Good crack climbing shoe??

Anybody have any feedback on what they feel is a good solid crack climbing shoe? Something that makes foot jams a little less excruciating would be nice. Good stiff sidewalls and sole would be a must.

I love my Ace's. I used to use mythos but they don't have the boards in the sole like the Ace's and my feet would be aching on everything. Definitely made a huge difference.

Well, you only see two shoes at Indian Creek - 5.10 Mocasyms and Sportiva Mythos. Those two shoes account for 90% of the footwear that I noticed at the Creek, and that is the land of crack climbing...

I use 5.10 Mocasyms (slippers) for cracks and love them. Having a stiff shoe, in my opinion, makes cracks MORE painful since the shoe is resisting the natural rotation of your ankle and foot. And with a big stiff shoe you can't toe into small cracks.

i wore the la sportiva barracudas in the creek this spring and thought they did great. Have also worn them at the south platte and lumpy and thought they did well there too. The rubber that surrounds the toe i liked, as well as the more straight orientation of the toe (as opposed to more down-turned).

Shaun: I'll offer a different perspective than the previous posts, and of course this is just what works for me (e.g. we all have different foot types and pain tolerance). I'm a diehard Mythos fan and use them as my everyday shoe. I've noticed, however, that while they excel at thin finger cracks the flexibility offered by the unlined, slip lasted design makes them close to excruciating for me in full on foot jams (i.e. hand cracks, etc.) I was at Indian Creek a couple of weeks ago and pulled out my old La Sportiva Kaukulators and found them immensely more comfortable, hence I climbed longer and better. It's a board lasted high top but, alas, no longer manufactured. That type of design made a world of difference for me re: comfort. So I'd tend to vote for a stiffer, more supportive shoe of course noting that at the high end of crack climbing (fingertips, etc.) the more flexible slipper type shoes mentioned above probably excel. Just fyi while I was out there some friends tried Montrail's Splitter shoe (designed for cracks) and gave them good marks. I know Sportiva has a new crack shoe as well but I've heard no feedback. Good luck.

Slipper only way to go... anything else will hurt!

Board-lasted hightops are the only way to go. everything else hurts! I don't really mean this, but it is intended to balance the comments above. There are pros/cons to any type.

I find that when you have to ram your toes into the end of the shoe, you can not get them into finger cracks- but you can get in the dagger-toed board-lasted shoes that keep them flat.
My favorites? Well, La Sportiva Kaukulators are #1 for bigger cracks and 5.10 lynx are #1 for thin cracks. Problem is they just quit making them, 3 years ago and 5 years ago, respectively.

The 5.10 slippers can still be fit fairly flat without crunching the toes and are a slim-profile shoe. so like the mythos, they are not bad, but suffer terrible wear in cracks. I think their low-profile toe is a boon, but my feet hurt in them. In Indian creek, where the rock is flat and the like this is less and issue, but in pebbly cracks? WOW, Owch!!!
I guess I just prefer to twist the structure of an insole and rand into a crack as opposed to my distorted and already-grossly-manipulated foot bones. I recently gave a 13 year-old pair of stretched-out kaukulators to a guy in Indian Creek who was trying to climb in sport-shoes and hurting bad. He loved them, and they were a full size too big for me after ~13 years and ~40 resoles. Durable.

La Sportiva Megas, their present high-top offering are aptly named. 'Mega' - as in large. They are too boxy and clunky for anything but aid climbing.

Find a nice semi-stiff shoe that does not crumple up your toes into a fat and painful stack. Red Chile just released a new shoe like that- a low top with a nice swath of rubber over the outside of the foot that comes almost to the laces. Montrail has a few such shoes too.

If you can't imagine torquing your foot around in it, or squeezing it on the toes or from above- don't try to climb crack in it.
The more rubber there is over the top of the foot, the better you stick and the less you wear out the leather.

I mentioned slippers above, but I should have also mentioned that they need to be relatively loose fitting with toes flat. They're just for cracks. As you can see people have different view points and what is important is what works for you. Borrow some shoes and test them.

Seems like there's merit to both slippers and stiffer, board lasted shoes depending on the climber and type of crack. If you want to explore the high top, stiffer style shoe one thing I forgot to mention is that 5.10 apparently has reintroduced the high top Altia. I can't say if this would be a good crack shoe but it seems like they were designing it, at least partially, for that application. I read about a limited release online so if it's not in a store you might try online with 5.10 or elsewhere. Just a thought, and as others have mentioned here there are other worthy crack shoe candidates as well.

