How Many Climbing Shoes Do You Have? (Nov 2024)

Having a quiver of climbing shoes increase your options

As some of you already know, I've been publishing in-depth information around climbing shoes for months now.

It's been more than a year since I started climbing. As a beginner, I thought that one pair of climbing shoes was enough and I was asking my friends who have been climbing for a long time, how many climbing shoes do you have? They all said at least 2-3 pairs of climbing shoes they have.

But I was right about one pair of climbing shoes was enough in my experience as a beginner.

So, if you're a newbie, one pair of climbing shoes will be enough for a while. BUT, you're not going to be a newbie forever.

After figure out how climbing things work, you'll realize that one pair of climbing shoes isn't enough.

In short, I'd recommend basing your decision primarily on your answer to the following question: How many types of climbing you do?

If your answer is more than one type of climbing, it's better for you to get more than one climbing shoes.
Even if you do only one style of climbing, it's better to have one extra shoe because you could use one of them when you're training at a bouldering gym, or warming up.

Quick Reminder

Finding perfect climbing shoes that perform easily in every territory or every style of climbing is impossible. We have to find out and analyze the shoes that we want to use.

Even the best climbers have more than one pair of shoes for different routes and types of rocks. Of course, they have a favorite one.

You can check the video below that made by one of the best climbers of our age talking about the alchemy of climbing shoes.

Before getting into details, you might want to check out my Best La Sportiva Climbing Shoes, I think it'll be helpful for you if you're wondering about which climbing shoe is suitable for which styles of climbing (for La Sportiva).

How Many Climbing Shoes Is Reasonable For Climbers?

Look how cool it is, my climbing garage.

I'd recommend that having at least three pairs is totally reasonable.

Let me explain to you guys why three pairs are reasonable.

Most climbers who pursue multiple styles of climbing, and try to perform at a high level in each style of climbing, obviously are going to want to have a quiver of shoes. They have suitable climbing shoes for each climbing style.

So, I'd say, at a minimum, well-rounded and most passionate climbers will need 2-3 pairs of climbing shoes.

Well, which shoes could these pairs be:

Multipitch/Trad/Crack climbing shoes: These shoes are for long routes, jamming, and sized comfortably. Even if they are sized comfortably, they have a stiff sole and you could edge easily. La Sportiva Katana Lace and La Sportiva TC Pro are some of the best shoes in this line.

Bouldering/Sport climbing shoes: If you're pursuing a tight performance, it'll be better to get downturned (for steep) but still stiff enough for hard edging on vertical sport routes, it may also have enough amount rubber on the toe (obviously for toe hooks) and of course a solid closure system (no slip-on) for security when heel hooking. I'd recommend La Sportiva Solution and La Sportiva Testarossa.

Using while Warming Up/At Gym climbing shoes: You can go with soft ones and having a slip-on closure system. So, the softness works well on plastic. It'll be helpful to you make your feet stronger. Also, having this kind of shoes is a long-term cost-saving measure, generally, it's a cheaper climbing shoe than the others which I mentioned above. La Sportiva Maverink and La Sportiva Cobra are these kinds of climbing shoes that I'd recommend.

THE VERDICT

The climbing shoes are one of the most essential equipment in rock climbing (it's obvious). Other than these climbing shoes which I mentioned above, you could diversify the number of pairs when you're interested in the other types of climbings.

No matter how much we talk about how many climbing shoes will be enough, in my opinion, the most important thing is to climb as much as you could.

If you focus on your technic, training, and mental process, I promise that climbing shoes will show you the way when you're on the rock.