March 22nd > Prisms

Chris: When first started climbing I bought a pair of trad climbing shoes cause I didn't know the difference between comfort and performance shoes. So like most people I picked up a gear guide. I read up on the difference between soft rand, hard rand the benifits of having a slipper versus lace up shoes and my second purchase were a pair of Mocasyms. I'll be honest, I'm a lazy guy and I was tired of unlacing my shoes to get them off so I dicided on the Mocasyms for this reason. I've tried other brands of shoes but I always find myself comming back to 5.10 shoes. Lets go down the list. I've owned 1 pair of Mocasyms, 2 pairs of Anasazi lace ups, 1 pair of Gambits and 2 pairs of Piton. I've spoken to many climbers about their shoes and the reasons they buy them and I've come to the conclusion that it comes down to fit and the 5.10 seem to fit me just fine. Now you can imagine how excited I was to hear that 5.10 wanted us to review their shoes.

The pair of shoes that I got are the Prism that have a US patent on the "faceted edge technology". Without having seen the shoe I wasn't quit sure what this meant and here is where a picture says a thousand words:

The shoes are very similar to the Anasazi with the added feature of the angles on the outside edge and like the Anasazi's they are designed for route climbing. The faceted edge will help sicking small edges on face climbing. I've been spending most of my climbing these days on boulders and sinces the shoes are made for sport climbing they remind me of what I enjoy most. I've always been more of a sport climber above anything else, so its back to the old school for me. The material used for the shoes is the same as the Gambits and I'm a bit worried in the fact that synthetic fibers tend to make your feet stink. (Noodles: Yeah so am I!!)

My first experience with the shoes were on our wall and I found it hard to smear. I've been climbing in some agresive down turned shoes from Evolv that have more flexibility that made it easier to smear the wall. The other thing that I have to get used to is the stiff rand (which doesn't make smearing any easier). When I brought the shoes down to the gym for some route climbing the faceted edge made a big difference on some of the harder route. My last pair of route climbing shoes were the Pitons and I swear by them. They are good on routes, boulders, crack climbing and are the best all around shoe that I've owned but if its performance you're looking for the Prism are geared toward that.... we'll see how they fair, I've only spent a small ammount of time in them so far but spring is coming and Noodles has some still plans for me :)