Chalk & Chalkbags

"John Allen (16yrs) frees Great Wall but uses chalk" ran the headline in Mountain in 1975. Troll's first chalkbag marketed some years later carried an advisory note sating that it was, "Only for use on routes of 6a and above". Nowadays chalk is common-place on Diffs and Severes and chalk is as much a part of climbing as rope and rockshoes.

Chalk

Chalk and chalkballs.

Chalk Bags

Chalkbags to keep your chalk and/or ckalkballs in, ranging from dinky floral girly ones to massive manly bouldering buckets and all shapes and sizes in between.

Chalk Bag Belts

We strongly recommend using a belt or a length of cord to tie your chalkbag round your waist as injuries have ocurred where boulderers have used a karabiner to clip it to the back of their harness.

Taping Up

Taping up is not much practiced in the UK where gritstone jamming scars are worn with pride, but is common in the USA where several hundred feet of hand-sized granite crack is the norm.

Bouldering Accessories

Boulderers don't need a lot of kit, rockshoes, mat, chalkbag, loads of chalk, beanie and of course, a toothbrush for cleaning all that chalk off....! Here's a selection.