Want to shower your climbing-obsessed friend or loved one with kindness and gifts, but don’t know where to start? Maybe you watch these strange beings clinging to a rock face, and can’t fathom how or why they do it. Maybe you’re a climber yourself, but know little about the many helpful products that make the climbing life easier. How are you supposed to find the best gifts for rock climbers?
One of our big goals here at The Adventure Junkies is to make your life easier when it comes to finding gifts for your climbing buddies. Whether they like bouldering, sport climbing, or crack climbing, we’ll walk you through a selection of the best gifts on the market.
PRICE GUIDE:
BEST GIFTS FOR ROCK CLIMBERS
GIFTS UNDER $20
CLIMB ON SKIN REPAIR BAR
Climbers’ skin is a precious commodity. It’s hard to grab a hold and pull higher when you have no skin on your fingertips. From the layers of skin that slowly peel away from each move, to the cuts and abrasions that appear on everything from knees to elbows, climbing is an activity where the rock can dominate the climber.
The Climb On Skin Repair Bar is a chemical-free product that’s packed with vitamin A to aid with human cell development. It helps skin heal faster, seals over cuts and scratches, and simply makes your hands and fingers generally look and feel happier. Made of yellow beeswax as well as essential oils, it is also considered to have antiseptic and antibacterial qualities, and can be used on skin rashes.
FRICTION LABS MAGIC REUSABLE CHALK BALL
All climbers’ fingers tremble and perspire with fear, and know the value of the magical white powder to keep them dry, ready to clasp onto the tiniest holds.
Friction Labs Chalk is reputedly the stickiest, and has no drying agent, making it less nasty when you accidentally breathe it in (which you will). The chalk comes inside a cotton ball that goes inside your chalk bag. A sweaty palm goes in and wraps itself around the ball, and out comes a dry, sticky, ready-to-climb machine. The chalk ball is also refillable.
BLACK DIAMOND BRUSH SET
Friction is vitally important in climbing. But take a hot day, sweaty fingers caked in chalk, and humid conditions, and your handholds will soon be covered in mush.
Enter the brush, essential equipment for cleaning up the most challenging of holds in the most trying conditions. The Black Diamond Brush Set features brushes of different sizes to ensure any and all holds can be readied for maximum friction. The small brushes can be placed on most chalk bags, so you can take them with you as you climb.
THE ROCK WARRIORS WAY
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Climbing is a contrary activity. You throw yourself up an intimidating rock face, while every instinct of self-preservation screams from somewhere under your skin. Many non-climbers laugh off a suggestion of rock climbing by simply saying they are terrified of heights. Well, all climbers start out being terrified of heights.
The Rock Warrior’s Way draws on sports psychology and aims to help develop the mental fortitude necessary for overcoming fear and improving performance. It examines motivation, risk assessment, and mental focus to unlock the path to better performance, harder climbs, and more enjoyment on the rock.
BUFF
Climbers explore a variety of terrains and conditions in pursuit of their obsession, from the desert to glacier-fed valleys, from humidity-soaked tropical beaches to the windy, weather-worn towers of the remote backcountry.
The original Buff is a versatile tool that is handy in all kinds of conditions. It is a bandana to keep the sweat off your nose, a hair-tie to keep your mane out of your eyes, a scarf on colder days and nights, and a dust screen on windy, desert days. Dip it into a cool, alpine river and use it to wash your face. Lightweight and comfortable, they also come in groovy colors and designs.
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GIFTS BETWEEN $50 – $100
THERA CANE MASSAGER
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Climbers’ bodies take a beating, particularly in the forearms, back and shoulders. We simply have not evolved to cling to tiny holds on steep, intimidating routes for hours at a time, for as many consecutive days as we can endure.
The Thera Cane Massager is a simply-designed, lightweight self-massager that may look odd. But all those curves and knobs will allow you to put the right amount of force on the knots in your tired muscles. The unique design allows you to leverage pressure into hard-to-reach spots: the back, behind the shoulder blades, the neck and trapezius muscles. As a bonus, they have a lifetime warranty.
METOLIUS GRIP SAVER
Climbing is a stressful activity, particularly on the muscles that govern the fingers, hands, wrists and forearms. Often climbers put a large amount of stress on these areas, and often in a one-sided way. Heavily imbalanced muscles can lead to injury.
Designed by a doctor, the Metolius Grip Saver can be used to strengthen the muscles from the fingertips to the elbow. They are especially useful as recovery from injuries, or injury prevention, by building the antagonist muscles and ironing out the muscle imbalances. Each ball has a different resistance rating, and come with step-by-step instructions.
OUTDOOR RESEARCH SPLITTER GLOVES
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Crack climbing is an exciting form of the sport, following aesthetic lines up steep faces and plugging in traditional protection – and it can be painful. Many crack climbers’ hands have been scratched and scabbed into submission by the crystals and harder textures inside the cracks that lure them.
The Outdoor Research Splitter Gloves are great for protecting your hands as you slide them into cracks and pull higher. With sticky rubber on the back of the hand, they are tight fitting, thin and comfortable. Durable and re-usable, say goodbye to wrapping climbing tape around your hands every time you step up to a crack route.
Y&Y VERTICAL BELAY GLASSES
Every climber needs a belayer (with a rope and a belaying device) to save their lives if they fall. Belaying takes its toll on your neck, as you constantly crane your gaze to the sky while being a safe, attentive belayer. There are a number of belaying glasses to ease your neck pain, with glass prisms that allow you to look straight ahead while watching your climber move higher up the wall.
Y&Y Vertical Belay Glasses (link) are lighter than most, making them more comfortable. Their prisms are also small, meaning you have greater peripheral vision (to, for example, keep half an eye on the rope to make sure it’s not twisted) while also allowing you to keep an eye on the climber.
TRANGO BETA STICK CLIP
The daunting first bolt. Many a climber have stood at the base of a route and stared fearfully at a high first clip, imagining a potentially back-breaking fall if something happened before making it to that bolt. With stick clips, climbers can safely clip the first bolt from the ground.
Stick clips are becoming increasingly more common at popular climbing crags, such as the famous Red River Gorge in Kentucky, where it sometimes seems that routes have been bolted on the assumption that climbers have stick clips. The Trango Beta Stick Clip extends to nine feet long – long enough to reach the first bolt on almost all of those scary-looking routes. It weighs only slightly more than a pound and retracts to only 27 inches, making it easy to clip to the side of your pack.
GIFTS OVER $100
LA SPORTIVA BOULDER X APPROACH SHOES
A climber’s shoes are key to their success, but it’s hard to buy climbing shoes unless you happen to know which ones are the climber’s favorite. Approach shoes are easier, however, as they don’t need to be as exact and intricate as climbing shoes.
These La Sportiva Boulder X Approach Shoes have sticky rubber soles and a stiff toe-box for good edging performance, meaning they can be used to scramble up low-angle, technical rock climbs. The Mythos lacing system makes them a highly adaptable and comfortable fit, and their heavy duty build means they will last through the roughest treatment, whether you use them for skipping across talus fields, climbing up granite slabs, or hiking down backcountry trails.
Now We’d Like To Hear From You. What Do You Think Are The Best Climbing Gifts?
Disclosure: The Adventure Junkies is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, we will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost for you. We also use other programs like REI, LeisurePro and others to keep our site independent. You can read more about how do we review here.
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