Story of your chalk bag?

Compared to any gear, chalk bags usually have the best stories. Here’s mine: 

I was getting into climbing in college, my physics professor overheard and offered me his chalk bag. He had climbed all the way through the 80s with it and the bag and his shoes are the only things he has left from his hitchhiking days. The old chalk in there was nasty, but I still use the bag.

Let’s hear ‘em! 

Isaiah aka Zay Foulks wrote:

I'd rather lose a black totem than my chalk bag.

Dear Mr. Foulks, we have your beloved chalky bag. If you ever want to feel its softy-innards again, please bring One Blackum Totey to 5th & Main at exactly midnight tonight. Come alone for the exchange... any police activity... and it will be the last you ever see, old blue. We super serious!

I bought a bottle of Crown Royal for my 21st. Didn't even like the stuff, but I liked the bag I was left with. I was just starting to get into climbing and didn't want to drop money on a real chalk bag. So I sewed in a plastic liner to hold the chalk and stitched on a tiny carabiner for attachment purposes. Here I am several years later and a much more experienced climber still using this barely functional crown royal bag. The draw string broke and its starting to get holes in it, but I persistently keep patching it back together.

Bought it at REI on clearance.

I walked into REI and bought one on sale. Best experience OF MY LIFE

I don’t use chalk, so no bag. 

1962 or 63. My first wife, lora, sews me a chalkbag out of leftover denim from a pair of old jeans.

I visited Chuckwalla in St. George for the first time and was struck with how unsightly all the chalk makes that otherwise beautiful clifflet. Do you really need to bury your entire hand in chalk before every move of a 50' 5.10 in the desert? Or people chalking up while jamming a perfect #2 splitter -- seriously?

Try climbing in the gym without chalk so that when you do use it (sparingly) outdoors, it makes a difference.

Oh, and my bag is a Metolius Jester whose purchase benefited my LCO (not the increasingly politicized Access Fund). Bail webbing for the belt. Nothing special, but I dig that some people have cool unique ones with stories.

I got mine at a local climbing comp when they were throwing a bunch of swag out into the crowd, it was fancy in that it had a little webbing with a plastic clip for the belt instead of the old shoe lace I was using for my previous bag.

20 years ago I had a blue shaggy haired chalkbag to which I had hotglued googly eyes. We climbed Glass Menagerie at Looking Glass. It was freezing, and the wind was whipping. After spending all day on the wall, we were not rapping back down, and we were unaware at the time of any alternatives other than the hikers’ trail.

We hiked miles down the trail in our climbing shoes. At one point, we changed our minds about rappelling and rapped a short wall in what would come to be known as the Fate Osteen area. Got lost in the woods a bit. Finally made it to the Fish Hatchery and started the road hike back to our car and our stuff at the base of the North Side. Still in our climbing shoes.

When it was all said and done, I was missing a googly eye.

Two years later, my partner from that day is hiking in the middle of nowhere near Fate Osteen. Scouting walls for potential new routes. He spots a piece of trash hidden among the leaves. It’s my googly eye.

Retired. That's the story of my chalk bag. Avid user for many, many years. I began going chalkless out of, I don't know, irritation I guess, at the whole monkey see monkey do chalk process. Now I haven't have a chalk bag on in years. Its liberating! I will allow that a dab or two might be beneficial on some key hold here or there. But frankly I'm not climbing at a level where it makes any true difference at all. What I learned is that mostly I was "chalking for nothing" and that mostly it was completely unnecessary. It was an awakening for me. And often I will be  the only person around who's not toting a chalk bag. Everyone wants to offer me chalk! Because they are nice people. I smile and say no thank you. 

So yeah that's the story of my chalk bag. Its currently in the Cancun box in the corner of my garage.

I met a guy at an AA meeting, a funny dude who lived in a tent with three chihuahuas and carried them around on his bike. We talked often about climbing. He’d been on the scene in the 90s, but didn’t climb anymore. He’d ask questions like, “What’s Sharma up to these days? Any crazy new sends?” I took him climbing once with a group, but he didn’t rope up. He just hiked around with his little dogs and enjoyed the scenery. He seemed happy.  

