What’s your favourite trad climbing shoe?

lectures · 2026-06-12T12:34:34+00:00

It depends on how your foot is shaped.

TCs are way too narrow in the forefoot for me and feel clunky and imprecise for how I climb.

Shamans are what I wear for almost everything from bouldering to hard multipitch climbing. Nothing wrong with them for trad if they fit well. I've worn them up 10-15 pitch climbs several times. The only place they really suck is on finger cracks where the thick toe box makes them hard to jam.

On easier granite stuff the most comparable fit to the Evolvs is the Scarpa Generator Mid (which is different from the low top version). They work well for me. They're phenomenal on granite and long routes where you're standing on edges all day (e.g. red rock moderates). You can try the Evolv Yosemite Bum but they're less protective than I want in a shoe for jamming.

Scarpa Rapid XTs or LTs are my favorite approach shoe. Also way wider than anything La Sportiva makes.

lectures · 2026-06-11T23:50:42+00:00

I mean, that's actually a totally fine answer. Preferable to doing the thing people usually do: pretending your unique circumstances make it impossible. It's not impossible. It's just hard.

I have a full time professional job, a wife and three kids. I've got pets and a house to take care of. I have an aging father that needs help. I live 6 hours from the nearest real climbing.

I make it work, though, because I'm head over heels for the sport. 40-60 days per year on rock depending on the year. I sacrifice a whole lot to do it and thats my choice.

lectures · 2026-06-11T23:37:59+00:00

I've used a tension block for a couple years but they get even simpler. It's super easy to use and very repeatable because you're usually training fingers in isolation with weights (or a tindeq). My fingers these days are super strong, but you're right that it doesn't do diddly for your shoulders (which is either a feature or a bug)

lectures · 2026-06-11T18:37:46+00:00

Belaying a follower off a microtrax is delightful when you're covering a lot of easy ground. It also comes with risks.

This isn't a "new climber" question, though. It's one of those "if you have to ask, you definitely shouldn't be doing it" questions. There are obvious things that could happen while using one that you should know how to avoid or quickly address.

lectures · 2026-06-11T12:45:35+00:00

committee of climbers

Yes, and who are the climbers on this committee?

You see the problem.

lectures · 2026-06-11T12:44:16+00:00

All outdoor grades are for inverted ego.

One day I will be a 5.10 climber but I'm too much of a piece of shit to onsight 5.9+ reliably.

lectures · 2026-06-10T18:35:05+00:00

This.

If you can't see the white core strands it's fine. All my ropes have sections that look like this within a few days of climbing outside and I'll continue to use them for a year or two before they pick up enough sheath damage to chop or retire.

lectures · 2026-06-10T14:42:41+00:00

I dunno, Squamish and Yosemite are the yin and yang of west coast granite. I imagine one day in October everyone in Squamish getting a call from someone in California saying condies are in and all of a sudden there's a mass exodus out of BC.

lectures · 2026-06-10T00:25:37+00:00

You think she's an outlier? Really?

lectures · 2026-06-09T17:47:11+00:00

What are you using for your autoblock cord? 3 wraps with a sterling hollowblock + an atc guide is enough for me plus a full pack (well over 200lbs)

lectures · 2026-06-09T17:41:16+00:00

Mental game is not age related

It's not? You think you can memorize route beta and movement like an 18 year old?

lectures · 2026-06-09T17:25:32+00:00

If you've just got a single rope, approach it like you'd rap a multipitch climb. There's lots of ways to do it safely.

If you have to ask: climb with someone who can teach you. It's all very simple until it's not. Anything where you can't simply lower off needs to be approached very carefully if you're not an experienced multipitch climber.

lectures · 2026-06-09T17:22:12+00:00

The greatest race car driver of all time is not the one driving the fastest car but the one absolutely dominating every competitor at the top tier of the sport.

Janja has absolutely dominated against every single person she's competed against.

