Field Tested: Ocun’s Sigma Is a Sport Climbing Machine

I’ve been on a soft-shoe kick lately, largely because brands are leaping to release new indoor-focused shoes in time for the Paris Olympics. These shoes—notably La Sportiva’s new Ondra Comp and Scarpa’s Veloce L—served me well on the steep, south-facing basalt sport caves where I spent my winter. But with spring’s arrival, I traded the hot caves for some desperately thin, dead-vertical 5.13s at my local shoulder-season crag, and it immediately became clear to me that those soft shoes weren’t going to cut it. So I pulled Ocun’s Sigma out of their winter retirement, and I was glad that I did. I’ve never stood on smaller feet more comfortably. Multiple times these past two weeks, I’ve held my breath when committing my full weight to almost-imaginary credit-card-size feet. The Sigma was up for the challenge.