Climbing

I think Mad Rock has been under-appreciated by the climbing community. I don’t know why. Maybe serious climbers think they’re not getting a top quality if they’re not spending top dollar. But I think the Drone CS is a high quality shoe at a great price point—and a fantastic addition to Mad Rock’s bouldering shoe lineup. They’re not a replacement for the OG Drones, but they are an excellent compliment to them. I just tried to order myself a pair of LV’s, but they’re backordered in my size…..." go to full review

After three months of steady shoe-testing in Squamish, Washington, and multiple trips into the Bugaboos—where I found myself on gaping offwidths with unfortunate frequency—the Generator Mids have held up admirably. And aside from some minor glue failure in the tongue, the Generator’s rand shows no signs of delamination (a common issue in other brands), the laces look brand new, and the suede is hardly scuffed. Overall, Scarpa has built a comfortable, high-end winner in the Generator, and I..." go to full review

La Sportiva’s line has traditionally been biased in favor of stiffly structured shoes. Even its softest products like the Solution Comp and the Theory are built with a supportive P3 system that disperses the shoe’s bendability across the foot rather than providing it with a single hinge point. Now—thanks, apparently, to Adam Ondra’s prodding—La Sportiva has decided to lean into a smeary specialization, building a shoe that is designed to hinge under the main joint of the big toe, allowing it..." go to full review

Let’s get down to what matters: performance. The Mandala felt truly boss out of the box as I broke them in with some gym bouldering and boarding. Like the Futura and Mantra, they had superb grabbing ability in the bouldering cave, especially on jibs, since you can spread the No Edge toe out on spikes/protuberances and into deformities; this let me traction in over the big toe to bring my hips close to the wall. They were also excellent for boarding, letting me curl my forefoot around the..." go to full review

The flip side to a faster-feeding device is that the Neox lets a little more rope through in a fall—not a huge amount, but usually about 6 to 12 inches. Friends and I noticed this right away with the prototypes, and I’ve confirmed this by using the Grigri and the Neox in the same day. The upside is that the Neox gives a softer catch, and, in a trad-climbing setting, will likely exert less force on your top piece, helping to avoid the dreaded gear-ripper; the downside is that, close to the..." go to full review

I’m not a particularly light climber, so sometimes, even when bouldering, I feel like I need a stiff shoe that’s not going to bend under the arch. And while the Arpia V’s toe hooking capabilities leave much to be desired (they’re just not meant for it), the shoe has nonetheless played an important role in my indoor board climbing quiver. Every time an indoor boulder requires something stiff, I’ll grab the Arpia rather than waste a half minute finagling my foot into and then lacing up the..." go to full review

In Climbing‘s yearly review of the best new shoes, tester Justen Sjong—a climbing coach and impressive all-around climber who has established 5.14 big walls on El Capitan—noted the shoe’s great grabbing ability—an 8 out of 10—thanks to its ample flex (you can manually sandwich the Clue both upward and downward) and sticky, and half-length sole. “This is a great shoe for the intermediate to advanced climber who climbs in the gym 80 percent of the time and 20 percent outside on 10-..." go to full review

Ice climbing tools have come so far since the medieval days of straight-shafted instruments that it can be difficult to wade through all the modern-day options. Most ice tools have a balanced swing weight, comfortable grip, and aggressively shaped shaft to minimize pump and bruised knuckles. So where does a would-be consumer go from there? We’d point them toward Black Diamond’s all-new Hydra.go to full review

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..." go to full review

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.go to full review