Gifts For Climbers
If you're looking for a gift for climbers, there are a few essentials that every climber needs, like chalk, a chalk bag, climbing shoes or climbing clothing. But if you're looking for a more thoughtful and useful gift, you will need more insight into the different climbing disciplines and personal preferences of the climber in your life.
Hunting around for good gifts for climbers can be a daunting task, especially if you’re not a rock climber yourself. That’s why we’ve put together our simple climbing gift guide to give you some ideas!
Essentials for all Climbers
With such a huge variety of climbing equipment and gear designed for various climbing disciplines, picking something that all climbers use is a safe bet if you’re unsure. There are a few other bits of kit that all climbers will find useful.
Climbing tape is a versatile tool for many, MANY uses. Seriously, we make jokes about it. It can be used to cover cuts and scrapes, to assist in rehabbing injuries, reduce wear on skin during long climbing sessions and pretty everything else a climber could possibly need it for. Many climbers will tear tape into smaller strips to suit the purpose, so wide tape allows the flexibility to tear to the desired width.
Another skin essential is a balm or moisturiser for the hands after climbing. Climbers hands get put through a lot. Chalk can be very drying for the skin and climbing is very abrasive. The best way to care for the hands between sessions is by removing any excess skin and keeping the hands moisturised. Some climbers will use skin files or sandpaper to sand away tough skin and then apply a balm to encourage repair.
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Every climber is in need of chalk to keep the skin from getting sweaty and slipping. Chalk comes in 4 forms; loose powder chalk, chalk balls, liquid chalk and chalk blocks. What a climber uses is purely down to personal preference, so you may want to have a peek in their chalk bag to find out.
Since climbers use chalk, climbing holds or rock can become caked in it and making it harder to grip. A climbing brush is used to brush away any excess chalk but is soft enough to avoid damaging the rock. This is something every climber will find handy, especially if they're climbing the harder grades as that is when grip matters the most.
For the maintenance of smelly climbing shoes, there's a few tools to help combat the stink! Shoe cleaners or sprays are a great way to remove and prevent any unwanted odours. Shoes should also be left in the open to allow them to air out after climbing. If there is no convenient place to keep climbing shoes, a shoe bag can be a great way of keeping smelly shoes separate from other items, whilst keeping them exposed to fresh air.
Our Climbing essentials
Gifts for Boulderers
If you know the climber you're buying for is a boulderer (climbs without a rope), there's a few differences in the kind of kit they will find useful compared to other disciplines.
Since boulderers don't usually climb to great heights, they don't generally need to reapply their chalk to keep their hands sweat-free. When bouldering, climbers usually opt to carry a chalk bucket that they leave on the ground as they climb. This might seem like more of an inconvenience than carrying your chalk around the waist, but it stops climbers spilling chalk everywhere when falling off or jumping down off climbs.
Boulderers will usually carry all their equipment, like brushes or climbing tape, around with them in their chalk buckets as they climb, so a chalk bucket with a good amount of pockets is ideal. If you're wanting to gift a standout chalk bucket, our range of RagBag bouldering buckets are handmade out of recycled lost property from climbing centres and no two chalk bags are every exactly the same!
Our Gifts for Boulderers
Outdoor Bouldering Gifts
The key difference in equipment when outdoor bouldering is a bouldering crash pad to cushion falls. A guidebook is also necessary to navigate climbing areas and crags. Both of these are great gift ideas for outdoor boulderers.
For smaller gifts, guidebook case protectors and bouldering pad footmats are necessary items for any outdoor boulderer. A guidebook case helps protect their guidebooks from mud or being thrown into a bag with everything else and a foot mat gives the climber something to efficiently clean their climbing shoes on, before and after a climb.
A warm down jacket, or even down slippers to slip on over climbing shoes, is almost guaranteed to please as an outdoor climber. There's nothing worse than being distracted by the cold. A duffel bag to carry all this equipment and lunch is also an ideal gift, as a day in the outdoors is usually a heavy affair and having suitable bags comes in very useful.
If you're after a present for a climber who prefers bouldering in the great outdoors, then the collection below is for them!
Our Outdoor Bouldering gifts
Gifts For Rope Climbers
Climbing on a rope means a lot more specialised equipment and safety gear, like helmets, harnesses belay devices or nuts and cams. We don't recommend buying safety equipment unless you are certain on the exact kit they want in the correct size, as they must fit correctly for safety and certain safety kit can perform in ways they may not be prepared to use.
A item like a waist chalk bag can be a safer choice. Rope climbers will use a smaller waist chalk bag, allowing them to access their chalk whilst climbing at height. Our chalk bags clip around their waist comfortably and sit in a convenient place for them to reach into, without too much effort or taking away from their climbing experience.
One bit of kit that a rope climber could always use is belay glasses. Belay glasses use glass prisms to redirect an image of the climber above the belayer into their eyes, so the belayer doesn't have to strain their neck looking up to watch the climber and getting chalk in their eyes!
For climbers on ropes, there isn’t much difference between indoor and outdoor, besides trad climbing equipment like nuts, cams and nut tool removers. Outdoor route climbers would find use for a rope protector or a guidebook case too. You can find our top gift picks for rope climbers below.
Our gifts for rope climbers
Gift an Outdoor Course
There’s no getting around it, some pesky climbers already have all the kit making them hard to buy for. An alternative could be to gift a memorable experience instead. Whether they want to gain mountain skills or try a different form of climbing experience, our outdoor adventures with our experienced guides can make a truly unique gift.
Shop Outdoor Courses
Still Unsure? Let The Climber Choose
It's understandable if you’re still not sure what gift to go for. Fear not, there’s a lot to be said for the humble gift voucher. A lot of our climbing gear is either unique, or as mentioned above, specialised. So if you’re unsure on their preferences, there’s nothing wrong with letting your climber choose their own gift!
We’re always on hand to give advice, just hit the chat button and we’ll be happy to help.
