Finger strength is the single biggest limiter holding most climbers back from breaking into harder grades. After spending three months testing 10 hangboards in my garage and apartment setups, I can tell you the best hangboards for climbing training share a few things in common: comfortable skin feel, sensible edge progression, and a mount that […]

I still remember my first trad lead. I was four bolts up at the Red River Gorge, pump fading, fingers cramping around a #2 Camalot I'd just barely managed to slot into a flaring pod. That piece held my fall, and I've spent the last 12 years obsessing over which cams to trust on everything […]

I've been climbing for over a decade, and I still remember the first time my buddy handed me his rack of quickdraws and said, "clip these every three meters." Within an hour, I understood why the best quickdraws for sport climbing aren't just accessories. They're the difference between a smooth redpoint attempt and a wrestling […]

A rock came loose. My partner was three feet below me on a multi-pitch route in Red Rocks. I heard the shout, then the sickening thud against her helmet. She walked away with a headache. The Black Dome that took the hit was cracked and unusable. That day cemented my obsession with finding the best […]

I've been climbing for over a decade and have tested every major assisted braking belay device on the market. In the past three years alone, our team of certified guides put 17 different models through more than 200 hours of field testing across sport crags, gyms, and multi-pitch routes. An assisted braking belay device is […]

Finding the best belay devices means looking beyond a fancy brand label to how a device actually feels at the crag, the gym, or 200 feet up a multi-pitch route. I have spent the last several seasons testing assisted-braking and tube-style devices from Petzl, Black Diamond, Edelrid, and more across sport, trad, gym, and big-wall […]

After three months of testing on granite, limestone, and gym walls, I've narrowed down the best dynamic climbing ropes worth your money in . Whether you're projecting your first 5.12 or ticking multi-pitch alpine objectives, the right dynamic rope makes every catch softer and every clip smoother. I tested these ropes across 47 climbing sessions, […]

When you are hanging off a cliff edge or dropping into a wet canyon, the last thing you want is a rope that bounces, stretches, or soaks up water like a sponge. Static ropes are the correct tool for rappelling because their low-elongation design gives you smooth, predictable descents without the dangerous bounce of dynamic […]

I spent the last three months testing the best trail running shorts across 280 miles of rocky, rooty, and sandy terrain in Colorado and Oregon. I ran with gels, soft flasks, a phone, and keys in every pocket to see which shorts stayed put and which ones bounced me off the trail. Our team also […]

I tested 8 of the most popular GPS watches on technical singletrack, rocky climbs, and 50K training blocks over the past 90 days to find the best trail running watches for . After logging 412 miles of off-road runs across the Blue Ridge and Pisgah forests, I learned something the spec sheets won't tell you: […]