For a year, he stayed sober. He often told me that his brother owned a chalk bag company and promised to hook me up. I didn’t think too much of it. I already had a fine chalk bag, and this guy wasn’t always reliable or realistic, but we continued talking and texting every week.  

Sure enough, he showed up to the meeting one night with a beautiful chalk bag: red, white, and black with a rad drawing of a big horn on it. Very well made. He told me it was a new design, and I should tag his bros’ company on Instagram if I posted a picture with the bag. I proudly accepted his gift. This is the closest I’ll ever get to being sponsored. ;) 

I’ve been rocking that chalk bag for years. Unfortunately, this dude relapsed and stopped attending the meetings. He lost the dogs, and I ran into him once while he was drinking cough syrup in an airport lobby. He wasn’t flying anywhere. He just had nowhere else to go. 

We texted sometimes, and I tried to help him get sober again, but it never took. Last year, he was murdered in a drunken brawl. Shot by a “roommate” and left to bleed out alone in the front yard. It broke my heart, but made me love that chalk bag even more. It reminds me that life is precious. For guys like us, it’s not just about checking our knots and never taking our hand off the brake strand. Never taking the first drink is just as important. 

I don’t know the story of my chalk bag because I don’t talk to it. It’s a jerk and it stinks because it hangs out around assholes 

I've been using one of these for bouldering lately after I got it as a gift. Put my keys and phone in the bottom pocket and it stands up on it's own... pretty cool!

If you're climbing 5.10 or below and using chalk you should reevaluate. Almost entirely unnecessary. Simply wipe your hands on your pants. Having said that, I do carry a chalk bag with a Haida art motif, for an initial dip to absorb skin oil. I've added a smidge of my brothers ashes to the bag, so that he is always with me out there. This practice was inspired by "Paul's Balls". 

Creed Archibald wrote:

I met a guy at an AA meeting, 

damn. Thanks for sharing that story. Stay strong man.

I had the same metolius chalk bag for ten years that was always too small for my hands, the drawstring was garbage for many years, it leaked and it tapered down towards the base, which is the opposite of a good chalk bag design. I finally got rid of it last year and can't believe I just dealt with the frustration of that thing the whole time. 

Ironically, I sew, and have made chalk bags for a lot of my climbing partners, climbing friends, ex girlfriends who climbed with me at the time, etc. But I've never made one for myself. I have 3 people waiting on chalk bags right now. 

I have the mammut multipitch now which I like a lot, but there's no cool story about it at all. 

I was a party in a caving incident that required a SAR extraction for one of the people injured in my party. I helped take care of her during her healing after the incident, and as a symbol of appreciation, she sewed me a chalk bag that includes a pounamu stone embedded in the outside of the bag. <3 (From Wikipedia: "Pounamu taonga increase in mana (spiritual power or prestige) as they pass from one generation to another."

Then a dear friend of mine who is part of the Society for Creative Anachronism reinforced some seams and other weakpoints. 

This bag should hold up for decades!

Glen Prior wrote:

If you're climbing 5.10 or below and using chalk you should reevaluate. Almost entirely unnecessary. Simply wipe your hands on your pants. Having said that, I do carry a chalk bag with a Haida art motif, for an initial dip to absorb skin oil. I've added a smidge of my brothers ashes to the bag, so that he is always with me out there. This practice was inspired by "Paul's Balls". 

I got sweaty, oily mits

Abbi Dingus-Simmons wrote:

I got sweaty, oily mitts

In defense of a fellow denizen of the Mitten, chalk is pretty nice to have when climbing in soggy, humid areas, such as everything east of the Mississippi. Even on 5.10, or at world-class sport climbing destinations like Grand Ledge ;-)

I do believe that most people could stand to use less of it, less often. Just a quick swirl of the fingertips through the bag is sufficient. There's no need to emulate those claw-wielding vending machines in the Denny's lobby that attempt to apprehend a stuffed animal for $1.25 and leave you broken-hearted.

Climbing in the gym without chalk is good practice, too. When you do use it outdoors, it makes a more appreciable difference. Kind of like taking a tolerance break. 

I have made four. All out of my old ropes and other recycled goods.  One for me, one for my son, and two for partners.  All different but similar.  It feels good having the ropes that caught my wipes still helping me send. The one for my girlfriend/partner is a Boulder bag with a 2 beer cooler attached (very handy).