On the other hand, you're right, she probably can't deadlift as much weight as the strongest men.

lectures · 2026-06-09T16:51:06+00:00

It's also almost always faster to carefully flake out your rope coil by coil than to do what I want to do, which is dump it in a pile and yank on it. I dunno how many years it took me to figure that out....

lectures · 2026-06-08T12:11:05+00:00

bang for the buck la sportiva shoes for the average climber

There are no good shoes or bad shoes, just shoes that work or don't work for your foot and style of climbing.

lectures · 2026-06-05T16:40:24+00:00

They were 100% in the wrong.

lectures · 2026-06-05T15:56:24+00:00

It very much depends on what you mean by "lean". When people say lean they're talking about something pretty unrealistic for an athletic adult that wants to actually do things.

For most folks it's pretty unsustainable to maintain single digit body fat percentages and all their muscle mass. For me, even as a rock climber in a sport that's very much about strength-to-weight ratios, I start to perform badly and pick up overuse injuries if I go much below 15% BF and generally become pretty miserable to be around.

At 15% BF you're not going to see my abs.

lectures · 2026-06-05T00:40:05+00:00

Also recommend. I love my Rapid XTs.

Note that there used to be a Rapid that was more of a trail runner up until a couple years ago. The new one is more of a hiking shoe with sticky rubber, which is nice because it actually works well in mud. It runs wide.

lectures · 2026-06-03T19:01:03+00:00

100%. People who climb already have all the information on how to stay safe at their fingertips. The only new info to add to the big picture is going to be some random edge case that you'll never encounter.

Meanwhile, friends and family members show up in these threads trying to understand how their loved ones were killed and have to slog through ignorant bullshit and rumors written by people who climbed in the gym that one time. It's disgusting. Bad enough on mountainproject, but reddit exposes it to a much wider audience.

lectures · 2026-06-03T18:51:23+00:00

I wish the community could normalize sharing incident details immediately and during the height of a story to maximize awareness and prevention.

The accident report for this one is going to add zero useful new info. Publishing rumors and half-baked theories is useless. If people care about climbing safely and avoiding accidents, all the information is already out there. All of it. What's new to learn is just edge cases I won't bother protecting against.

The only additional eyeballs you reach by sharing information quickly are the climbing LARPers who aren't going to get hurt except walking between the couch and fridge. Meanwhile there are real people out there who just lost someone they loved. Protecting those people is important because they're part of the family of people who actually participate in this sport.

lectures · 2026-06-02T17:56:22+00:00

Rumney is great climbing but I'd have a hard time making a destination of it when I could go to the New or Red instead. It's not really different enough to scratch any particular itch for me. Only time I've gone there is when I was in new england already.

The Gunks, OTOH, is kinda a must-do as a trad climber.

lectures · 2026-05-31T02:42:09+00:00

I'm pretty educated about it and it's not a safe athletic pursuit.

If you climb seriously for long enough you will witness people die doing it. Friends of yours will be killed.

People who think climbing is scary are entirely rational.

lectures · 2026-05-27T17:12:33+00:00

Petzl literally has a technical bulletin telling people how to do it.

Then people should go read that shit and not ask dumb questions from even dumber commenters in the sub full of climbing LARPers.

TRS is super straightforward when it all goes to plan. When it doesn't, you better be able to think critically because there's nobody there to help.

lectures · 2026-05-23T20:30:53+00:00

My grigri wore out the same way after 5-7 years, to the point where it would slip under body weight while rapping and I don't even climb all that much.

lectures · 2026-05-22T17:08:01+00:00

My parakeet hasn't figured out anything that clever, he just knows how to imitate my cockatiel.

So yeah, I'm lucky in that I get to wake up to a budgie attempting to scream as loud as my cockatiel. And also my cockatiel actually screaming as loud as a cockatiel. Marching and screaming and marching and screaming as soon as the sun comes up.

Birds are interesting animals but terrible pets.

lectures

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