Thank you everybody for the feedback. This website can be a real asset. I have some good information now and I will be going to try on some new shoes in the next week or so. Thanks Again

If you size your slippers for crack climbing, that is about all you will be able to do in them, you will be swimming on any slabs. I usually just go for a super tight pair of Mythos, and have a few pairs in differing states of stretched out ness. New they will hurt like hell on hand cracks but will climb everything else pretty well, stretched out you can wear them on anything but the toughest slabs. If you are climbing alot of cracks you will probably wear out the sides and tops of the shoes about the same time you wear out the rubber. When it comes to climbing 1000+ feet of cracks in a day I love a good pair of Megas to give you some support, and once broken in you can edge on these pretty well even when sized for comfort. I almost cried when I found out La Sportiva sold out to the sporty next gen climbers. Crack climbers are people too!@!

Check out the La Sportiva Tradmasters.

One of my partners uses them for all types of climbing and really likes them. They are laterally stiff and should be good for edging too, but may be too boxy to toe in to thin cracks. Here's a review.

I feel your pain....at 6'4 200 lbs +.....I dream of the day when boardlasted was the norm. Don't get me wrong...slippers have their place, but what happened to stiff edging shoes? I have an old pair of Syncros I have been milking along for WAY too long, and just got a pair of 5.10 newtons that are so-far-so good though a tad boxy......but c'mon...is everything so market driven all we can get now is gym/bouldering slippers made for 110 pound pad persons? The Sportiva Tradmasters seem ok....but LINED? can you say sweaty stink bombs?

I just bought 2 pairs of blue Sportiva Kaukulators in my size (41) on eBay... One new and the other barely used, from 2 different sources. I wore the barely used ones the last few days of climbing. What can I say--great in cracks, and reasonably good on 5.11+ sport routes.
So if the non-availability of shoes has you down... EBAY.

IMO Moccasyms (loose) are perfect for cracks at the Creek, that is long, not flaring, possibly tight (read toe crack), possibly loose but almost always with a right-angle edge on them.

Other kinds of cracks need a different tool which I haven't found yet. Moccasyms work great on flaring granite cracks. The problem is that for me, if I'm on a flaring granite crack, I often also want to edge on the face (an option you don't have at the Creek) And loose Moccasyms just SUCK at that. So what I'd want is a compromise. I've tried Mythos but they are too thin. I use Miuras and Katanas for sporty-sport but they are impossible for extended crack use.

I might try the Tradmaster. Anybody know how they work for wide feet?

The new 5.10 Pitons rule. Soft like a slipper but with a wider toe box so your toes lay flat.

Really sticky. Great on everything from finger cracks to OW. I even wore them standing in aiders and they were fine.

I concur that the 5.10 Pitons rule..

They are not called the "piton" for nothing. The tip is pointy and stiff so you can torque it into any size crack. Great for edging too. They have that little bit of extra rubber over your second toe so you get a bit more contact surface for smearing.

Granite buttcracks don't seem to squish my feet either.

Zach Allen wrote:The new 5.10 Pitons rule. Soft like a slipper but with a wider toe box so your toes lay flat. Really sticky. Great on everything from finger cracks to OW. I even wore them standing in aiders and they were fine.

Pretty much useless if you've narrow foot. To get them to fit right on me meant that they were so wide that I could rotate my entire foot inside the shoe while trying to jam.

I use Moccasyms for thin cracks and all around use, Katanas for all around, face, and hands, JBs for hands and bigger. I won't wear the JBs if I expect any face climbing, or cracks smaller than about a #2 friend. I won't wear the moccs if I expect really delicate and technical face climbing, or a lot of fists or bigger.

You really want a good performing all-around shoe that doesn't curl your toes. Good performance means a pretty close fit, after stretching. And that's hard to find without making a few $100 mistakes. So plan accordingly.

Dave Cummings wrote:I have been using the TC Pro since they came out and they are the best crack shoes/ all around shoes I have ever had.

I'll ditto the TC Pro's. Best shoe I've climbed in for a long while. Have over a 100 pitches on mine. Haven't found anything they can't really do (still haven't run hard friction yet, though).

Yeah, I can't climb in slippers outside at all. Really miss the board lasted shoe daze.

Had two pair of Tradmasters...but...wan't ever super pysched on them, durability wise. Seemed more poorly made to me. But, I'm hard on shoes too. Did put a gob of pitches on them.

Had 4 pairs of Megas. Really also liked the first Boreal Aces for desert cracks. Mythos works great for thin crack for me.