I haven’t climbed in over a week.

👉 Dramatic pause. 👉 Audience cue to gasp.

I know. It’s not dramatic and I shouldn’t complain. I snapped my finger in half earlier this year and was AWOL for some three months. That was dramatic. This is pittance.

But I’m itching to get back on the wall.

The skin on my fingers has grown back in spades and boy oh boy are the callouses thicc. Spare time’s been hard to come by what with my starting a new gig and all. The last week has been a blur of meeting people, presentations, presenting, shipping (literally, first day production patch and deployment), sightseeing, and graciously sacrificing my diet in the name of a USA trip.

All that to say, climbing has been on my mind but off my radar.

The only real touchpoint has been trying on new climbing shoes in a few different REI’s and Sports Basement’s that happenstance have been close to the office or misc touristing.

This shouldn’t be a priority right now. But I desparately need to replace my battered and bruised, circa 2019, entry level Scarpa’s (the Force V). They’ve served me well — heck, they’ve held up well — but their best years are in the rearview.

Scarpa Force V

And not just practically speaking. They’ve recently become a manifest attack on my nostrils (ie, they f*cking reek), despite best efforts to the contrary.

Having tried on a boat load of potential climbing shoes in the past week, I finally landed some that are hit the sweet spot on almost every dimension. That is: aggression, material, friction, volume, closure, sole. The shoes in question are the Butora Gomi’s. I sampled shoes from other brands like La Sportiva, Scarpa, evolv, Black Diamond, etc. but none quite felt right in the same way.

However. For all the boxes they tick, they’re ruinously seeped — drenched even — in an almost offensively garish Barbie-style shade of pink. This isn’t a bad thing per se, pink is a colour I rock constantly. The problem is the fluorescence; I’ll stand out like Elle Woods at Harvard in these suckers.

Anyway. I slept on it. I read some reviews [1], [2]. I slept on it. I tried them on and tested them again. I slept on it.

And then I bought them. 🎉

I’d like to think only _part_ of the purchase can be explained because I received my first pay cheque in several months today. Honestly, I couldn’t think of a more apt way to celebrate than leaning into being a jolly old capitalist.

Side note: the gent’s version, cut slightly wider but less form fitting to my feet, is a gorgeous pastel sky blue. As much as I want to bend physics to get them to fit well to my feet, it ain’t gonna happen.

Super excited to set them free from their cage and onto the wall.

 

Butora Gomi narrow