I always thought these were a joke as the only people who wore them were beginners. But this winter I saw a crackmaster wearing them in Joshua Tree and he gave them a stellar review. I bought a pair and I've been very surprised at how well they work. If you are a dedicated taper, these will save you time and money. They go on faster than tape, work almost as well as tape, and probably grab the rock better, being rubber. A good new pair of tape gloves will be thinner and tighter, especially around the wrists. But if you are just cruising up some fun hand or fist cracks, and want to prevent road burns and abrasions, these things are better than you think. Give them a try!

I bought this rope in september 2007. By Christmas I'd climbed on it 20 days and it was in tatters. The third day I'd used it I was following a route in Smith and it was kinking so bad I had 3 one foot long tails of coiled up kinks at my harness. If I'd fallen, I would have dropped about 20 feet by the time all the kinks unravelled themselves. I never coiled it, always butterflied, and I never toprope, always lead. It's always in a rope bag and carefully handled and stored. The worst thing I did to it was lead karate at smith. My partner was new to 10a cracks and fell a couple times in the same place. I was holding him with the rope running over a sharp edge (from the peapod belay), but it wasn't razor sharp, just not the ideal edge to hold a fall. At xmas in joshua tree, the sheath was showing several 6 foot sections of one sided sheath damage. It looked like someone had taken a power sander to one side of the sheath. It wasn't just hairballed, it was big tufts of sheath in long sections sticking out 3 milimeters. We had other ropes with equal abuse and no damage at all. This is my 10th rope in 30 years of climbing, never seen one get this bad in just 23 days of climbing. I returned it to REI yesterday for a different brand. I've had great luck with Edelweiss in the past.