belay a climber on lead. I dislike them; they make me seasick and for other reasons: a climber on lead used to be able to glance down and see the belayer’s nice concerned human face looking up. Yet I may soon concede to neck aches from peering up at overhanging terrain. People in belay glasses are now routine along the bases of popular walls, like the audience in a 3-D theater.

Belay Gloves

Once these seemed a bit 
 over careful. Now they’re standard issue. And judging by the amount of blood I saw at the base of a wall last week, left behind the day before by a very nice, experienced climber whose finger got pinched in her belay device, belay gloves just gained another convert.

Dremels

At the climbing gym, young Elliot brings out one of these electric burr devices between burns on the Kilter Board and calmly tends to calluses on his palms and fingers. From nearby, Noah Jones, 23, lowers his eyelids, murmuring, “Sooo extra”—while another youth offers that there are also callus grinders for feet.

Crash Pads

Boulderers simply used to spot each other, but that was dicey over rocky ground or on hot days with slippery people. Now climbers carry bouldering pads—sometimes several strapped together—on their backs to spread on a rock, forest, or desert floor to protect them in short and not-so-short falls. Climbers with pads look like ants lugging huge crumbs.

My early bouldering career, at the historic Alcove in Boston, was pre-pads, and one time I sprained my ankle and had to crutch up and down the stairs to my fifth-floor walkup. I don’t need a fan, but pile on those pads.

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What you bring with you to the crag (and onto the wall) is just as critical as how you train. You could do 1,000 pull-ups per day and drink half a dozen energy drinks right before you tie in, but if you’re using thumbtacks as pro, clipping carabiners from Dollar General, and tying into 50-pound hemp rope, you aren’t going to get far. We tied in for over 100 pitches with the newest climbing accessories—including ropes, cams, helmets, belay gloves, packs, and apparel. Here are the nine pieces that came out on top.

Black Diamond Capitan MIPS Helmet ($100)

The new Capitan MIPS boasts large vents and weighs just 285 grams in size small, without compromising protection. A two-part ABS plastic shell covers a layer of lightweight EPP foam with a stiffer EPS foam puck at the crown, plus MIPS technology.

Wild Country Offset Zero Friends Camming Devices ($390 for five)

Boasting the narrowest head width of any cams on the market—28.1 millimeters on the 0.1–0.2—the Zero Friends are ideal for weird fits like flares and pin scars. Their soft aeronautical-aluminum heads boost friction, and the wide, 17.6-degree camming angle yields more expansion for small sizes. They range from 49 to 78 grams and feature flexible stems and adjustable Dyneema slings.

Trango Physic Locking Carabiner (from $17)

The small and lightweight Physic takes up less space on your harness than a traditional belay biner. But its wide top keeps rope handling and Munter-hitch management just as easy. A flat keylock nose prevents snags. It’s available in autolock (pictured) and screw-lock versions.

Sterling IonR 9.4mm Yellow Xeros 60m Rope ($250)

Sterling’s IonR line gets upgraded with a new dry treatment that’s applied at the fiber level before weaving rather than to the outside of the finished rope. This reduces waste and ensures the water protection lasts as long as the rope does. The lightweight, do-it-all 9.4-millimeter version is easy to feed and flake.

Arc’teryx Konseal 40L Pack ($190)

At 40 liters, the Konseal is big enough to devour your rack, rope, harness, shoes, and helmet with room to spare—and it stands up on its own, which makes for easy loading and unloading. The tough Cordura body and padded sides and bottom keep your kit safe, and the large top lid yields ample room for lunch and sundries.

Mammut Crag Keylock Wire 10cm Quickdraw ($80 for six)

Mammut’s newest quickdraw mates a large, snag-resistant keylock clipping carabiner to a stiff polyester dogbone for easy clipping. But a lightweight wiregate bottom biner shaves weight, so the finished piece comes in at a respectable 106 grams. Red fibers appear as the dogbone sheath degrades over time, so you know when it’s time for a replacement.

Ortovox Valbon Pants ($150)

These organic cotton and hemp bottoms are stretchy and light, yet still weathered rough sandstone cracks without a rip. They lay flat under a harness, with a comfy merino-infused waistband and out-of-your-way elastic cuffs.

Pitch Six EyeSend Belay Glasses ($95)

These are the only belay glasses we’ve found with an adjustable field of view. A flick of the finger lets you change your perspective from 60 up to 120 degrees as your climber moves above, reducing dreaded neck cricks.

Hestra Climbers Short 5-Finger Gloves ($55)

Built from rugged goat leather with foam knuckle pads and neoprene cuffs these snug fingerless gloves offer supreme protection for alpine rock or backcountry missions. But they’re breathable enough for daily cragging, too.

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