Rock Climbing Indoors With Mountaineering Boots?

When I was younger, I remember seeing a climber leading 5.10 routes at the indoor gym near me wearing plastic Mountaineering boots. I think that he was an avid ice climber.

But my question is, how would this help climbers?

Is it more of a weighted feet kind of thing to increase core and leg strength and control?

Is it good training for mixed climbing?
These boots were in the place of climbing shoes; he wasn't dry tooling. Basically, why would someone wear ice climbing boots(Without Crampons)to lead 5.10s in a gym?

Joseph D'Agostino wrote:When I was younger, I remember seeing a climber leading 5.10 routes at the indoor gym near me wearing plastic Mountaineering boots. I think that he was an avid ice climber. But my question is, how would this help climbers? Is it more of a weighted feet kind of thing to increase core and leg strength and control? Is it good training for mixed climbing? These boots were in the place of climbing shoes; he wasn't dry tooling. Basically, why would someone wear ice climbing boots(Without Crampons)to lead 5.10s in a gym?

You do climb rock in boots (without crampons) on occasion while alpine climbing. Seems like it could be a good skill to practice. Besides, wearing crampons in the gym would just suck!

It's probably rare that someone would lead 5.10 in boots, but not rare at all to lead 5.8 or so in boots. This would largely occur on alpine rock routes, particularly where the route is otherwise easy and there is just a short crux or two for which it would be a hassle to switch over to rock shoes (and to have to carry them).

He was probably just seeing how far he could push it in the boots.

Likely training for an upcoming alpine trip. Prettyy common. You do realize that people sometimes climb rock in the mountains? Hard rock. Like actual 5.10, not gym "5.10". For some things a stiff boot is not much of a handicap. Look what was being done in RR's etc. ~40 years ago. Think you could do any better in your "agressive" super sticky, down tuned, state of the art wonder shoes?

doing any technical rock climbing at alitutde pretty much requires climbing rcok in your mountaineering boots, unless you want frostbitten toes.

superkick wrote:doing any technical rock climbing at alitutde pretty much requires climbing rcok in your mountaineering boots, unless you want frostbitten toes.

Eric Engberg wrote:Likely training for an upcoming alpine trip. Prettyy common. You do realize that people sometimes climb rock in the mountains? Hard rock. Like actual 5.10, not gym "5.10". For some things a stiff boot is not much of a handicap. Look what was being done in RR's etc. ~40 years ago. Think you could do any better in your "agressive" super sticky, down tuned, state of the art wonder shoes?

I used to practice in mountain boots a fair amount, used them at the Gunks and Stover State Park in PA. They work well for edging, although the heavy weight at the end of your legs was noticeable.
I climbed indoors with them too, even did a local competition once and came in 2nd place! Although that was mostly because I paid attention to the boundary markers on the route, unlike most of the other competitors. Indoor footholds tend to be pretty positive, so mountain boots work OK, until you get to the harder routes.

And yes, I'm pretty sure I can do better in my " "agressive" super sticky, down tuned, state of the art wonder shoes".

psh csproul i know those exist. they just arent practical / or all that warm. much easier to just keep your toasty double boots on and deal with it.

Fritz Weisser on Never Never Land (5.10a) in the Gunks. He was 73 at the time.

Source: Richard Dumais, Shawangunk Rock Climbing

Or he could have been an attention whore?

Prod.

Done it myself a few times (local crag) to practice for the real deal (outdoors). Helped me to find out where my limits were and to push them further.

Good stuff..try it if you're going for Alpine routes.