The short days and long nights of winter have made training the best option to prepare for climbing outside this spring. Well some climbers are busy working the system board at Great Western Power Company, campusing at Ironworks, or doing hard leads in Mission Cliffs, others are finding easier ways to get through the winter. Check out this climber, who figured out an inventive way to climb through the winter season and get off the couch- or on it too.

Labels: climbing training, Indoor climbing, off the couch

For this Friday's "Climbing Clip of the Week" I thought it may be helpful for any and all of you out there that have never been rock climbing, or are just now starting out, to show you a few videos that kind of give you the basics behind indoor rock climbing, and what you can expect to encounter when you find yourself sitting in one of our amazing Touchstone Climbing gym facilities.

For the first clip, I found a pretty awesome, pretty short and extremely helpful little video that starts with the basics...the Holds you'll find on an Indoor Climbing Wall. This video helps by showing you a few of the various types of holds that you'll find scattered across most climbing gym walls. By knowing what each of them are, it could help you to understand how best to hold them, and help you discover which types of holds you are best at, and which you need the most work on.

Check out this helpful little video and then the next time you go into Touchstone Climbing, look up at the wall, get acquainted, and start climbing your way to the top! Have an amazing weekend, and we'll see you bright and early Monday Morning!

Labels: Climbing Clip of the Week, Indoor climbing, Rock climbing, Touchstone Climbing

Happy Friday! Hopefully you have a weekend packed full of climbing, fitness, and some outdoor activities all planned out! You made it through the work week and that is an accomplishment in and of it self!

I thought it'd be cool to start a new feature to the blog, every Friday offer up a new climbing video clip showing someone doing something we all love! I'm going to need your help on this, faithful readers, so if you have any videos or photos that you'd love to see featured on this new Friday feature, do not hesitate to send them into us! Maybe yours will be our Climbing Clip of the Week! Why not show off your exploits, brag to your friends, and let the Internets see how awesome you reallly are.

To kick things off, check out this clip of Chris Sharma at the 2008 Climbing Nationals. You'll get to see a lot of awesome climbing, and a huge surprise at the end. Check it out, submit your videos in to us, and have a great weekend!

Labels: Chris Sharma, climbing, Indoor climbing, Video clip

Yesterday we talked about the variety of climbing shoes we carry, endorse and love, today, I'm here to tell you that if you're not ready to buy just yet, we have Demo Days THIS week that will allow you to test them out, climb in them, and get the feel for them!

That's right, you shouldn't buy before you try, so we're having Shoe Demos at Touchstone Climbing Gyms! Here are the basics and the things You need to know for our demos, starting with the schedule.

Labels: climbing, Climbing shoe, Indoor climbing, Recreation, Rock Climb

Happy Monday and here's hoping that your Halloween was amazing! Hopefully this post does not find you in complete diabetic shock from all the sugar, costumes and festivities. That said, it's time to get back on track and start climbing our healthy little butts off. I thought I'd start things this week with a brief reminder that we have a TON of awesome climbing shoes on sale at all of our climbing gyms.

A few things to keep in mind before I get into some of the different shoes we sell:

• Members all get 10% off, all shoes all the time.
• We can special order ANY shoe if we do not have it in stock, just ask, we'll do it.
• We also sell children's shoes for all your up-and-coming climbers in the family. Again, just ask, we'll get it if we don't already have it in!

Without further ado, here are some of the shoes we carry, love, and fully endorse:

Five Ten

* Moccasym $99- extremely sensitive pull on shoe.
* Velco Anasazi $139- high end performance shoe for routes and bouldering.
* Anasazi Low Volume $135 – great for medium volume feet, technical climbs indoor and out.
* Spire $95 - entry level lace up shoe.

Evolv

* Defy $85- comfortable sensitive all day shoe, indoor or out.
* Predator $109- turned down shoe great for aggressive climbing.
* Pontas $115- high performance shoe for technical steep climbing.

La Sportiva

* Mantis $80- all around entry level shoe great for gym climbing.
* Mythos $130- high performance lace up shoe, great for cracks.
* Solution $155 high performance down turned shoe, aggressive climbing.

Basically, we have something for everyone, and the time is now to get into this! Get some gear, get started, and let us help you along your way!

Labels: climbing, Climbing shoe, Clothing, Indoor climbing, Shoe